My Mic Is Making A Lot Of Noise

Do you have the Duo-Capture or the Duo-Capture EX?
The Duo-Capture has un unbalaced (mono) 1/4-inch input. You need an XLR to mono 1/4-inch cable, turn HI-Z off and set GAIN to HI. (see page 16 of the user manual)
The EX version has standard, balanced XLR input, i.e. the cable should be XLR female to XLR male. 

Neither interface requires a pre-amp for microphones. 

Wilko
 

So, the noise is not background noise, but you hear crackles and pops? And even with Audacity?
And your computer crashes all the time? 

It is unlikely that your computer is really too slow. I was able to record 4 tracks in parallel on my computer 10 years ago. However, it might well be that your Windows has accumulated so much junk that the drivers and the software don't work properly. Is your computer working fine otherwise?
Programs that are running in the background can also cause headaches. This is why quite a few people have two Windows installations and a boot manager so that they can start a 'clean' and optimized installation for music recording.

You fill find tutorials on the Cakewalk site that explain how to set up audio interfaces. Sharing the driver between Sonar and Windows can cause problems. You may also experience dropouts if you try to make the buffers too small. You may want to give ASIO drivers a try.

If you search for crackle, dropouts etc. in the forums here, you will find tons of threads related to such issues.

Wilko

No, the noise is not crackles and pops, but an electric humming sound. 
And there are many audio drop outs when i'm recording. Like the audio will "clip" out for like a 1/4 of a second. 

My computer is fine. And it doesn't crash with audacity, just with the SONAR software. When I record with  SONAR software, a dialogue box appears, telling me the engine has just crashed. And it constantly tells me that every 15-20 seconds I record. On the other hand, audacity just gives me audio clips. 
Maybe the computer does have too much junk. Should I restore it or what??
And will cleaning out my computer really help with the super duper low microphone volume and high input hum noise, and with the horrible recording capabilities of my laptop?

I mean my PC is a Dell Inspiron 1520, it's the crappiest thing you can get, it doesn't even have a battery.... 

But with everything I mentioned; cleaning the junk up off my computer will alleviate all of my problems? If so, I'll clean out the computer immediately 

wizard71


An electric humming sound is usually either a ground loop or a dodgy cable.
The other problem sounds like your hard drive buffers to me. Go into sonar preferences and increase them. I think the default is 64, but try 128,256,512 etc, its a case of finding the best setting for your HDD.
Also post all of your equip/pc specs in your signature. Will help the good folks on here help you get up and running so you can enjoy making music.

Bibs

What's a ground loop and a dodgy cable. The driver is set to 32-bit. My buffer is at 192 at the moment. I dropped down from 256.


Here are my PC Specs.
Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) Dual CPU T2330 @1.6GHz 1.6Ghz
Memory Ram: 2.00GB 
System Type: 32-bit Operating System 

Equipment: Shure PG-58 Dynamic Microphone, Hosa XLR to 1/4 cord. XLR-toXLR Shure cord. And a Duo-Proceesor Audio Interface (Non-Ex)

Also, when I connect my microphone in, the input signal blips on for a split second, then it goes out? 
Is my product defective. 

The manual says that if the volume for your microphone is too low, simply adjust the knob of the input level higher. But I don't have an input signal? Why? 

From most likely to least:

bad cable
bad mic
bad interface
user error on the duo.  I'm not familiar with it so it is hard to help.

Try inputting a line signal.  From the look of it it accepts line in.  See if you can get a signal from a iPod or mp3 player or whatever you  have lying around via the line in.  then you have reduced the problem area.

I would think the cable is at fault, if it is popping when pluging in and then nothing.  the roland only has +45 dB gain from the mic, which means turning the roland way up.  And there seems to be no way to see if the roland itself is getting a signal.

Can you play back a file from sonar.  Can you hear it?

Hello?
Yall just gonna leave me hangin?
I need HELP!


Update: I fixed the clicking and popping from audacity and sonar from increasing the buffer size as you guys said. 

But I need to know how can verify that this is a bad cable so I can refund this POS cable.
I got the receipt in my dresser and everything..... 

I'm gonna suggest the following. 

I don't think the interface is the best one. It might be cheap.... but the interface is no place to cut corners.

Several issues I see with the interface.

On it's web site, I do NOT see where it has a built in preamp. With dynamic mics, you need something to get the signal level up to a useful level.  Either a preamp or a small external mixer will do the job.  Next it does not appear to have phantom power for a condenser mic 
It also does not have external power....it uses bus power....which on a laptop is probably barely enough to make it work. My Saffire claims to be able to be bus powered as well but it did ship with an external power supply which I use.  
It has NO balanced inputs. Only inputs on it are the unbalanced 1/4" style jacks. This is probably where the hum is coming from. The balanced line would help to eliminate the hum, but you do not have that option. 

So the combination of unbalanced inputs with no preamps seems to be the issue here. 

You mention the latency with synths..... yeah that would be a symptom of a less than ideal interface not set up properly. 

The cable is the right one.

I agree with leapinlizard that the interface is not something that I would recommend. The input is unbalnced, it does not have phantom power, and the gain is marginal.

If that is an option at all, I would return the interface and get a better one. It looks like the EX version has everything you need. With that interface, you also don't need the XLR to unbalanced 1/4 inch cable, but a standard XLR female to XLR male.
However, we still haven't found an explanation why there does not seem to be any signal.

Wilko

What I don't see is on the Roland info is if the mike input is balanced ( TRS) and low impediance or not. It's not clear if the interface even has a pre amp which I doubt.  I'm afraid you are better off to either get an interface that has proper XLR inputs and a good pre amp. Or buy a non pro hi impedance Karaoke mike.    

The mike is a Balanced low impedance mike and not great but should work fine when using a proper balanced low imp input.  The cable you bought is wrong. The pin connection will be wrong. 

Your PG58 package includes a break-resistant mic clip, soft zipper storage pouch, and a 15-foot cable of your choice: standard XLR mic cable, or a handy XLR to 1/4-inch TRS cable for PA systems with 1/4" inputs