Hi all,
First of all I’m using a Dell Inspiron laptop with Windows 10.
Because my laptop has only one jack (output), I cannot record anything from a line-input. However, I have a possibility to hear a device connected. Here’s how I do it.
I have a cable with 1/8 inch plugs at both ends. I plug that into one of two jacks on a headphone splitter, and then the headphone splitter into the audio output jack on my computer. The other end of the cable connected to the splitter goes to an IPod I have. My headphones are connected to the other jack on the splitter
Now, when I connect it in this manner, I hear the sound of my Ipod through the headphones, as well as the sounds coming through my laptop. Because hiss is unacceptable to me, I only use Windows Wasapi loopback because it has no hiss due to a directly digital capture. However, when I record something in Audacity and my IPod is playing, I can hear the IPod through headphones but the sound does not get captured. Is there any way to capture this sound using a directly digital process (i.e. with no conversion to analog and then back to digital), just as Wasapi does? I will not tollerate any form of hiss whatsoever in my recordings, and even if I use a Preamp device with an audio input, there is hiss. I’d like to be able to record the sound of a device with no hiss, i.e. a directly digital process. If this is not possible on a laptop, does anybody know of devices that can record in this manner? i.e. directly capturing the sound of a connected device through a fully digital process without any anlog conversion? The analog conversion would only happen when playing back the audio.
Thanks and I hope there’s a solution. I have heard they make recording devices that capture the sound through a full digital process with no intervening analog conversion, so perhaps I need one of those devices? Also I prefer it to use a 1/8 inch connection, so I can record myself playing an audio game on my IPhone, an electronic bagpipe I have, etc. through a completely digital process.
I have a cable with 1/8 inch plugs at both ends. I plug that into one of two jacks on a headphone splitter, and then the headphone splitter into the audio output jack on my computer. The other end of the cable connected to the splitter goes to an IPod I have. My headphones are connected to the other jack on the splitter
Now, when I connect it in this manner, I hear the sound of my Ipod through the headphones, as well as the sounds coming through my laptop.
You are not “supposed” to do that and I’m surprised you’re getting acceptable quality. The general rule is - NEVER CONNECT TWO OR MORE OUTPUTS TOGETHER. The output impedance of each device puts an improper low-impedance load on the other output which can weaken the signal, or distort it, or potentially damage the electronics. Sometimes one output will dominate and the other will have greatly reduced output.
If you want to mix audio signals, you should use a mixer. (It’s OK to use a Y-Splitter to connect two inputs.)
I’d like to be able to record the sound of a device with no hiss, i.e. a directly digital process. If this is not possible on a laptop, does anybody know of devices that can record in this manner? i.e. directly capturing the sound of a connected device through a fully digital process without any anlog conversion? The analog conversion would only happen when playing back the audio.
I’m not sure how to “capture” the output from an iPod, but usually you just copy the digital files. There are audio interfaces with S/PDIF connections that can capture the digital output from a CD/DVD player.
I will not tollerate any form of hiss whatsoever in my recordings,
You can get excellent quality with a USB audio interface that has a line-input. A line level (or headphone level) signal doesn’t need to go through a preamp before being fed-into the ADC. It’s not “digitally perfect” but after all, most digital recordings were made with microphones, analog signals, and preamps, before the signal was digitized. (The exception is MIDI or other digital “electronic” music that can be made without any analog 'till it’s played.)
There are gadgets (~$30) which convert a USB socket on the laptop into a line-in socket, e.g. “Behringer UCA202”.
Such devices inevitably involve Analog-to-Digital conversion, but the sound quality is good.
With one of those you could split the headphone signal from the ipod between headphones and the laptop.
(ipod) headphone signal is approximately a line-in level signal, (too strong for a microphone input on the computer).
One of you mentioned SPDIF or something like that. What is that? Is that a directly digital recording process? If so, what SPIDF devices have a 1/8 connector?
Sony/Philips Digital Interface Format. S/PDIF It’s a digital transmission standard and works when you connect two S/PDIF machines together. One of the S/PDIF variations is optical and I can look into the connectors on my Mac and see the red lights in there.
Your 1/8" audio cable is analog, not digital and somewhere in the process you have to convert it to digital. If it’s good quality stereo your choices are one of the two or three digitizers such as the Behringer UCA-202. Also UCA-222 and UFO-202. There are others that don’t work as well or ones that work better at much higher cost.
The quest to eliminate noise is admirable, but most of the noise is already on the analog service you used to make the 1/8" cable sound.
When you get the work into Audacity, it’s going to get noisier not because there is anything noisy about the digital process, but because Audacity intentionally adds digital noise to every sound file export to help eliminate internal standards conversion distortion.
A note. There are some machines with 1/8" sockets for both S/PDIF and analog services. If you didn’t start out with S/PDIF, the machine switches to analog automatically and what you’re really doing is using the crappy digitizer inside the computer to encode your work. So that may give you hiss, digital artifacts and distortion.
