Thought if I shout and wave or something I might draw attention to meself
Okay please can somebody help me with the settings? I’m set up to record from my DJ controller via RCAs into a 3.5mm jack, into the line-in on my old, slow standalone PC - which isn’t ideal, I wanted to use my i5 laptop, but whenever I record onto the laptop it sounds like garbage. Like it’s coming out of a tin can. So that’s the first problem!
I’ve managed to get it to ‘work’, sort of, by going through the line-in 3.5mm input on my cr*ppy old HP Compaq but to be honest, there are SO many settings, I’m getting a bit confused.
I want to record as lossless as possible and as faithfully as possible. I tried the sample rate at max but it saved my 80 minute mix at over 13GB file size!! I’m thinking something’s not right.
Should I just stick with the default settings of 44.1kHz and 32bit? Furthermore, I’m playing IN via the master volume control and the main RCAs on the controller - the volume is set halfway because I need to hear my monitors whilst in the mix - yet if I set the Audacity input level to anything over 0.3 I’m peaking too high on the levels. I’m a bit conscious that by setting the Audacity input too low it’s not going to record faithfully. As it is, I think the recording sounds too bassy after converting to MP3 (at 320kb).
Please help me with some basics. Any advice would be welcome. I’m just a bedroom DJ - can you tell?
Probably the biggest problem for sound quality is the built in sound cards of your computer. You say that the recording quality of your laptop is rubbish - unless you upgraded the sound card in the old PC then that is probably not great either. Around $30 will get you a “Behringer UCA 202” which is a USB sound card that you could use on either of your computers. It has remarkably good sound quality for the price.
Yes, I’d recommend sticking with the default 32 bit float, 44100 Hz sample rate, unless you are making a DVD video. For DVD, go for 48000 Hz. 44100 is the standard for CD, 48000 is the standard for DVD video.
I wanted to use my i5 laptop, but whenever I record onto the laptop it sounds like garbage. Like it’s coming out of a tin can. So that’s the first problem!
Most laptops don’t have line-in, only mic-in. The Behringer interface (soundcard) that Steve suggested is usually the lowest-cost solution.
I tried the sample rate at max but it saved my 80 minute mix at over 13GB file size!! I’m thinking something’s not right.
File size for uncompressed files is fairly straightforward. The sample-rate (kHz) is the number of samples per second. The bit-depth (32-bits) is the number of bits per sample, and there are 8 bits in a byte. And, you have to consider the number of channels (2 for stereo):
File Size in Bytes = Playing Time in Seconds x Sample Rate x (Bit Depth / 8) x Number of Channels.
(If you put that into a spreadsheet, it’s usually best to re-work the forumla for minutes & megabytes.)
Actually, file size for compressed files is straightforward too. Bitrate in kbps is kilobits per second.
Great advice so far, thanks. Am I right in thinking that the Behringer will effectively bypass the ‘recording’ computer’s soundcard because, by utilising the USB in, it’s effectively working as a digital input to the PC?
That little unit provides a couple of other solutions that I was having issues with due to space.
No, thanks for your help so far guys. Looks like I’ll be buying one of these over the weekend then! I’ll check in again later this afternoon if anybody’s got any more suggestions.
I’ve just recorded my mix again at 44.1kHz and it’s come out at 1.5GB this time. A little bit more sensible
