Hi fellow SP'ers.
Basically I've been noticing this for a while now but everytime I make a beat on the 555 I am really happy with how it sounds. But once I have recorded it into my laptop via the USB connection on the 555 I am happy no longer . The track just seems to lose some of it's quality and even with the internal processing level up at +6d it's really quiet. I realise you can turn it up even more on the sampler, but that just makes it distort.
Is it just that USB audio is kinda crappy, or my laptop is crap? If I invested in a new USB soundcard what should I get and would it make much of a difference to the SP555 USB connection?
I would very much appreciate any ideas.
Cheers

hi
wellcome
i think that it would be more helpful to you if you post this on the sp555 section.
anyway, what i can say about this subject is that, owning an sp606 wich has the same process of recording, don't worry about your pc or your soundcard: usb recording is not high volume level (at least on the 606); but i however tend to think that the soundcard has nothing to do inside this "trouble": the audio is coming from the usb cable and not from the soundcard's preamp, so...

Thanks for the quick reply. Yeh, I will post it on that board too. Sorry dude, Im not completely clear what you were saying there. Could you clarify? Basically all I want is to do is get a louder and cleaner recording from my sampler. I just don't think the USB on the 555 is good enough for what I want. Could I record into a multitrack or something like that whic is separate from the computer?

Could you describe the difference in the audio quality from the 555 and after recording to the computer. Does it just lower in quality and fidelity or do you just get clicks and pops which would mean that your laptop is not optimal for what your trying to do with it. I had a 555 in the past and i couldnt hear a difference in the recording from the machine to the computer. What i did notice is that the latency was pretty low so the recording came out really crackly so i downloaded the ASIO drivers and used a better computer and it helped. If your trying to get Mastering quality through a usb then your probably going to have to get some type out outboard gear like an mbox or some shit. But if you want quality that you like to hear and only the pickiest of people could notice the difference, then a usb is not a bad option to get it into your computer, then you can process it more when its there.

i thought to have been clear enough, but i retry.
as you said now, and as i said before, the sound coming from the usb recording is not very loud. so, answering to your doubt ("laptop good/not good, usb good/not good"), i told you that for me the laptop or even the soundcard are ok. the trouble resides on the usb recording: the sound is not loud enough (personally sometimes i found it a little bit "metallic").
what soundcard you own?

Ellaguru thx again. I havn't got a soundcard for my laptop, thats the thing. One of the reasons I bought the 555 was because it acts as a soundcard as well as being a pretty cool sampler. I do have a pci soundblaster audigy on my old desktop but that thing is slow like a tortoise (800 mhz) you cant do any music stuff on it anymore! But when I was using it, my recordings were phatter.

Hey Springwater, thanks for the reply. I'm not getting any clicks/pops or anything like that. Yep, the quality of the tune declines noticeably and I would say one of main gripes is the volume level. Like when I get included on a mix, my choons are much quieter ,so have to be boosted in a forced way makin it sound kinda crappy.
My laptop is pretty quick (8gbram/2.8ghz), altho it is not well equipped for sound (hardware wise), but that shouldn't matter coz I am using the 555 as the soundcard no?
What about buying a preamp/amp or something? I was even thinking of buying a new desktop and put a badass soudcard in there. Excessive?
Or I am I just deluded? Does the higher volume of most tracks around just mean they have been professionally mastererd?
Lol for someone who has been making music since he was 17 I dont know much about thiss shiit!

Mine is quieter when I run it into the comp. Quality is there, but its just quieter. I use Audacity and amplify the whole track to -0.1 db with the Audacity preset to get it as loud as I want it without clipping.

Invest in a decent pre-amp preferably with a tube. This will warm up and thicken your sound. You will even notice a difference with your laptops built in sound card. If this is not an option for you try normalizing your project after you record via USB. Another thought is to run it through a compressor vst to bump it up. Here's a good list of free vst compressors http://www.untidymusic.com/wordpress/vs ... r-plugins/

There was another vst compressor that came up a lot on mpc forums and other sites, but I can't seem to remember the name at the moment.... It's getting rather late here.

Lastly, a lot of the music heard here has been super compressed using vinyl sim. If you sample everything with this fx applied then run your final track with it the sound is going to be noticeable louder. The disadvantage of this is that you lose dynamics in your track. When you look at the wave form produced it's going to be a thick wall. On the opposite side of the spectrum a properly balanced track without compression can be just as loud and the wave form will look like a heart rate monitor with lots of peaks and valleys. As a rule of thumb if your samples have a lot of bass filter the lows out and it will increase the perceived volume by heaps.

The SP-555 has a built in USB soundcard. You can't add a pre-amp to that. There isn't a such thing as a pre-amp in a USB chain like that. The bottom line is that the output signal through the USB is just low. You can monitor it at higher levels, but the output will still be low. Simply raise your recording level in your audio recording program or raise the volume post-recording. As I said, the quality is there...its just at a lower volume. Simple as a dimple.

Maybe turn up the external volume of the 555 which u can do. It boost the volume of the 555 output globally so maybe it will work for the USB.

You wouldn't use built in soundcard. Any laptop that has 8gb of ram will have a line in. That's why you'd use the preamp.

@springwater he already has it set to +6 db. The issue is that when you go through USB on the unit it limits how loud it can go because of a certain threshold limit.

And yah normalizing and compressing the post recording will significantly increase the perceived volume for better or worse. As j dilla said "if you can't hear this shit turn it louder".