recording any thing

i am getting alot of fuzz when recording my guitar and vocals.  seems to be so interferance .
have tried to lower the levels.  but when i turn them back up for mixing, its still there.  any help please as new to this.  only recorded backing tracks before with myself singing.  using cale walk 4 and a dynamic mic pluged straight into the mic jack on my lap top.   thanks

You losing 3db by plugging a balnced line into an unbalanced input.

A dynamic mic requires a high gain preamp.

The built in mic preamp on your laptop is very low gain... if it really is a mic input, rather than -10dBv line level, it was designed for use with a electret condenser microphone.

It may have been designed for stereo mic... so sending it a balanced mono signal will result in further signal level drop.

The SNR (signal to noise ratio) of the laptop input circuit is probably about the worst you will ever use since retiring your and held cassette recorder.

Get a cheap mixer to play into and route the outputs to your laptop.

best regards,
mike

matt78

the mic jack on my lap top.

Heya matt, I think that's the problem. As Hack said, internal laptop soundcards are not always the best for pro recording. The reason is it's really noisy inside there, the way everything is packed so tight. I had a primo Dell laptop which was great for mixing & editing, but anything I tried recording ended up noisy, and sometimes you could even hear rhythmic 'ticking' from the hard drive heads (on DI guitar!).

There are a few inexpensive PCMCIA soundcards that many folks use around here with no complaints. There's the Echo Indigo (cardbus) or Indigo IOX (expresscard) for under $200 I think. A bit more expensive is the RME HDSP but I think that requires a powered breakout box for recording. Or if you really want to save $$ you can pick up a Soundblaster 2ZS for 100 smackers. But I highly recommend the Echo Indigo. Echo quality/price/support can't be beat.

NO!  usb mics are also soundcards, but they have only input, not output.  that means you'd be trying to use 2 soundcards to record, one for input, one for output.  with 2 soundcards you have 2 separate clocks for the converters.  with 2 separate clocks you have to have one of them be the master because they both can't be the master.  with only one of them acting as the master you will get sync problems between tracks!

other than the soundcards that spaceduck has recommended, check my website for some more recommendations!

matt78


i am getting alot of fuzz when recording my guitar and vocals.  seems to be so interferance .
have tried to lower the levels.  but when i turn them back up for mixing, its still there.  any help please as new to this.  only recorded backing tracks before with myself singing.  using cale walk 4 and a dynamic mic pluged straight into the mic jack on my lap top.   thanks

I'll second the need for a good audio interface and NOT a USB microphone.  Once you get a good interface with a clean line level input (balanced would also be nice) then you can add any type of analog gear like microphones and preamps without having to change drivers or reconfigure the system.
 
One of the most common causes of "fuzz" as you put it, is that the input of the consumer grade card is expecting one of those cheap plug in powered microphones like the ones used for games and video conferenceing.  The input of the sound card has a poor quality preamp with plug in power and in most cases that can't be bypassed to get a real line level input.  So no matter how good your micrphone it has to go through that crap preamp in the sound card. If you have a good audio interface then if you have a good source (mic, preamp, etc.) you capture that without alteration. It's also nice to have an interface where the line level inputs are balanced so if your mic preamp has a balanced output you can record without worry of picking up noise. 
 
Note: Some external audio interfaces do have decent microphone preamps built in now. That cuts down on the number of wires and gain stages and number of things to "go wrong". So unless you plan being an expert on patching and gain stages that might be a good thing to look for.  Also, look for one that has good driver support. Edirol / Cakewalk, M-Audio, RME, and MOTU seem to be fairly good at driver support for Windows. 

Dang.... I was going to suggest a Focusrite Saffire interface..... no mixer needed.... I have one, I run the mic (has phantom power built in) straight in. Guitar Pod2 also straight in.

Saffire has sweet clean preamps and the mic is crystal in the mix. Saffire also has a software DSP control panel built in  to allow a bit of processing on board the interface. 

Last time I checked it was $250.... but you don't have the added expense of a mixer. It is firewire and it is sweet.

matt78


right.  i have ordered a Behringer U-Control UCA202 USB.  now how do i go about recording vocals.  i have the input leads with a 1/4 jacks on the end, so can i get  2 female to 1 female splitter jack and just pop my mic into that?.  i know its not the best sound card interface but money is tight at the moment.  any thoughts would be great.  thanks again all for all the help so far. matt

the behringer UCA202 is not the best device, either, but it will be better than your onboard soundcard because its drivers are written for lower latency.  IIRC, it's still a 16bit device, so you can't get a lot of resolution out of the converters.
 
you should not be using (nor should you need) a splitter.  in order to get your mic recorded using the UCA202, you will need a preamp to go between your mic and the UCA202.  the UCA202 has line level inputs, not MIC inputs and your mic will not produce enough power to make a recording if you plug it directly into the UCA202. 
 
you'll need to purchase a preamp of some kind.  I recommend just getting a small mixer like the Behringer Xenyx 802.  it has 2 MIC pres on it and will give you the ability to monitor from the mixer at the same time with 0 latency.
 
not to bust your chops or anything, but that's why you should ask about stuff before you jump in.  we could have directed you to buy something better that has mic pres built into it or we could have at least let you know that you needed a mixer or other mic pre along with the UCA202 so you could save money on shipping by buying them at the same time.

right.. all i can afford at the moment is the. http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com/product/Behringer-Eurorack-UB802-Mixer?sku=631238 please have a look and tell me if this will be any good as i will pick it up tomorrow.

ty beagle.. you have done so much for me on hear.. couldnt even record vocals before( if you remember) and you helped me out.. thanks again and thanks to all that have helped.  tomorrow is going to be a good day..... or al least till they all come through my door lol