Preventing Sound Loss From The 404

[stationarynomad]

Hi.

I'm a fellow beatmaker and figured I'd take my question straight to the source.

I've had a problem with losing sound quality while transferring stuff from the 404 since I bought it a few years ago. I used to take my recordings straight off of the memory card in .wav and drop it on my computer. The sound would never transfer like it originally sounded on the machine.

I thought this was just because it was directly being recorded. So I've been fooling around with a Korg 24 track. I'm using the line out connected to an adapter to fit into a mic slot. I still can't get the original sound I'm going for. For instance. I will play with chorus and get a beat to sound very wide and wavy. When I record it you can't tell I used chorus at all. Whenever I go back to listen to it on the machine it sounds great again.

What should I do to get the best possible recording onto a 24 track. My stuff sounds great (up to my standards) on the 404, then comes out sounding sub-par after I lose the sound I was going for.

Thanks. Peace.

[hurlingdervish]

sounds like the internal analog to digital converter is to blame. Don't know much about it, but it is usually what is causing degradation in these situations.

i would use the RCA jacks though, the headphone jacks on gear never seem to have as good quality as through RCA, at least with my KP3 anyway...

[dman5000]

i got to chime in on this even tho its basically answered i just want to cosign with what HD said about using the rca jacks on the gear and i want to add that if you are using a minimal/inexpensive setup and recording into your computer through the mic in(aka what ive been doing) do yourself a favor and get one of those usb plugs that has rca jacks they arent expensive at all its not a soundcard or anything major, but my partner just got one and i really think it noticably improves the recording quality vs 1/8 mic in.

[CULP]

chorus dosent work as well if you dont record in stereo or... export/record in stereo. maybe check to make sure its being recorded in stereo, careful with chorus it can stretch the sounds too much killing the drum kick which is evident on on external speakers !3!

[fauna]

chorus dosent work as well if you dont record in stereo or... export/record in stereo. maybe check to make sure its being recorded in stereo, careful with chorus it can stretch the sounds too much killing the drum kick which is evident on on external speakers !3!

plus one - this ^^ is what i think may be happening too.