You mean that you are recording music that is playing on your iPod into Audacity on your computer?
Why not connect the iPod to the PC via USB, and then just copy the files from the iPod to the PC? This is much faster than recording, it is entirely digital, and should give a bit-perfect copy on your PC.
I can’t always follow the postings. As I think you said, connecting two outputs to each other can cause some serious electrical problems and is not recommended.
As far as I can tell, easy transfer of files between iPhone/iPod and a computer is required to go through iTunes. This isn’t terribly awkward because iTunes, again as far as I can tell, is available on Windows. Jury’s out on Win10, but the poster is on Win7.
There is one really “out-there” problem where you try to transfer Music-Memo, perfect quality live recordings to the computer. That seems to be far harder than it needs to be. I’m making an appointment with a genius to try and straighten it out.
But, as above, if you play the work on your i-device into an adapter cable such as this.
You will be in a perfect position to connect it to one of the Behringer devices. Yes, it does represent two conversions, but I’d be surprised if you can hear the difference.
So is SPDIF a directly digital capture process?
I know that you can copy the IPod files from and to the computer, but the problem is, I can’t find anywhere to download high quality versions of the ringtones on the IPhone. So, I’d have to record me playing each one of them one by one, but I’d prefer it to be completely digital, i.e. with no analog hiss. Are there recorders that have a 3.5 input that capture the sound entirely digitally? it would be like using Windows Wasapi, but instead of what the computer would hear, it would be what the connected device hears, with no hiss whatsoever. I’m getting a pair of in-ear microphones from Sound Professionals, and they have -75 DB of noise floor. I’m absolutely sure that the analog converting hiss is higher than -75 DB, so I don’t want there to be any more hiss reduced than what the microphones come with. Similarly when I plug in any device with a headphone jack, I want the recording to be ONLY what comes out of the device, no hiss.
I’m sure there’s some sort of recorder that can record in this format, correct? I’ve been told this is Optical or Coaxial recording format. What’s the real term?
S/PDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interface) is a digital sound transfer system. It’s a cousin to the much larger digital sound services on broadcast videotape machines.
I don’t think the ringtones on an iPhone are easily available for transfer out of the phone. I could be corrected there. I don’t have an iPhone.
An iPod doesn’t have ringtones. At least I’ve never found any.
Optical or Coaxial recording format.
Neither one is a recording format. Coaxial is just the cable doing the connecting. It’s a signal wire sitting inside insulation and a round metal shield usually covered by plastic or rubber. RCA cables are coaxial.
Optical is a thin glass or clear plastic strand with a covering. You shine light flashing at the digital rate in one end and it comes out the other. It can be visible and you can have both at once. I can look down the headphone connection of the larger MacBooks and see the dull red glow in there. If I plug in analog headphones, that works too.
I believe the signals are all S/PDIF, no matter how you get them where they’re going.
And I don’t think this helps you a bit.
I can’t find anywhere to download high quality versions of the ringtones on the IPhone.
What if I say that instead of an IPod I have an electronic bagpipe that uses a 3.5mm stereo plug?
My goal is to record the pipes directly, digitally (without any analog hiss). In other words, trying to record the instrument in a bit-perfect digital capture.
The Behrenger interface is not acceptable to me because there is even a slight amount of annoying hiss. I CANNOT HAVE HISS!!!
And yes, I always turn all forms of dither off in Audacity because to me this is annoying too.
Really hasn’t anyone invented such a recording device yet? Something that records from a 3.5MM stereo input using a directly digital capture?
You know how when you plug headphones into the device and it’s turned off, you hear absolutely nothing? When you record the silence from the device your headphones would be plugged into using maybe a Behrenger or other interface, there is HISS, not silence. My goal is that if there’s silence when plugged into headphones there must be silence from the interface connections, if that makes sense.
Ultimately it would be like Wasapi Loopback but it would just get the audio from the external device such as the electronic bagpipe.
I hope this makes sense.
I’m trying to think of another way to say this here.
The electronic pipes are turned off, and I have headphones plugged into them at the moment. Total sIlence.
If I plug a 3.5mm cable from an audio interface into the instrument and haven’t turned the instrument on yet, I’m absolutely sure there will be hiss as opposed to silence when just headphones are plugged in. If the instrument is totally silent at any given moment my recording MUST be totally silent at those times, such as when the instrument is turned off. Hiss is totally unacceptable.
I hope that makes more sense. Electronic bagpipes don’t use files so recording it digitally is the only way I can get the sounds.
I’m pretty sure even having not tried these interfaces that there is guaranteed to be some hiss and not silence. WHY THE HELL IS THAT!
My goal is to record the pipes directly, digitally (without any analog hiss). In other words, trying to record the instrument in a bit-perfect digital capture.
What are the pipes? Part numbers, web page or makers info.
It’s an old Ross Technology programmable electronic bagpipe I got in 2006.
