Regarding the shure 57

[Nitronium Blood]

Yeah we established my error about 3 days ago dude, try to keep up.

Rats!

 

[Canis]

Balance the volume of the input so you don't have it clipping for example. I assume he means that kind of thing.

Already done that. Like I said, when I record something, there's no clipping, although the input meter is filled up constantly. Really weird...

 

[James Murphy]

Already done that. Like I said, when I record something, there's no clipping, although the input meter is filled up constantly. Really weird...

then you are clipping or very nearly clipping the input.. this does not mean that the recorded signal will clip on the ouput (as in when you see the waveform on your screen reach 0db and flatten out), or even seem to be a very strong signal necessarily. any signal chain can have multiple gain stages. so, even though you may well be clipping the input you could still end up with a weak little waveform on your screen. a weak little waveform that will still have the distortion in it caused by being driven into non-linearity on the input, which could sound good on some tube pres i guess but will most likely sound bad, unless you were going for such distortion as an effect. So,.... mind all your gain stages!

 

[Canis]

then you are clipping or very nearly clipping the input.. this does not mean that the recorded signal will clip on the ouput (as in when you see the waveform on your screen reach 0db and flatten out), or even seem to be a very strong signal necessarily. any signal chain can have multiple gain stages. so, even though you may well be clipping the input you could still end up with a weak little waveform on your screen. a weak little waveform that will still have the distortion in it caused by being driven into non-linearity on the input, which could sound good on some tube pres i guess but will most likely sound bad, unless you were going for such distortion as an effect. So,.... mind all your gain stages!

Wow, kickass, another legend posts in my thread Thanks man, that could well be true here, but still, I don't know what should I do... I've checked the output(it is output, right?) meter on the mixer and it doesn't go past -7 dB, well inside the green area... If I let it go up to 0 dB, the waveform of the recording flattens out, as you've said.

So, what should I do to get rid of that problem? If I plug headphones into the main bus of the mixer and listen, the recording seems okay. I haven't tried that with distorted guitar, only with my friend playing some clean stuff on the acoustic (I held the mike some 5 inches away from guitar's soundhole), and the clarity and quality was beyond my expectations. Do you think there's a problem with my line-in, or am I missing something obvious...? Basically, if it ain't my line-in broken, I'd like to know which knobs to turn

 

[MR NINE]

I'm afraid I'm not following you.. What calibration? I mean, how is it done? Not a word about it in the manual of either the mixer or the motherboard ( audio chip is nVidia Soundstorm integrated)...

Hi!
OK!
-Connect your CD player directly to 2 inputs of the console and play a CD;
-then set the incoming audio signal at 0db with the gain knob (if you have a pfl -switch, turn it on, it's easier for checking);
-now put the faders of those channels at 0db and watch the console master meters, are they at 0db?! they should be!
-now send the audio signal to the imputs of the soundcard and watch the levels, are they into the red? If yes, you just need to lower the imput of the soundcard until you get 0db.
There you are! That's calibration!

PS - Are you using the direct outs of the console or the master outs?

 

[Canis]

Hi!
OK!
-Connect your CD player directly to 2 inputs of the console and play a CD;
-then set the incoming audio signal at 0db with the gain knob (if you have a pfl -switch, turn it on, it's easier for checking);
-now put the faders of those channels at 0db and watch the console master meters, are they at 0db?! they should be!
-now send the audio signal to the imputs of the soundcard and watch the levels, are they into the red? If yes, you just need to lower the imput of the soundcard until you get 0db.
There you are! That's calibration!

That could have been very helpful, thanks, but alas, my soundcard input signal is already lowered close to zero... even when there's nothing plugged into the line-in, and the line-in fader on the soundcard's control panel is at zero, the input meter is filled up slightly over half. If I set the line-in fader to full, and there's nothing plugged into it, the meter goes into red. Uh... If you know what I mean... "blush"

I'm at my wits end... Perhaps there's something wrong with my soundcard...?