I've been using Audacity for about a year now, usually pretty happy with the results I got when recording voice, guitar or whistle. There was always quite some background static but I thought there wasn't really something I could do to remedy that. However, some time ago a friend of mine recorded some voice of her own (also using Audacity) and there was almost no background static on that recording. I asked her how she did it; she used a standard (quite cheap) dynamic mic plugged directly into the mic-in of her pc. When I record, I use a Stagg MCO-7W condenser mic (see http://www.lagom.nl/misc/stagg-mco7.html for specs); I do believe it's better quality and also better for recording (as it's a condenser mic), so that won't be the problem. (If it's relevant, the Stagg runs on a Behringer mic pre-amp for fantom power.)
I recently tried to plug my keyboard directly into the line-in of my pc, expecting not very good quality but at least less background static; and there was just as much (maybe even more) as when recording with microphones. Because of that I don't believe the mic is the problem. I have windows Vista, but I had the same problem on my previous pc which ran on xp. The sound card is managed by a Realtek High Definition Audio driver (with all options like noise reduction and such turned off, for obvious reasons). The lines run as follows: from the mic to the input of the preamp, then from the output of the preamp to the mic-in of my pc. (I tried using the line-in but I couldn't even hear myself.)
So, my question is: how do I reduce background static without Audacity's noise reduction function ('cos that gives me the already-mentioned-on-this-forum R2-D2 romping through my recording)? I'm sorry for the long story, thanks in advance for helping me out