Basically to put it bluntly: If I have headphones plugged in and the switch is turned off, there is of course silence.
My goal is to make a recording of the same thing and end up with total silence as well. Any noise floor is completely destructive.
Like if my headphones are plugged into a device and there is absolute silence, my ultimate goal is there to be absolute silence when I unplug the headphones and switch to whatever audio interface I would record with. That way I’d hear even the quietest sounds that the pipes would have, if any.
Studios get around some quality problems by using 96000 sample rate and 24-bit data depth. Sometimes called 96/24. Not the home standard of 44100 and 16-bit. 44.1/16 So we can start there.
Monitoring is going to be the worst problem because Line Level or volume is handled by 30 volt supply rails (+/- 15 volts), not the 5 volts (or less) that comes out of a USB interface. That’s frequently 2.5 volts or less by the time you actually hear it. The 5 volt thing has always been a compromise, but most users go shopping for price followed in the far distance by quality, so 5 volts it is.
Most home systems are never going to get close to your goal. We should remember your show is going through three conversions: Pipes Analog to Digital, Digital back down to Analog (the digital in the middle doesn’t add noise) and volume boosting to run the headphones. The process picks up a tiny bit of hiss at each step.
I know you have absolutely no interest in this, but what happens to the pipe noise when you turn them on? Everything about music production is a juggling act and if the pipes are noisy, you should contrast that with the rest of the system. The system will never get quieter than the loudest noises.
Nor should you go “diving for noise.” No music system will survive if you crank the volumes all the way up. We warn people to set a comfortable volume for the performance and then, without touching anything, listen for background noise.
It’s because all electronic components produce some noise - it is an unavoidable fact. Even a piece of copper wire produces a tiny bit of noise (“thermal noise”) when electricity passes through it. Audio circuits are designed to minimise noise, but the design has to make compromises between sound quality and cost. A pre-amp with a noise floor below -100 dB is more expensive to make, (thus more expensive to buy), than a pre-amp with a noise floor of around -80 dB. How big is your budget?
Do your electronic bagpipes have a digital output?
From looking at their website, I don’t see any models that have digital output (Ross Technologies Electronic Bagpipes | Manufacturer), which model do you have?
@Steve,
I have the original style Ross pipes (no harmony feature, with toggle switches, able to be played in different keys), as well as an extinct Deger pipes I bought from a friend which also has an on-off sensor. (Sadly, even though the website is still up, Deger is no longer around). When I turn on the Ross there is a slight repetitive clicking noise before it beeps.
For some reason I had the idea that if it’s possible to capture the sound directly digitally using Loopback, then I had the feeling it must be possible to capture sounds from headphone outputs of devices this same way, no? How can Loopback be entirely hiss-free and audio interfaces have hiss, if silence on headphones is pure silence then?
Silence on loopback = same silence with just headphones.
This same silence is replaced by hiss with ADC’s I’ve heard of. I’m trying to get the least noise floor but as simple a connection as possible (no real use for 1/4 inch, FireWire, etc, literally just a USB device because my laptop has no Line-In). Surprised they don’t make something simple such as a mere USB to 3.5 male plug.
Re:Budget: I’m saving up for two sets of Italian bagpipes that cost $2000 total, so I’d hazard a guess that any of the lowest-noise, but simple-layout interfaces wouldn’t even cost that much? (Again, I’m not the biggest fan of fancy devices with a multitude of inputs and outputs, just a simple one that converts from USB to Line-in with as little noise floor as humanly possible).
“Loopback” recording is when the audio data that is being sent (played) from the computer to the headphone socket / speakers, is also fed back (“looped back”) to the recording input. Because this is all in the digital domain, there is no added noise.
The headphone output from your Ross pipes is an “analog” signal. To get that into a computer program, it has to be digitised through an “analog to digital converter” (“ADC” or “A/D converter”). This conversion is done with a “sound card” or “audio interface”.
The sound cards built into most computers usually have poor recording quality and quite a lot of noise. USB audio interfaces provide an inexpensive way to upgrade the audio input of the computer, though note that the very cheap interfaces (less than about $25) are usually rubbish quality. “Inexpensive” sound cards (such as the Behringer um2 or umc22, from around $40), provide much better sound quality (and much less noise) than the built in sound card of most computers. There are also more expensive USB sound cards that may provide more features, and possibly even better sound quality.
You may want to consider an interface that supports 2 microphones, if there’s a possibility that you may want to use 2 microphones some time in the future.
Hi,
I’ve noticed that even though the Behringer UCM 22 has a super low noise floor (-125 dB or so), it only has 1/4 inch jacks.
Is there an interface with a noise floor as low as this one but with 1/8 jacks? Or do I need to get a pack of adapters so that I can use 1/8 inch jacks with it? I’m trying to record my Ross pipes that use a 1/8 jack (or 3.5 mm jack).
Thanks
