Needing opinion

Hey everyone,
its been a while since i have been on! but pretty much i am looking for a few opinions and some help. I am running a sound tech 32 channel analog board into my computer via line in (1/8) from my main out on my board… (my mic line is broken)… onto my lap top. and my levels on the .wavs are clipping out… so when i turn them down to where no clipping is going on… my levels are so low that you have to crank up the speakers almost all the way up to even hear them. what can i do to bring up those levels without clipping them out and getting nothing put pops and cracks?

Also another problem i am having is when i start up my program and select whatever project i am working on… i click to play the song and it pops and cracks a very unrealistic amount of times and the song barely plays… so i went into my buffering settings and i had to do a custom buffering and pretty much set my playback buffering ALL the way up. is there a solution to this?

Thirdly, when i record my first track everything goes great… then i record my next track and my second track is a little out of sync with my first track… for instance on my second track i will have to scoot the wave a little back to get it on time with my first… then i have to edit it later on and keep pulling parts of the second tracks wave back to fit the rest of the song… recording buffering maybe? any suggestions on that? i have messed with it but it doesnt seem to be helping.

And lastly… i would like to be able to record my tracks… for instance 5 channels on the drums… and then be able to tweak each drum after i have recorded them into the computer to better fit the song. do i need another soundcard for that?

thank you for your help.
just tell me what i need without spending 10 grand! i get pretty good quality stuff right now with my preamps and eq’s i have now… but always looking to expand. check out myspace.com/awaitingirony to hear some quick 2 day demo stuff that i have done.

computer:
Processor: AMD Turion64 x2 TL-50 (1.6 GHz, 512 KB L2 cache total, 256 KB on each core)
RAM: 1 GB 533 MHz DDR2 RAM (2 x 512 MB)
Hard Drive: 80 GB Hitachi 5400 RPM HD
Screen: 14.1-inch WXGA Acer CrystalBrite screen
Gaphics: ATI Radeon Xpress 1100 integrated graphics (64-256mb shared memory)

1 - what make is your laptop ?

2 - laptops usually have only 1 audio input, this is microphone input not line input -

3 - “Hard Drive: 80 GB Hitachi 5400 RPM HD” - far to slow needs to be 7500rpm for audio work -

Dr J

mine has both. and acer. and my computer seems to be handling audio great? every recording i have done comes out nice but i need to bring it up to industry standard sound level. which of course is about impossible when it comes to money lol. but i would like to get as close as possible. and how could i change my rpm if i had to?

Updated drivers for the soundcard are a must! You can try this first.

Most stock computer audio cards aren’t multi-tracking friendly (more designed for surfing, gaming, and whatnot). Using the 1/8 jacks can result in distortion due to input/output overpowering from source such as mixing console.
The lagging and offset in the recording tracks is probbably due to the audio card being unable to start record and playback at the same moment. Thus the offset in tracks. You can manually line them up but after awhile becomes a pain in creative side of recording, making it more of a chore than fun.

I would suggest looking into an audio soundcard designed for audio multi-tracking. A firewire or even usb card designed for a laptop would be the best bet. I’m sure some others here with the same set ups would be happy to point you in direction of inepensive to expensive devices.

What say ye everyone!

Yaz
:cool:

I concur with Yaz, an external USB or firewire interface and/or converter would be your best option on a limited budget.

I went with the M-audio Audiophile Firewire Interface, which cost me 70 US on Ebay used.

A lot of people are upgrading their gear since it is income tax time here in the US, so they are letting go of various entry level devices at a fraction of their cost.

Here is one going for $40 buck right now!
M-Audio Firewire Solo audio interface

Now that is a “solo” model so it doesn’t have as many inputs as the one I own, but if you know what your looking for and your budget, now is the time to get one.

These devices take a good load off the computer by doing the analog to digital conversion in pretty high frequencies if desired, which would in theory bring your tracks up to “semi-pro” standards…provided the rest of the instruments and equiptment on the hardware side are of good quality, cables, mixer,(low noise) etc etc.

keep shinin’

jerm :cool:

Quote:

every recording i have done comes out nice but i need to bring it up to industry standard sound level. which of course is about impossible when it comes to money lol. but i would like to get as close as possible.

There are a lot of mastering plug-ins that will help in this department. Many are free. It can be done for virtually nothing.

Quote:

and how could i change my rpm if i had to?

RPM is speed the hard drive spins, so the only way to change it is to replace the hard drive. Laptops are notorious for having slow hard drives. That fact is probably right at the top of why many laptops barf when recording more than a few tracks.

awesome dudes… so to hook up that audiophile it runs through my usb? i am checking out one of the more expensive ones with 16 channels. and since my hard drive is running pretty slow on this. would an external help the problem out? or should i upgrade my ram? or what do you guys think?

http://cgi.ebay.com/M-Audio…hosting

I had the same problem with clipping. I un-installed the soundcard drivers, re-installed them and the problem was cured.
Worth a try,
Cheers,
Ian

I don’t think that card will work with a lap too, it is PCI card.

I might be wrong but I doubt the laptop is a tower with PCI slots in it.

What I recommended is a stand alone device that is an external soundcard/audio converter.

They do make ones that do several tracks at once if you are in that higher price range of the Audiophile 192, the one I have (the external firewire interface) only does two stereo tracks at a time which with the right amount of savvy could be parlayed into 4mono tracks (each with different instruments on it)

I am not sure they make a 16 track soundcard for laptops. guys?

Not sure if your laptop has Firewire, so USB may be your only option:

I recommend the link to the M-Audio Quattro
coupled with the Omni i/o which would give you an additional 8 inputs to it’s mixing section.

I have heard good things about that device from other N users.

keep shinin’

jerm :cool:

A couple of thigs that have worked for me: I got an external Firewire harddrive box and just put my old 7200 rpm drive inot it. Actually, this bow runs either firewire of USB2 and both seem to work fine. I have not tried over 8 tracks on USB and use the Firewire most of the time. I have a Layla 24 that uses a cardbus card (not on a lot of new laptop computers), but it works great. The only drawback is that you must use a seperate mic preamp, but I can run 8 in to the ADAT and 8 into the analog and record 16 tracks that are time perfect. I have tried Firewire interface units with the mic preamps built in, but I have not found one that works with my laptop as well as the old cardbus Layla. Many laptops have lousy chips for USB, Firewire and audio and it’s hard to determine from their literature. For more on laptops, you might want to check out the forum at Audiominds, they have a pinned topic on Laptops