Don't Break Your Soundcard., A tip about going from your amp to your pc. Options

[Kyle Logue]

Back before I was heavily involved in sound engineering I would directly connect my amp's output to my computer's soundcard. After a few recording sessions my soundcard broke. Don't worry...it won't necessarily happen to you.

Here's something to remember though:

1) If you're using your soundcards mic input and it doesn't have a line-in input do this(skip if using line-in input):
Before you make the connection double click on the sound icon on the bottom right of your screen. Click on Options->Properties and change the radio button from playback to recording. Hit ok and you should see all of your soundcards inputs listed as it would be on a mixer. Under microphone click the "advanced" button and uncheck the box that says "microphone boost." You want to do this because the signal coming from your amp or fx board is already amp'ed. You don't need to re-amp it. Turning this off will keep your soundcard from distorting the sound and also from breaking.

2) In your audio recording program, you are usually provided with an input monitor before you hit the record button. It looks like a decibel meter(because it is lol). You want this meter to hit 0dB or a little below when you are playing at your loudest. Don't confuse this with 0 volume. This will give you the cleanest sound. If you're audio recording program doesn't have a meter, you should try a free program called sony acid xpress which can be found here. It's the program that I use for all my recordings.

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This post has been edited by Kyle Logue: Jan 30 2008, 06:15 PM