Audacity Forum

if you look for sales you can do better

mxl990 is a decent LDC mike and bounces from $50-70 sometimes less with shipping and some freeby like a cable thrown in
x
there are other mikes from $20 sm58/57 chinese copies for $30 or less

other items
and prices also vary by source
so look around !

now
how was OP recording when he got hiss ?

define crappy. is it just the hiss?
computer mikes especially built in can be crappy.
worse if overloaded by a guitar pickup stuck into it without a DI.

you cant plug a guitar pickup into a mike input
and expect anything that is not pure distilled concentrated KRAPP

you wont get vocals and music separate without more gear

one mike , forget the pickup, can record both at once.

you have a metaphysical conundrum.
you will either have to pay for enough "good" enough gear
or you will always have crappy sound.
in other words TANSTAFFL

now you can spend a million bux and still get crap
if you dont know how to use it right

and then you have the problem of your room
which can make good gear sound bad too

and fixing a room can be very expensive

so either get a better budget or learn to love crap
cause there are not really any other options

So what your saying is that the cheapest method for me would be to simply get a decent USB microphone and record that way instead of directly connecting the guitar to the laptop? PS: Would a decent microphone produce less hiss then my crappy 20 buck one?

Thanks,
-Chris

Whomper, I never said I wanted a recording studio... I want my recordings to sound slightly better if at all possible... so the idea of screwing around with the room and stuff is out of the picture.

I just want a simple set up thats even 2 % better than mine now. I don't need a professional set up. I don't think i need to spend more than 70 bucks to get what I am looking for.

-Chris

We've had people posting and complaining bitterly about noise problems and especially volume on USB microphones. When you're bumping along the bottom of the price point, it's easy to get stuck with a product the manufacturer is using as a throw-away or a loss leader.

Even if you do well with research, there are still problems.

http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic ... 109#p67836

This is Bruno trying to record his acoustic guitar. The thread is crawling with model numbers and details. It's a popular thread.

"All I need is a decent recording" is a lot harder than it seems. A lot of the equipment at the bottom of the price point just won't do that and worse, you may trade off one shortcoming for another.

Read through that thread.

If somebody held a gun to my head, I'd dig out my StarTech USB adapter and Radio Shack 3013 microphone.

http://www.startech.com/item/ICUSBAUDIO ... apter.aspx
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index ... Id=2102927

That's what, $46 total. We have use this combination for training videos and it's worked very well. The USB adapter will support both computer and conventional microphones.

Koz

Hey, well I do have another question... I am planning on buying an amp for my guitar. It has a pick up in it so no worries there. Of course my price range for the amp is going to increase. Anyways, is there a way I can connect my amp to my computer and use it to record? Even if I need a new sound card (It would have to be a usb sound card since I have a laptop.) I could then connect a microphone to the amp for the vocals and have the sound come into the computer.... would that work? It would make sense that any sound coming from the amp speaker would in theory come into the computer if a cable from the headphone out was connected a line in on the computer or mic in? That way in theory would produce a better sound then using my 20 dollar crappy microphone. Correct?

Thanks,
-Chris

You're bumping up against the price point again. Most people find recording a guitar amplifier from the headphone socket is perfectly correct and can produce a working performance -- which will suck because most of the impact of the amplifier is the sound of the cabinet and mechanical speaker which doesn't go down the headphone cable.

So you're left with recording the sound that the new cabinet makes -- with your $20 crappy microphone.

Did you read that thread? Bruno went through a lot of these steps.

Koz

A note. You can't plug a guitar amplifier headphone connection directly into your computer. You still need the UCA202 USB adapter or equivalent.

The Radio Shack 3013 microphone is a condenser microphone, by the way. An electret is a condenser element.

I don't know that we hit this yet. There are two different types of computer sound connection. Mic-In or Microphone Connection is expecting a small, delicate, wispy mono microphone signal. The connection is easily damaged by connecting a larger signal.

Line-In is expecting a high volume, powerful, stereo sound signal. This would be supplied by your cassette player, iPod player headphones or the headphone out of your guitar amplifier. Many Windows laptops are missing Line-In. You can get your stereo line-in back with the UCA202. That's what it does.

There are advertisements which confuse the two. I've seen ads for "Microphone Line-In" connections. You generally can't have both. One is stereo and one is mono. Some celebrity computers can switch between the two, but that's not normal.

There is also the Missing Equipment problem. You can't walk up to your computer and plug a Shure SM-58 microphone in. It takes an adapter cable....

http://kozco.com/tech/audacity/UnbalBalAdapter.jpg

I've never seen that for sale. I made that one.

The USB equipment has the advantage of not needing anything else. You plug the USB in, set the preferences and go.

Koz

Hey, well I was thinking if I connected the guitar amps headphone jack to the line in on the UCA202 USB adapter and then the usb obviously into the computer.... anything that would come out of the amp speakers would be inputed and recorded onto the computer. So couldn't I just buy a microphone and cable and connect the mic to the amp? That way when I played the guitar and sang, the guitar and vocals would be inputed into the computer and recorded... since they would come put of the amp speakers... would that work? and would it deliver much better audio quality then my original 20 buck computer mic set up?

Thanks,
-Chris

what we tried to gently say was that you cant buy filet mignon on the mcdonalds dollar menu

now some usb stuff works fine but cheap mikes usually arent them

we also said that cheap usb stuff does not work as good as "real" gear. especially usb mikes. in particular CHEAP usb mikes.

you will either have to spend more
or lower your expectations

if you are going to mike a guitar cab then you dont need to worry about the room. the room cant make the sound any worse nor different especially if you crank the volume way up.

get an external audio interface $100-$250
get a better mike - $30-$50-$100++++
get cables etc. $20-$50 (?)
put the guitar and the mike into the i/f
connect that via usb to the pc
use the software that came with it to record
use audacity to edit and master

wont cost a lot
but will be a little more than you wanted to spend initially
but you dont have to buy the guitar cabinet

$150 could do it all good enough - $400 could do it better

<<<anything that would come out of the amp speakers would be inputed and recorded onto the computer.>>>

Not exactly. That would give you the sound up to the speaker. You would be missing the speaker itself and the sound of the cabinet -- the wood, the fabric, and the architecture. If the amplifier has controls for fuzz and special effects, those would work, but nothing past that. Many effects systems are tuned for the cabinet and getting one without the other doesn't sound right.

Wait, I can hear you objecting, I will have a live microphone in the room. Wouldn't that pick up the cabinet?

Only if you do it wrong. That will give you feedback. eeeeeEEEEEEEEEE

But to specifically answer you, yes, it would probably sound better than your $20 crappy microphone, although your $20 crappy microphone might not sound so bad now that it's recording a room with a powerful electronic guitar and not an wimpy acoustic one.

Koz