Anyone Record from Vinyl to Hard Drive?

Funky_McVay

I'm experimenting with this right now, but I have a laptop with only a mic input. Since this just sucks, I've been looking at external sound cards. I have read some excellent things about the SoundBlaster Audigy 2 NX External, but a friend of mine said that the Audigy is probably terrible and to go with the M-Audio Audiophile USB External. This friend knows quite a bit about recording, however has never heard recordings made through either. He speaks through experience with SoundBlaster and M-Audio products.

Has anyone used either? I would like to hear some comments on the quality of both. I would like to get the SoundBlaster, because its less expensive, but I don't want C grade recordings.

FM

The_Hook_Up

I use an M-Audio USB card and it works great, but one warning: WINDOWS UPDATE CAN FUCK THIS THING UP...so uninstall and reinstall after your windows update, and make sure you dont have update to auto install, always have it ask you first, so you can finish what you are doing and uninstall it.

Funky_McVay

Thanks for the reply.

Is it one of the service packs that is incompatible or regular updates?

Artifactor

The MIC input could work. Just adjust your recording levels on the computer on the VOLUME CONTROL thing. I used to do mine like that.

Funky_McVay

you can't record in stereo with a mic jack

The_Hook_Up

Thanks for the reply.



Is it one of the service packs that is incompatible or regular updates?

two of the regular updates stopped it from working(control panel said it was working, but I would get no signal input) before I figured out to just uninstall it when the updates would come up, now I have no problems.



Also, I just have the M-Audio transit USB, its only $80 and it sounds as good or better than a lot of stand alone CD recorders.

Artifactor

you can't record in stereo with a mic jack

Foreals. I think some do. I don't know.

The_Hook_Up

you can't record in stereo with a mic jack

Foreals. I think some do. I don't know.

sony vaios have a stereo line in,I think, but most are mono

pacman

I use a SoundBlaster external, but Maudio is better built than Creative. I have no problems with my SB though.

ayres

I use a SoundBlaster external. I have no problems with my SB.

Brian

And good luck getting a clear signal with mic input. I use my Echo Indigo I/O on my laptop and have encountered no problems so far.

holmes

The mic in on my laptop seems to be shielded very poorly & hums like hell no matter what I do regarding stereo/mono levels etc. I go through digi001 to pro tools now.

Funky_McVay

Could someone who uses SoundBlaster send me a sample of a recording they have made from a Stereo record? It seems the concensus everywhere I've searched is that M-Audio is superior to SoundBlaster. However, I would like to hear a recording made with SoundBlaster to judge whether it will be adequate for my needs.

If possible, I prefer a recording made from a fairly common Stereo recording, just to make sure that I will have heard the track prior to hearing the recorded sample. 30 seconds or so of a track will do just fine. I prefer a .wav or a form of lossless compression. I realize these are large files. A great way to send these is to upload the file to http://www.yousendit.com. They will send me an email when the file is loaded and I can download it from there.

If you are willing to help me out, send me a private message or just go ahead with the send to [email]instant7b@yahoo.com[/email] .

Thanks in advance. I really appreciate the help.

FM

Grafwritah

you can't record in stereo with a mic jack

Foreals. I think some do. I don't know.

I think it depends on how shitty your soundcard/onboard audio is if you're using the stock. Some of those integrated audio boards are god awful - I had one in an Aptiva that wouldn't playback anything under about 200 HZ.

I don't know about laptops but considering Soundblaster Lives are like under $30 these days, it would pay to invest at least that bare minimum for recording.

For those that have noise/hum issues, be sure to use a real audio program like CoolEdit (or others) and strip it out. Just get a sample of the noise alone and then use Noise Reduction (CE) to remove it. Usually you can remove any sort of line noise with minimal degradation to sound quality.

ayres

Could someone who uses SoundBlaster send me a sample of a recording they have made from a Stereo record?

here is a WAV: http://itstherub.com/music/Gwen%20Stefani%20-%20Hollaback%20Girl%20%20110.wav

Funky_McVay

urrrs, thanks for this. It doesn't sound too different from the mp3 ripped from CD. A couple of noticeable differences are how the card handles the bass and the vocals. I probably won't have any recordings with this kind of bass, so that's not a problem. I am a little concerned about the how grainy the vocals are, but a newer model like the Audigy 2 might handle that a little better.

Funky_McVay

in case anyone cares, I've decided to go with the M-Audio Transit. Thanks for all of the help.