I am working on an entry for Open Competition #1. When I record the beat from my SP to my computer, the beat doesn't sound as "full" as it does on the SP. I have the line out going into the mic jack in my computer. Is there a better way I should go about doing this? Thanks

You need a better soundcard, or you get a recorder. I use a tascam 4-track tape recorder.

How much would a decent soundcard set me back? Also right now I am have a Realtek AC97 Audio card

I really don't have any experience with sound cards, but I think a decent one would be at least 100 USD.
I can recommend using a cassette recorder. It has surprisingly good quality. I use a Tascam 414 Portastudio, which I got used on craigslist for 50 USD.

Ah, right
Wushup, mang
Welcome to the forums.

a line signal is a line signal, the soundcard you have should do the job ok. if your audiocable is out of phase, you might encounter some cancellation, it makes the mix sound thin, specially in the lower frequencies. but most likely, some kind of normalization/multiband-compression/limiting on the recorded file will make the mix sound better.

I recorded vocals thru a soundblaster audigy card years ago, the only problem I encountered was latency, but i would not say that the quality of the sound improved drasticly when switching to a dedicated m-audio usb soundcard, but the latency did

How would I get the audio from the cassette to the computer?

Thanks


Yea, I am having trouble with the lower frequencies. Also the left side isn't coming through very well, it really quiet. So you think if I tried new audio cables it might solve my problem?

Thanks for the help guys

it might, but you could easily check this by inverting the phase when you have recorded it on to your computer. most audio recording software lets you do this. Try to record a simple kick drum, and zoom in on the soundwave. it should look something like this:



if the first large peak is positive(above the line), then its ok, if its negative (below the line) its probably phase-reversed. in you case, if the cable is out of phase, one side of the stereo recording is in phase, the other is fine.

you could also check this out visually by playing the kick drum thru you speakers, and check if the bass-speaker pops out of the cabinet (in phase), or in to the cabinet (reversed phase)

That seemed to help, thanks.

Another reason it doesn't sound as full is that the left and right are not being transfer over properly. I have a shaker in the beat, and on the SP it can be heard equally in both ears, but when I record on the computer it is only played in the right. Is it possible some setting I have is causing this? It does this not only when recording but when I am playing the beat on the SP and have it playing through my computer speakers.

EDIT: I seemed to have sorted it out through trial an error and doing what you guys said to do. Thanks for the help again.

Well, I record the beat on cassette. Then I play the recorded track and record it with the SP. Then I export it as either a WAV or AIFF file.

If your soundcard has a line input use it instead of the mic one. In any case, the AD converter of a Realtek AC97 isn't half as good as that of a soundcard designed specifically for music production. I would take Computers' advice and go for either a soundcard (there are PCI ones for under 100€ that will do the job) or a multitrack recorder, which you can find cheap enough on the net.

I don't know if most modern soundcards would be compatible with my computer. It is 6-8 years old and the only thing I've upgraded is RAM.