multi-track recording produces clipping?

[matt_guitar_audio]

First post, probably an easy fix, looked around the forum and had difficulty finding an answer. I've been plugging my guitar and amplifier straight into the mic jack on the computer, the first track is always great quality but any additional tracks I record seem to clip. I've tried using the declipper and adjusting volume on one and all tracks, the volume of the mic and amp and nothing seems to prevent it. I've even tried recording at super low volumes and amplifying it in audacity and even that hasn't helped. Any suggestions?

[kozikowski]

Can you plug the system into the Line-In instead of the Mic-In? The first, undistorted performance is broken. All the ones after that are working normally. The audio signals out of your music amplifier are in all probability around Line level. This is roughly 1000 times hotter than what the microphone input on your machine is expecting. You can't "turn it down" unless you can make the output of the guitar amplifier go way down.

The microphone amplifier is sitting between the socket and the level control in your machine and that's what overloads. The level controls on the computer take effect only after the damage has already occurred.

It is a Windows laptop, right?

Koz

[matt_guitar_audio]

its a dell PC, ill give it a try with the line in and let ya know