Sound Quality

Dave Seddon · Post by **Dave Seddon** » 20 May 2009 8:36 am

Can anyone give me some ideas on how to clean up my sound when I am recording for YouTube. I am using a Sound Blaster Live Platinum sound card. I put my MCI via volume pedal into a Digitech RP250 directly into the sound card and record to Movie Maker along with the rhythm track using "what you hear." I always seem to get a somewhat distorted sound. I listen to other players and they seem to get a good clean sound. I wish I could figure out what I am doing wrong.????
Cheers Shakey.

Dave Seddon · Post by **Dave Seddon** » 20 May 2009 1:03 pm

I put this in the wrong section, it should have gone in recording.

Wiz Feinberg · Post by **Wiz Feinberg** » 20 May 2009 10:33 pm

Maybe you'll get an answer here Dave, so I'm leaving this open for now.

Gwyneth Morgan · Post by **Gwyneth Morgan** » 21 May 2009 9:10 am

Do you have any way to monitor the levels you're recording? With your rig I'm not sure what kind of meters you might be able to view, but you want to make sure you're *never* going into the red. Unlike tape, digital has no head room at all, and hitting red means distortion.

John Cipriano · Post by **John Cipriano** » 21 May 2009 9:01 pm

I'll try, but I'm certainly no expert.

First, Gwyneth is right. With digital gear, 0db is maximum volume. You don't want to go over that and you want to leave some headroom.

Second, I think "What You Hear" refers a stereo mix of input and output so that you can re-record something like a broadcast or the audio from a program that is running. Assuming I have that right, that's actually not what you want to record from, because any sound effect that your computer plays will get mixed in with your guitar signal.

Can you select an input called "line in"? What about "analog in"? What about "microphone" or "mic in"?

You might have a line in and a mic in, in that case the difference between the two is that the mic in has some gain on it. Which, if you're already clipping, you don't want.

Also, there may be two mixers, the Windows one and maybe a separate SoundBlaster one. I know my M-Audio card has its own (software) mixer. If the SB has its own mixer, try turning the input level way down in there. Also try recording your guitar with your volume pedal at 1/4 at most and see if it still clips.

Other ideas: if you have an amplifier with a line out/tape out, or even a headphone output, try that.

To be honest, I gave up on trying to get a guitar recorded into my sound card's line in because of issues like these. I bought an M-Audio Fast Track USB, which is a guitar interface that goes for $100 or so. Line6 has a similar one. The quality is pretty good, nothing studio-quality but definitely clear and good enough for YouTube. My playing is not YouTube quality, however.

I have also used it to drive a keyboard amp when I needed MIDI sounds for a musical I was involved in.

Good luck, hopefully there's some better expertise in the recording forum

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 22 May 2009 2:19 am

First, the "Line in" is stereo (two channel) where the "Mic" is a mono input (single channel even though it uses the same 1/8" (3.5mm) stereo plug).

PC inputs are designed for "near line level" so you shouldn't be overloading the input. You do have both playback and Recording level controls and the Recording controls may be set too high and causing the distortion. Try recording with the free Audacity program and see how that works, and once you get the level problems corrected you can then go back and record what you want with the video program.

Ultimately you may have to get, as suggested, some type of recording interface unit to get acceptable (clean) recordings.

Audacity Program