Need advice about recording from mixer to computer

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-- Need advice about recording from mixer to computer

Posted by pimp on Nov-19-2003 17:09:

Need advice about recording from mixer to computer

Hi there!

I just need a bit of advice about recording to from my mixer (or any input audio device - analog - for that matter) to computer. At the moment, Im going through my soundcards LINE IN and recording.

It seems to work fine however when I play back the WAV file that I had saved to my hardrive there are skips around one every couple of minutes. I am still trying to figure out what the problem is but I would also liek some of your advice.

Well anyway here are my specs and the stuff that I've tried:

- AMD 1.4 Ghz, 512MB PC2100 RAM, 120GiG ATA100 Hard drive, and some dodgy onboard sound card I wont care to mention.
- I've tried several recording programs all yielding similar results
- The sound thats coming from my computer speakers doesn't skip when I'm recording.
- I am saving to a WAV file and not a compressed format such as MP3
- My Hardrive is on DMA mode.
- I have turned off other applications while recording.

So please someone tell me if My specs are enough to handle a simple wave recording or not. I am pretty comptuer savvy and I think that they would be enough for something such as sound recording, which I dont think is a very intensive task.

Thanks for taking the time to help!

Posted by Ground_0 on Nov-19-2003 17:35:

I noticed that when using my Hercules gamesurround muse XL sound card (which is by no means as dodgy as your onboard card) the same thing happened to me. I went out and spent about 30$ CAN on a SoundBlaster Live! 5.1 Digital card, which is a good deal, and tried recording with that. Nothing like the little skips I was experiencing before with my recordings, and I can even be playing something else from the computer while recording, and it will work great. So I would pin it down on the soundcard. Considering yours is a little less performance then the hercules probly was, it would be in your best interest to go get a SB Live 5.1 or similar card. Especially if you want to record alot.

Posted by pimp on Nov-19-2003 17:47:

Thanks Ground_0

I suspected it was as such (my soundcard), i just needed a little encourgement to fork out some money for a SBLIVE.

May I just ask out of curiosity what are your computer specs?
Thanks again for the quick reply!

Posted by DeleriuM2K on Nov-19-2003 19:22:

yeah its definitely your sound card, not the software

I currently have a basic model SoundBlaster Audigy 2. it has a great recording quality, and amazing output (24bit, 5.1, THX, etc) but it doesnt have balanced inputs

the Audigy 2 Platinum has all sorts of awesome inputs

RCA in/out
3 different 1/4" inputs
MIDI in/out
Optical in/out
Digital in/out
Coaxial in/out
2 Fire Wire ports

it is the be all and end off of PC soundcards
check out the different models

www.creativelabs.com

Posted by Ground_0 on Nov-19-2003 20:54:

quote:
Originally posted by pimp
Thanks Ground_0

I suspected it was as such (my soundcard), i just needed a little encourgement to fork out some money for a SBLIVE.

May I just ask out of curiosity what are your computer specs?
Thanks again for the quick reply!

its specs are:
1800+
256 PC2100 DDR RAM
3x160GB Maxtor DM9s (all 133/raid 0)
Soundblaster Live Digital 5.1
and a Nvidia TNT2 64MB AGP card

Posted by SgtFoo on Nov-20-2003 03:06:

I use a SOundblaster Live 5.1 to record. From my mixer Tape-out to the soundcard's line-in. I get perfect recording to a WAV file, using SOnic FOundry's Acid or Sound Forge.
my computer's other specs..
266Mhz Celeron
6GB hard drive
64MB RAM

shitty huh? turn off DMA on your hard drive... it's a Microsoft thing that fucks things up more than anything else. Next most important thing is to allow your hard-drive to record a steady stream of data without having to skip over segments of other data space. TO do this...de-fragment your hard-drive. Last night I recorded a 1:06 hour set smoothly and beatifully.

Taht's my input.

Posted by uxud on Nov-20-2003 07:24:

Are you sure you aren't clipping? If your levels are too high the sound will clip out every now and again.

Just a suggestion.

Edit: Oh, you don't need to go spending hundreds on a sound card if that is the problem. The Sound Blaster Live! Value is like $40 Canadian. It is excellent for all my recordings.

Posted by Dj Thy on Nov-20-2003 08:38:

Usually your recording software (if it's decent) will have a buffer setting (both for playback and for recording). If you get clicks, try increasing those buffers and listen if it solves the problem. If it still doesn't work even when you have high buffer settings, it's certainly a hardware problem. With your specs, even a shitty soundcard should be able to record a normal stereo stream without too much problems.
If it's an onboard sound chip, you may look into shared IRQ's though. It could be that it's IRQ is shared with a PCI card that needs too much bandwidth for the sound to work right.

Oh, and don't turn of DMA for your harddrive. Only do that if your harddrive gives problems with it (ie very old HD's). Defragmenting is important though.