Recording Onto PC

[Manglehold]

I'm new to recording.

I have a Boss RC-2 Loop Station pedal for my guitar and I'm trying to record its output onto my computer. I plugged the jack directly into the microphone port.

What I get is that the sound fades/phases in and out rather than staying at one volume level and picking up all of the sounds. What's this called and why is it happening?

Could it be due to having a low-quality sound card?

Tried to attach small representative clip of what happens. It shouldn't be fading away like that at 6 seconds and 12 seconds.

Thanks.

[Trebor]

I have a Boss RC-2 Loop Station pedal for my guitar and I'm trying to record its output onto my computer. I plugged the jack directly into the microphone port.
What I get is that the sound fades/phases in and out rather than staying at one volume level and picking up all of the sounds. What's this called and why is it happening?

The fade-out & phasing could be due to "echo cancellation" (or similarly named) feature on your sound card which is used for recording voice (VOIP, Skype, etc). This feature should be switched off when recording music ... http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic ... 78#p141178

The sound is also clipping in places, you should really feed the pedal into a "line-in" socket on your computer if you have one, otherwise you need to turn the pedal volume way way down.

[Manglehold]

Thanks, it was "noise cancellation", right next to the echo cancellation that was doing it.