Recording (HELP) with computer

beneathedarkness

First of all, this is a long rambling post.

That is how I post. If you're looking for an 8 word joke about someone on the forum that just makes your eyes water from laughing, it's not here. If you're under 23 years old and/or can't respond with actual experience , please, don't bother reading or responding.

Computer bought within the last year, has all the fancy line in and video ports etc. Soundcard has it's own configuration (which conflicts with the regular volume control and sometimes adds a weired effect to every sound) ... playing though a 10 watt marshall that has "emulated headphone out" ..

Using Nero Wave Editor ..

So I plug into the amp regular, then use a converter to run the other 1/4 plug into the "microphone in" on the front of the computer.

I messed with it months ago, had mixed success. Started again today. It doesn't, you know capture the tone of my guitar or the amp ... has a buzz on everything. Records real quiet though.

Guitar turned up

"level" all the way up

Then I have to turn the amp's volume up a good bit (on distortion or clean)

The wave and overall volume on the computer is cranked up so I can hear it.

The final results are kinda ####ty, I feel that if I burned something on a cd you'd have to jack the radio wayyyy up .. and that background buzz would be there.

When I'm playing without distortion and I hit play even slightly hard, it distorts. It's god awful. Playing with distortion covers up a lot of the crap sound, but there's no tone at all. The neck pickup sounds like the bridge pickup (Strat) and the bridge pickup sounds like a cheap guitar played through a small radio at full volume.

This is pretty much the ONLY result that can be achieved. I'm so lost ☹

matte30is

Good luck getting a reply see my post a few down.

I've never had good luck running a guitar amp into my computer. I have an epi studio 10 that I put a mic up to it and run the mic into a small tube preamp thru a small mixer with rca outs into a rca to 1/8" converter into my mic input on my computer.

This to me sounds alot better.

beneathedarkness

I've hung a computer mic in front of an amp once and it WAS alot better.

Just you could hear the clicks when I strummed because the pedal/amp I used were crappy.

I just thought it would be better running directly in, that people that always have songs they've made with like music editers plugged in.

I'm probably going to end up spending money to get the quality I want.

Maybe get a decent recording machine that has a line out that I can run directly into my existing software ... hmm.

Aug

buy a small Behringer mixer (40-50bucks) and an instrument mic.

beneathedarkness

http://www.americanmusical.com/item--i-ZOO-MRS4B.html

Doog

My guitar buzzes loads when I'm sitting in front of a monitor that's turned on. Try turning it off, and turning up the output on the Marshall up, and the input on the pc down.

Sounds stupid, but do you have your line input turned way down on your Windows volume control? I've done that a few times, or had it set to mute and wonder why I had no sound coming through 😡

Obviously miking your amp is gonna sound better. You're just gonna have to turn the amp up to make the background strumming noise comparitively quieter. Or if volume is an issues, stick the amp the other side of the room, facing a away from you.

The "distorting" clean sound problem, is that when just recording from your amp's line out or from the actual amp when you're playing it through the internal speaker? Does the amp have an input volume AND an output volume? Sounds like you're either setting the input on the amp too high and making the clean sound farty and distorted, or the input on the PC is too high and you're clipping the soundcard's preamp (or whatever it is, I'm no techhead for PC stuff).

Hope something in there was of any help.

beneathedarkness

Doog said: The "distorting" clean sound problem, is that when just recording from your amp's line out or from the actual amp when you're playing it through the internal speaker? Does the amp have an input volume AND an output volume? Sounds like you're either setting the input on the amp too high and making the clean sound farty and distorted, or the input on the PC is too high and you're clipping the soundcard's preamp (or whatever it is, I'm no techhead for PC stuff).

Yeah monitors can make an amp buzz from anywhere in the room, worse right in front of it. I'll try the pc input down. Too tired right now.

Hmm that may have been my problem when I first started I think, with my sound card I have way too many options and places for error.

Hmm nah I mean coz the output was so loud and trebly you could just hear the pick hitting the strings, through the pickups. I think I eventually fixed that.

I think it's ok with just playing internal, I've apparently lost the piece to use my headphones with my 1/4 output. Aggravating lol.

Yashin

Monitors only cause buzz if they are CRT. A flat panel monitor wont cause buzz because it doesn't use magnets like a CRT.

And direct input into a sound card is never as good as putting a mic near to the amp.

Dunxy

I have an old Zoom 9002, with that i can just plug the headphone output into the input on my soundcard and the sound is not to bad, never tried to record though, it should be easy enough but i doubt the quality is going to be much chop. I now have a Digitech RPX-400, that plugged directly into my soundcard acctully sounds pretty good out of my decent quality Logitech speakers, as for recording it has USB interface that makes things really easy once you figure out how to use the software.Within a couple of hours of getting it i was able to record a simple song with a bass line and rythem track and convert it to mp3 to do what i wish with, i was very impressed with the quality. I suggest going that way if you really want to record with your pc, you can find the RPX's for about $200US on ebay new, Zoom have a simaler multi effects pedal with usb , the g2.1u but i was unable to get one and it dosnt have anywere near as many input and output options as the RPX but im sure it would record pretty well.

handen

I've got my jaguar plugged into a ZOOM 505II pedal plugged into my computer's microphne jack through one of those adapters that makes the big end of the cable into a small end. It sounds like crap but it's at least it's less crap than through a ####ty $5 microphone.

theshadowofseattle

handen said: I've got my jaguar plugged into a ZOOM 505II pedal plugged into my computer's microphne jack through one of those adapters that makes the big end of the cable into a small end. It sounds like crap but it's at least it's less crap than through a #### $5 microphone.

ya totally d00d

superfuzz

what program are you running or just basic sound recorder?

theshadowofseattle

Sound Recorder is the best ever.

JebuSPaul

I managed to get a good sound by going into my Marshall, then straight out the DI into the mic in of my computer, I found that my problems were the converse of those prescribed above however. I found that I had far too much gain, that I could barely turn my amp up at all, and that I had everything on the computer down as far as was reasonably possible. I know jack#### about computers though, so it's all a mystery to me.