Recording a mix onto a laptop

Zascar

A mate of mine asked me to help him record a mix to burn on to a cd to give as a demo to someone. I went round with a laptop and an recorded the set using Audacity. We just used the standard line out cable (red and white) with the other single jack line going into the mic and recorded from there.

We did a test and it sounded fine, but when it was done and I burned to CD and listend to it on a stereo, the recording was full of little clicks and pops - lind liek what you'd hear from vinly, but much more obvious, and they not really in any particular parts of songs, just quite randomly.

I though this was going to work fine and was pretty dissappointed that it didn't. I wasn't sure what when wrong.

A friend told em that it would never work that way, I need a proper external soundcard and connections, otherwise its going to sound crap no matter what.

Can anyone tell me how I can do this without having to buy an external sound card, or am, I just wasting my time otherwise?

Selik

Hmmm, even on a bog standard internal soundcard you shouldn't be getting pops and clicks etc...

Check all the connections, check the levels (in audacity) and the levels out of the mixer. Make sure you're using the line-in as opposed to the mic-in. Mic-in will deffo sound crap. Finally make sure the laptop has at least semi-decent memory and specs. Do a few test recordings for a minute or two before recording a whole mix too to make sure everything is sounding right so you're not wasting your time and getting frustrated.

I've recorded tons of mixes on my laptop and desktop without any problems so try out everything I've mentioned above and you should be ok.

Zascar

Thanks Giles.

Actually I'm pretty sure I was using Mic In and not Line In.
Whats the difference exactly?
Cheers
Zascar

coldfeet

I personally use Soundforge and I've never had any problems. Its work checking that the wave isin't at max on the pc sound control

Zascar

Good man, I didn't think of that... How do i do this exactly? Is it in Sound Properties?

Any more tips are much appreciated.
Thanks
Zascar

coldfeet

just double click on the volume icon and it'll open up the volume control

steveland?

coldfeet wrote:

just double click on the volume icon and it'll open up the volume control

Just make sure you click properties and change to recording because otherwise you're changing the volume of the line in coming out of the speakers and not what it's picked up as.

Keep the line-in option on the volume control quite low and adjust the volume on your mixer to required taste.

Also make sure in Audacity that the waveform doesn't clip (go too big, you should be able to see the peaks of the waveform fairly easily)