Input clipping with Dell and Vista

[snappyman]

Hi, our band has been using my XPS laptop with XP for two years and recording off of a mixing board with no problems. One band member, who lives where we practice just bought a Dell 1420 laptop with Vista. I have read many of the current posts and have tweaked all of the settings. The built in computer mic has been disabled and the tape out on the mixer (two rca jacks) is connected to the mic input on the computer via stereo adapter cord. The mixing board is a direct line level output and there is no control over the output level, as this is normal with line level outs. The computer recognizes the input as line in and shows up in Audacity for recording.

The problem is that all of the input is completely clipped. The input meter bar goes off the scales and the blue recording lines (sorry I don't know the correct name) show up as a straight flat line with the tops and bottoms a flat line, like a big blue bar. No matter what setting I change the input level to, it still shows the same. The bar is skinnier which would mean lower levers, but the recording is still distorted and completely clipped, just not as loud.

Has anyone had this problem and can anyone offer a solution.

Thanks, Phil

[jan.kolar]

All you say suggests that you are indeed recording from mic input, in this must clipped then (unless you set +0dB boost a 1% level or less which I think is not worth recomendation and probably wount work either.)

I think you have to use line-in input socket instead of input socket. This can be marked by a fan with an arrow pointing inside, or a circle with an arrow pointing inside.
If you got signal previously from mic input as you say, you will have to change the settings to get the signal from line-in,
after you reconnect.

Some laptops have only one input for both mic/line in. I do not thing the type of input could be determined automagically,
so you have to tell Vista somehow. I do not remember how, I did exactly that two weaks ago in Vista. Certainly I would start from Control Panel or by rightclicking (which I did) the speaker icon in Vista's TaskBar.
You will find that your selected input device is microphone. You should select line-in. (This might be what makes Vista to reconfigure the two-purpose input socket to line-in).

In any way, recording controls of Vista have small vertical lever metters, that are not much useful, but they are capable to indicate well at least signal presence and clicking as bad as you experience. This is exactly what you need, I recommend you take carefull look at them and use them to settle the correct sound input path and roughly the input level, to the extent you will have some signal and no clipping.

[steve]

First check the Windows Mixer settings - it should be possible to adjust the record levels there.
You could also consider getting the appropriate leads to connect the "Main Out" or "Control Room Out" of your mixer to the "Line In" of your computer as you can adjust the output levels from these.

[hellosailor]

Jan-
"I do not thing the type of input could be determined automagically, " FWIW, yes, this can be done and is being done nowadays. Case in point the Palm Treos, where one jack is used for stereo headphones, or a mono ear-mike, or an ear-mike with stereo. One four-conductor 2.5mm plug is used, but the Treo senses the impedance of whatever you plug in, and based on that it determines what connections to make (input or output, stereo or mono) to the plug.

In theory the Creative X-Fi notebook card does the same thing, using one plug for both mic/line AND optical as well. In practice--the automatic sensing may not work and there's a software setting to force it manually.

Audio is problematic in Vista. Devices are still having driver problems (lazy vendors) and rumor says the RIAA is responsible for the way stereo mix has been disabled at the system level by major vendors, some of whom are only supplying mono mic level inputs now too. To make things "better" you may find only one volume control that works, either in the Control Panel, or for the sound card's third party software, or any one of the devices (some virtual) as they appear in Control Panel. I'm sure this plethora of controls is supposed to give us more precise control over things, but it can be maddening trying to figure out which one (and only one) is in charge at any time.

[kozikowski]

No shortage of "soft words" in sound these days. I'm going out later to buy a sound card to plug into my USB and I want it to have microphone level Line-In.

....what?

That's a normal English sentence, but I just described four different things, not one. Sound cards go inside the machine and I guess 'sound devices' go outside. There's no good word, so I guess that's why everything became a 'sound card.' Line-In is not a computer access point. It's a defined sound level and it's roughly 1000 times louder than Microphone level which is why they don't cross very well. Even if your system claims to be able to switch between them, one or the other will suffer. Sometimes both.

One way out, other than find somebody with a Mac, is to buy an external sound device and go into the computer as a digital bitstream.

Koz

[jan.kolar]

Koz, this I needed to know recently, thanks.
(Recalculating: this is 60 dB. Or: +40dB mic boost versus +0dB and 10%. Or: +20dB mic boost versus +0dB and 1%,
since +40dB is useful only to amplify noise on that particular card and 1% seems to be minimum...
and I did not find any other way to switch between mic and line-in there recently)
(BTW, are there some rumors about RIAA and mic input noise already?)

Koz, I always wanted to know the relation between sound ingeneer's line level, and acceptable input to computers line-in socket. What wories me is whether it can stand +- 46V peaks once a year.
This generally wories me even more where needed to connect an MP3 recorder.

<<It's a defined sound level>>
(And once you are trying to make the words precises: Is there any difference between line level, line, line-in, line-out?
And did I stand well with saying "line-in input socket" and abbreviating to "line-in" subsequently?
However this made me to forget "mic" when wanted to say "mic input socket"