Audacity Forum

Hi Im fairly new to Audacity...

I tryed to do some recording over the weekend. I plugged my mic into the Behriher Xenyx 1002FX mixer. I then plugged an RCA to stereo cable into the micer output and into the mic in input respectively. It recorded but i got heavy hiss and crackiling sound when i recorded it. Its not the mic becaise i plugged a guitar in and the same problem occured. The recording sounds great its just the crackling thats clouding it.

And help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated

I then plugged an RCA to stereo cable into the micer output and into the mic in input respectively.

The mixer output is line-level. You should connect to a line-input, not a mic input (color-coded blue on most soundcards).

If you have a laptop with only mic-in and headphone-out, the Behringer UCA 202 is an inexpensive interface with line-inputs. (Most regular "USB soundcards" are like laptops with no line-in.)


FYI - The mic input on a laptop or consumer soundcard is worthless for any kind of quality recording. It's high-impedance unbalanced, which is the wrong interface for low-impedance balanced (XLR connector) performance or studio mics. (But. the impedance is not high-enough for guitar.) And, the built-in mic preamp is usually low-quality (noisy).

Feedback During Recording

Feedback is when the output (usually from the speakers) gets fed-back to an input (usually the mic). With a P.A. system, you'll get a full-volume "squeal" noise. Sometimes there is a delay through a computer, so feedback can give you an echo. With guitar feedback you can get infinite sustain, since the strings are tuned.

It recorded but i got heavy hiss...

Hiss and hum are common types of noise (unwanted sounds).

...and crackiling sound when i recorded it.

Crackling could be a type of noise, but in your case I'm guessing it's a type of distortion... Probably clipping, which is the most common type of distortion. Clipping is when you run-out of headroom (such as trying to get 110 Watts from a 100 Watt amp). Or in your case, you are probably overloading the analog-to-digital converter in your soundcard/soundchip. With clipping, the tops of your "waves" are squared-off.