Recording

[pitpony]

I have been attempting to record my attempts to blow the harp in order to get a realistic appraisal of my progress (or lack of ) during the last 12 months. Particularly when hitting single notes & how my draw notes sound.

I have a basic PC with mic & recording/playback facilities. However i get a lot of buzzing or feedback distortion. I have recorded a normal speaking voice which is OK.

I have not really researched for possible answers as yet, but wonder if you good people have any recording tips.Within reason I could buy add ons to my PC , or could it be the quality of my mic.

Prefer not to have to sell the old lady to medical science as i am growing quite fond of her.

Cheers

[mindthegap]

pitpony - there is often a problem matching the mic signal to the PC's input. Mic sensitivity can vary quite a lot, depending on the type of mic and make/model. Too high and you get clipping, too low and you get lots of noise. Because the PC's recording volume control is normally digital, it may not help as it could just be turning up/down the already-clipped or distorted signal.

I use a mic preamp - there are many but I have a simple ART PowerMix II. This takes a mic input and has a gain control, and the output goes into the analogue mic input on the PC.  This ensures that the analogue signal is at the right level when in goes into the PC.

An even better solution is a USB audio interface, as then you are not using the PC's analogue mic input at all. The PC's analogue input can be low quality and noisy.

I hope this is some help. What kind of mic are you recording with?

[Pistol Pete]

Jan 21, 2014 16:57:36 GMT -5 pitpony said:

I have a basic PC with mic & recording/playback facilities. However i get a lot of buzzing or feedback distortion. I have recorded a normal speaking voice which is OK.

You've actually mentioned three different problems there, which have different solutions.  If you would be willing to share the recording we could diagnose a bit more accurately what's causing your difficulties?

1. Buzzing.  A large amount of background noise is likely to be your microphone picking up noise from another source.  Culprit #1 is likely to be the fan on your PC, although there's lots of other stuff it could be - it took me months to work out that annoying hum on a lot of my recordings was the filter on the fishtank - a sound I'd never actually noticed in the room itself.  So try moving your microphone away from the computer, unplug the fish tank, noisy electrical transformers, etc.  Close the doors and windows to make sure it's not the fridge or a passing car too.  Unfortunately if you've ruled out all of those then it's likely to be down to cheap gear, or interference of some kind.  An old CRT monitor could be the problem?

2. Feedback.  Feedback is caused by the sound being captured by the microphone re-entering the microphone in a loop.  It usually manifests itself as a high pitched squeal, and can be cured by turning off your PC speakers when the microphone is live.  Using headphones during recording if you need to hear playback is better practice anyway, as it will prevent bleed (the sound from one track turning up on another). 

3. Distortion. This is caused by the signal level going into the computer being louder than it can cope with.  You should be able to turn this signal down in the sound settings of your computer.  The process varies in different versions of windows, but on my computer I right click the little speaker icon on the bottom toolbar then click SOUNDS>RECORDING>PROPERTIES to bring up the little slider that controls it.  Bring it down and see if the sound is any better, you can always push it back up a little to find the best level once you've worked out if that's the problem.  

Best of luck, and do let us know how you get on.

[pitpony]

Plenty of ideas here,thanks a lot.

I will let you know how i get on which could help other novices like myself.


Cheers