Karaoke Forums

Again, just curious... heheh

We record one of two ways, either with a mic directly into our sound card, or by plugging our PA into the soundcard and running everything into the PA.

How about you folks?

into ma soundcard, and if anyone got ideas on getting rid of the annoying buzz ya get from using and SM58 shure mic would be appreciated hehehe

[font=georgia]I'd love to know how to get rid of that buzz myself .  Well... actually, I can somewhat manipulate the "buzz" by playing with the input chord going into my soundcard to get it just right, but it's still got a very light buzz that happens, and also I get a lot of shhhhhh noise.  I can get rid of it with noise reduction, but it seems to deteriorate my vocal frequencies and make them sound funny.. sometimes more than others.. Usually worst when I have to turn the gain down and back off the mic to sing classical style high stuff.  I always end up with a metallic "residue" sound left on my vocs after noise reduction. I HATE that..

Anyhow, I have my mic plugged into an old small mixer, which I then plug into my soundcard....[/font]

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[font=andalus]We Are the Music Makers, and We are the Dreamers of Dreams...
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I record my dry voice separately on minidisk (straight EQ at that point) and then transfer both voice and music into computer. Finally I add effects & EQ for each track and mix the whole thing down. Simply put, that's it.

jee

You got it baby;)

I turn on my laptop, and start singing. The end. (Most macs have built in mics, not just the laptops) However, since I got the laptop, I only record on IT ,because on the emac, etc, the mic picks up the general hum of computer life.

I think the 'hum' or 'staticy' noise comes partly from the adapter you have to use to take a 'real' mic into your soundcard... but that's JMO. I think it causes the connection to be 'unstable'. blah

Yeah, I don't end up doing any 'noise reduction' on mine because of the loss of sound quality Jazzy was talking about. Turns out that the backing track USUALLY covers most of it up anyway (although it annoys the crap outta me).

Is it a buzz from an impedance mismatch ?   The SM-58 is a low impedance microphone.  Not sure about how things work going into a computer,  yet I am familiar with that "buzz" when there's an impedance mismatch.

I use a Shure SM58 also, but I don't get a buzz.... actually, I absolutely love the sound I get from mine....

anyways... the poll:
I plug my mic into my external soundcard  :D

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Re: Buzz & Hiss..................

When recording in the following way:

Mic into mixer
Mixer into PC

Keep the PC recording level as low as possible, and boost the mixer level as high as possible. If you do it the other way around (High PC rec volume and low mixer volume) the you expect you PC soundcard to amplify a very small signal, that's where the signal to noise ratio goes through the roof. If your mixer output is high, and your PC rec level low, there is no amplification of noise, just amplification of signal.

ohhh that's what I do!! not cuz I KNEW to do that, mind you! HAHA! We'll just pretend I had that all figured out from the beginning!  (um.. )

<--- S-M-R-T..... I mean.... S-M-A-R-T!

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hey kids... (not to hijack my own thread or anything... but...)

That little tag line under your username, which hicky do you have to buy to do that? heheh

I mean ok, there are two options... title something or other and stuff... I don't wanna 'waste' my points experimenting!

it's "title" Seby

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I plug my mic into a Sound Blaster sound card. My headphones and speakers also plug into it.

In my opinion the best way is to:

- plug mic into mixer using balanced XLR cable
- plug direct out from mixer into line input on sound card
- send music from sound card to mixer
- connect headphones to mixer and set music and voice levels on the mixer itself (zero latency monitoring)

My mixer (Carvin C1644) has a switch mode power supply and with this config there is no hum, hiss, noise or whatever. Using the hum/hiss cancellation of CEP/AA has a detrimental effect on the sound, so it is better to avoid it in the first place.

Morten

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[shadow=tomato]If you want your significant other to pay attention to EVERY word you say::
  TALK IN YOUR SLEEP   [/shadow]  

shotgun,

if you do it that way you cannot independently set the level of music and vocal afterwards. Also, you only want to add effects to the vocal not the music. You should use a direct out or something similar with only the vocal from the mixer.

Morten

my normal set up:

Vox recording:
mic > usb soundcard > pc with KRISTAL software.

The vox is recorded while the song is being played thru a my pc cd rom. During vox recording I listen to the song thru a headphone and not the pc  speakers.. Note that the only vox is recorded and not the backing.

Then I rip the song backing track  and import it ot trax 2 ofthe software. and before mixing the two tracks are sync ed. The the mixing begin. I normaly use the pc speaker for mixing ; my headphone does not have much bottom end.

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

"Best" varies according to person.  I don't have a mixer so that would cost money.  Then I would have to find another program to use to learn how to mix the two separate tracks.  Too much time for each song, as far as I'm concerned.  It's much easier to just record into my karaoke player and I can work on the balance there, and discard any that I don't like (or tape over them).  Then I only record ones I like onto the pc.  And also I would have to record all the backing tracks separately, what a pain!  I'd never get anything recorded if I had to take all that time...

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~Suzanne Lanoue~

Hi MortenN ...  :wave:

Yes ~~ You are correct.  We do not "remix" .... We record "live" much like is done during a karaoke show.  No effects are added to the music .... just the vocals ~~ and those effects are matched as closely to the background vocals on the CDG, as is possible.  All the multi-track mixing is possible ~~ we have the equipment (32 channel mix down board) which is great for Production... but for posting here.....we try to keep it as close to a "Live" performance as is possible. Afterall.... this is a KARAOKE experience.... not a RECORDING STUDIO experience.  At least, thats our approach.  

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[shadow=tomato]If you want your significant other to pay attention to EVERY word you say::
  TALK IN YOUR SLEEP   [/shadow]  

Good point about this being karaoke..

I will add that if you see me sub and  I say my friend Bobby recorded and mixed it, it was done completely differently than my others.  He has a mini-recording studio in his basement and he knows how to do all that technical stuff, so he recorded me separately from the music and mixed it, did all that fancy stuff that I can't do.

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~Suzanne Lanoue~