sound card - no line-in

[Guest]

I am new to all this music terminology. Goal is to record friend on keyboard and microphone through her mixer. I have a laptop that has a mic jack and a headphone jack, thats it.

After hours of experimenting we finally connected from headphone jack out of mixer to mic jack of computer. Seemed to work ok, are we losing quality without the line-in jack?

If i get a new computer do you have suggestions for a sound card?

Thanks

[Acoustica Greg]

Hi,

There are two possible problems with using a microphone jack:

1. Most of them are mono, not stereo.
2. Mic jacks are amplified so that there may be too much gain. You can end up with lots of distortion.

Generally, you'll get better results and have more flexibility using a line-level input (Line In).

If necessary, you can get USB audio interfaces that add a Line In connection. Here's an example.

Greg

[EL34]

Yes, what Greg said.
You don't want to run a mixer into a Mic input.
Get an external USB or Firewire soundcard.

I have an M-Audio Firewire solo that has balanced Mic in, Guitar in, headphone out, SPDIF in's and outs, Line level outs.

[Acoustica Eric]

Just to add to this, you can use the setup you have, just don't over drive the inputs. If you hear a distorted sound after recording or your level indicator in mixcraft is burried in the red, turn down the mixer or the output on the keyboard. Also turn off mic boost within windows recording properties.
BTW, you don't need the mixer. Just plug the keyboard into your laptops mic input and control the input level with the keyboard.

But yes, Greg and El34 are correct, mic inputs are hotter than line inputs and can result in a signal that is too high.

Suggestion for soundcard, depends on what you want to do. If you just want a mic input, a line input and a stereo output, then any card is fine. The general AC97 audio that comes onboard a lot of Mainboards is fine.

[Ian Craig]

Get with the times people

[AHornsby]

That Behringer interface is STILL in stock.

[Rolling Estonian]

Wow.

[Acoustica Greg]

That Behringer interface is STILL in stock.

It's a perennial classic.

[Mark Bliss]

If I'm not mistaken, at some point the market was flooded with foreign/counterfeit knock-offs of those and they were to say the least, highly unreliable.

[Acoustica Greg]

If I'm not mistaken, at some point the market was flooded with foreign/counterfeit knock-offs of those and they were to say the least, highly unreliable.

Yeah, I generally just recommend these units for people using Spin It Again, since this unit doesn't have an ASIO driver. Not good for low latency recording.