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Okay...I have found a way to make my mike extremely sensitive that it picks up everything...like the TV that is 20 feet away...and a nice way I can hear myself in the earphones.

The only problem is that when I use this feature....the volume of the microphone also increases.

So...when I turn up the "microphone boost" (from my soundcard settings...or that little volume icon on the bottom right of the screen) I can hear myself great..but the recording levels get maxed out.

So, I was wondering what you all thought about the "amplify" feature. I can record songs maxed out in the recording level, and then use the amplify feature to turn down the track by 10 dbs or whatever to make it bearable to listen to.

I guess my question in this rambling of mine is do you lose sound quality by doing this? I am torn because I would so like to be able to hear myself in my earphones so clearly.

What do you all think? (or if you need some clarification cause I know I can be confusing, please let me know)

I do the same, but not going beyond 0db. I normaly go up to -3db; leave some room for fx and mix down. If level is to high then you get cliping which is not good. Hope I make sense, or am I on the right track?

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I can neither confirm nor deny ever having or knowing anything about nothing.... mrscott

No, you are on the right track

was just courious as to what this would do to sound quality...and I can see how it can be choppy. I think that -3 to -5 would work well, it would just be a matter of setting up my mic so that I can put it down to that.

Thanks

From what little I read, level above 0db should be avoided. This caused distortion. waveform get chopped-off. Not sure why, I need to read more on this myself.

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I can neither confirm nor deny ever having or knowing anything about nothing.... mrscott

Recording studios use condenser mics which use phantom power. Amplified mics pick up all background sounds (even the computer fan) and then the recording room acoustics have a huge effect on vocal quality. For professional vocals they are the standard for they do pick up everything. A compressor is an absoute reqiuirement for the levels are even more critical as cliipping is real easy to do..

When tracking -3db is also a standard It affords an ample amount of headroom ( the variance between unity level and clipping) and allows for adding effects during mixing. A compressor on the mics bring the peaks down to unity thus you can turn the gain closer to unity and can adjust it closer to the level desired (-3db)

Years ago I was the ce of a small tv station in eastern co There was insulation all over the walls and ceiling for acoustics and 20,000 watts of lights to light the news set.It got real warm by the time the news was over. One spring day about 5 minutes into the news a bull snake fell out the insulation on the ceiling.....I'll leave the rest to your imagination....

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Ritis, in priciple what you said was correct. Record nice and loud, and then do a DB reduction. That's fine, the problem is that when you record at such high levels, your soundcard starts clipping, and you generate distortion. So, sounds nice, but not good!

There's only one way out. Get an mixing board (nothing big) you can pick them up for $50.- and record yourself that way. While recording, try to stay at the -3dB level, and if the music peeks ever so often, that's fine. Once done with the recording, FX's and all the blah blah that goes with it, you should be on the 0Db level. Now, once you have mixed down to a single track, normalize your track to 90%. This will remove all the spikes without loosing dynamics and you have a sub you can play nice and loud without sending a DC voltage to the speakers!

Where can I get a mixer from? How does it hook up into your computer?

This is all very new to me...and I think it would be a nice thing to get if they are that inexpensive.

Also, do you have to tie them into CEP any special way?

Thanks man!

#1 - Guitar Center approx $50 (Behringer)
#2 - Mixer out connects to Line in, nothing special, but a lot of advantages

If you have the money, I prefer the Soundcraft Compact line of mixers to the Behringer. They're a little more expensive but they offer artist' headphone outputs as well as one for the engineer. The really nice thing is you can bring in multiple sources (music and mics from multiple sources) and only record one channel or all of them (seperate selections for record/mix).

I have the compact 10 which was $240 but the compact 4 is perfect for home recording and it's much cheaper.

Thanks!

Maybe that will have to be an xmas present this year

I really appreciate your guy's input. It means a lot...and you are always wo helpful

Thanks

Just more reading: record at the highest possible level but below 0db ie the level meter mostly in the green. This is to get the best signal-to- noise ratio. At lower level one record more noise than vocal. Noice is the unwanted signal that move the recording level meter when the mic is on and you have not sing thu' it; it come from the sound card ,cpu fan and noise from the room.

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I can neither confirm nor deny ever having or knowing anything about nothing.... mrscott