OK, since you mention this here and in a PM, I'll address this here for public info's sake & debate or whatever.
If you're thinking what you put up is scratchy and scary and you didn't mean to do that, I can tell you how it happened. It's impedance. You're overdriving. That is, you're putting a line-level output (or close to it) into a mic-level input. Guitar effects pedals and keyboards and whatnot are designed to go straight into a speaker, basically. (Any amplification of the signal after that takes place on the speaker side, to oversimplify.) A microphone needs to be amplified before it hits the speaker, or else you won't hear a thing. So: two different levels of sound. Your computer is wanting the sounds to be from a microphone, not from a line-level source.
There's a few ways to skin this cat.
If your soundcard has a "mic in" and a "line in" side by side, use the "line in" jack instead of the mic one. You may need to increase the volume of the soundfile after you've recorded it, but it'll sound just about as good as it did when it went into the computer.
If you've just got the one input, you can lower the "record volume" and you should get a slightly cleaner sound. First, lower the volume coming off the pedals/keyboard (level or gain or whatever it's called). Then, if you're in Windows, you can doubleclick the little speaker control, go to Properties and go to Record Controls or Input Controls and turn em down. It's best to do this when you have a signal coming in so you can see how loud it is. If you're on a Mac, I think you'll have a line-in jack, but if you don't, there's gotta be a way to set the incoming volume similar to this.
Level setting is a matter of balance, really. Too soft, and it gets all hissy. Too loud, and it's like a distortion pedal on everything. Right in the middle (on a 10-point scale, usually around 7) is where things sound just right.
If this doesn't work, consider investing $60 or so in a new soundcard. |
