Audacity Forum

I was recording on Audacity for the first time, just using the default settings, with very little noise (directly from a keyboard plugged into the line-in/microphone jack on the PC). Then I changed some setting (I think the input source from Digital Microphone to Line In), and now I'm getting a lot of hiss during playback. Also, now I have to turn the keyboard volume way down, whereas before I could turn it up higher (which is probably why there's so much noise now). How can I change it so there's a better signal-to-noise ratio when recording?
Thanks

<<<line-in/microphone jack on the PC>>>

PC Laptop? How sure are you that you have a Line-In? Does your laptop switch between them? they're very, very different and it's very common for a PC Laptop to not have a Stereo Line-In.

<<<now I have to turn the keyboard volume way down>>>

Right. That's what happens if you plug into a Microphone-In instead of a Line-In.

I'm curious how you got it to work in the first place. The problems you're having now are perfectly normal.

Say that again.

Koz

There is one jack with a picture of a microphone next to it. But on the PC there's a window that lets me select between "microphone" and "line-in" (as to the type of input device, I assume), and I selected Line-In. The noise level is better now, and here's how I fixed it: in the Audacity window, with Line-In selected for the input type, I had to turn the input level all the way down to 0. At a level of 0 I can turn the keyboard volume up, and there's very little hiss when recording, and it sounds fine. But if the input level is set higher than 0, even 0.1, I have to turn the keyboard way down, and hiss results on the recording. Am I doing something wrong?

<<<Am I doing something wrong?>>>

It sounds like you're still in Microphone mode. The microphone connection is very sensitive. The signal from a microphone is really tiny and it takes a lot of boosting to make it useful. A common way to design microphone amplifiers is to permanently design the boosting into the connection. You can't get rid of it. You have those exact symptoms. "Every time I turn the volume up just a little, it goes crazy."

One clear difference between Microphone and Line is that Microphone is mono and Line is Stereo. Do you get stereo? do you ever get something on the left blue wave different from the right?

Here's a known, good, working stereo file. It's very short -- six seconds.

http://www.kozco.com/tech/piano2.wav

Put that on the timeline and magnify it multiple times. Drag-Select a small portion of one note and Magnify. Control-E (I think). You will see that the blue waves are very clearly different. Control-F to return to full screen

Now do that to one of your performance musical notes. I bet they're the same.

Koz