Noise Removal

[ck1999]

I have two laptops.

Laptop 1 Toshiba <- have used for over a year no problems (Except user error) and record using microphone booster on.

Laptop 2 Dell <- We recently have been trying to use this one so I am not using my personal laptop for recording. That way I can leave it at church and make it somewhat easier on me. This one I have wiped the hard drive and reinstalled windows xp and downloaded the drivers from dells website and am trying to use it. With the noise I am getting now when I cut the microphone boost on the noise is therefore multiplied and makes a worse recording.

I was hoping I could use audacity to somewhat fix the noise level.

I am thinking about getting a http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6829128002

What do you think about this? I know a http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6829121001 would be better but really do not want to spend this much right now.

ck1999

[kozikowski]

I am thinking about getting a http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6829128002

I have two of these. They're really simple and small and they do work OK, but they have a high noise floor. There's a constant hiss in the background when I use this with a computer microphone. I strongly suspect that this thing is designed for Vonage or other telephone applications. Mac's can't do that without additional hardware like this. PCs are supposed to be able to do that right out of the box.

It does, however, easily get you around the noisy analog computer problem, and at that price, you can put it in the garage if it isn't up to what you need.

I have no experiences with the larger unit.

Koz

[steve]

The "ART Tube MP USB Microphone Preamp" may be a suitable compromise. It's about half the price of the M-AUDIO Fast Track Pro, and ART have a good reputation for good value pre-amps. (it also has "phantom power" available which means that you could upgrade your microphone to a studio condenser microphone in the future if you wanted to).

Note however that the microphone input is a full size XLR connector rather than a mini-jack. XLR connectors are the standard on good quality microphones - mini-jacks are used on lower quality microphones, such as typical computer microphones.

For a cheap solution, it looks like the StarTech ICUSBAUDIO will do the job (using your existing microphone).

The ART, combined with a good quality microphone will probably be capable of near professional quality.

But I am wondering if Audacity can fix the recordings.

Audacity is good, but it can't do miracles. I think the sample that koz posted earlier gives a good indication of the limited success you can expect.

[kozikowski]

I'm re-evaluating my opinion of the little StarTech. My first experiences were quick and dirty affairs with what may have been a ratty microphone. In much more controlled conditions, it's OK. It is a pretty simple device, but if you need one computer style microphone in to one computer, this may be the way to go.

I bought two and I'm messing around with the second one.

I know the company went to great lengths to develop quiet electronics for this (I believe they sell the electronics separately) and I always wondered why mine was so noisy. Maybe not. The second unit does record a DC level, so I need to take that out with the Normalize tool. That's some of the noise right there. Then a careful analyzing of what's left tells me they tilt the noise spectrum so by the time 3000 Hz rolls around (max sensitivity of the ear) the noise level is in the -75 range. Far better than your broken computer and would do your performances just fine.

If it wasn't midnight (Pacific), I'd post a little clip.

Koz

[kozikowski]

<<<Record out phono plug to a 1/8 microphone jack on the laptop.>>>
<<<recording from a cd player >>>

I'm re-evaluating this whole question.

Starting with that first posting we've been assuming that the second laptop is somehow broken. I don't think that's the case. I think the first laptop is broken. The first posting and possibly several succeeding ones danced around the fact that the poster is connecting the high-level sound produced by the church PA system to the microphone input of a laptop. Later a similar post that a cassette machine connected to the second laptop fails. Yes. That's perfectly normal. It's the first laptop that is behaving in a completely abnormal manner.

If you walk up to a conventional PC laptop and connect a simple "computer microphone" to it. It will amplify the microphone signal and produce a good sound track--in any sound program, doesn't have to be Audacity. If you apply a cassette machine, PA output, or other very high sound level signal to that computer, it will produce a distorted, very, very noisy signal. The amount of damage depends on the overload characteristic built into the computer.

So the first laptop is the oddball. There are PC laptop computers out there that will gracefully handle a microphone or a high level signal. Your second laptop isn't one of them and the little StarTech gadget is probably not going to help a bit. It assumes a conventional microphone with its tiny signal, too. It will overload if you apply the church's PA system.

So that shoots the $19 USB adapter in the head. You need one of four things; a USB adapter which will manage high level audio signals (used to be referred to as "Line Level), a PC laptop that will switch between high level and microphone level, a deskside PC since they will handle almost anything, or almost any Mac.

Koz

[steve]

A lot of stumbling about by the pair of us koz, but I think you've finally caught it.

Just gone back to page 1 of this topic, and yes, it says "recording onto my laptop" and "from the Record out phono plug to a 1/8 microphone jack on the laptop"

Most PC laptops have a "microphone" socket that is not suitable for the high level signals that you get from a cassette recorder (and are still poor with microphones, but this would explain why it is as bad as it is).

Occasionally you find PC laptops that are able to record high level signals - this is an exception, but it seems like your old laptop was one of these.

To record from a cassette players phono out - these work very well indeed, and are inexpensive: http://www.dolphinmusic.co.uk/shop/flyp ... ct_id/8522

There are also other makes and models that work well and are in a similar price bracket (Edirol?)

These do not work with microphones, but are ideal for recording from cassette players and similar.

If you also want to make an occasional (casual) microphone recording, the little StarTech thing will probably fit the bill for that job, but not for recording from a cassette player.

[kozikowski]

<<<A lot of stumbling about by the pair of us koz, but I think you've finally caught it.>>>

Something about the postings didn't sound quite right. There was critical information missing here and there, but the narrative was so well done that you really didn't miss it. Every so often, the post would gently push the idea that the second laptop was the real killer -- sorry bad machine and we all just went along with it.

This is classic Agatha Christie storytelling stuff. This person could be a mystery writer or a preacher.

Oh, wait.

Koz