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Hey,,,

I am trying to record myself playing electric guitar (just audio, no video). I have a lead that goes straight from my guitar to the microphone jack in my PC. So, using audacity I tried to record. But, when played back it sounds very flat.

Does anyone know why? Could it be the lead or the software or the soundcard?

Any help much appreciated,

Matt

I don't use audacity, so I'm not sure of it's capabilities, but you would probably want to use a preamp. You might even plug your guitar into an amp, get the sound you want(fx and such) then run it into the computer.

I tried that and it just sounded really distorted when played back. But ill give it a try again

thanks,,,

Matt

The problem your having has to do with a couple of things.

First off, the microphone jack is designed for microphones. Your guitar on average has a much hotter or louder signal than a microphone. Your guitar alone probably isn't enough to mess with it too much, but that's probably why your amp is distorting. Turn the amp down and it should sound a lot better.

Second is impedance. I'm not completely educated in this area, but I know that a mic jack won't handle the guitar signal properly. You need something designed for it. For example, a direct box.

Something that would work really well is to get a cheap mic, a cheap preamp, and run that in a line in, if your computer has one. If it dosn't, you should be fine putting it in the mic input if you can turn off the mic input boost in software.

I don't know what effects Audacity has, but you can fix a flat sound with some frequency twiddling. Look for an EQ effect and give it some trebble. Then look for a distortion effect, and play around until you get the electric guitar sound you like. It will never be as good as it sounds out of a good amp, but you can get it half decent.

I use the front input line in/mic 2 on my Audigy Platinum (old sound card). It has a variable input gain, but I use a comparible gain to when I use a mic in the same port. I'd suspect you can get away with your mic input, but you'll need to learn how to use Audacity to beef up the flat sound.

The mic recording will cause a flat sound due to low impedance input of the mic on your sound card. The guitar has higher impedance than the mic impedance. So the sound recorded will be of a low quality. Even pre amped the mic is not the way to go for recording the sound will always be flat.

There is an option of a USB recording hub luckily there are a lot of options on the market these days it’s become a fairly big area innovation. So your get a lot of bang for you buck. The MAudio Fast Track USB is the worth the money I use to have an old version of it. Its needs the monitors plugged in the hub to lower the latency as the pc card will be recording and outputting the sound at the same time can cause the latency. I now use the M-Audio Firewire Solo as it lowers the latency and the extra ports are great with a high end keyboard.

If you use a line in rather than mic in socket it should be fine using a preamp.

I agree with pretty much what's already been said.

Use the line-in on your sound card rather than the mic, and run it through your guitar amp and back out to the card through the preamp line or line-out(which ever you have).

As for type of soundcard, I've always used either an SB live platinum or my current one an audigy 2 zs platinum. They work well.

Hey,,,

sorry that it has been a while, been very busy with coursework and so forth...

thanks for all the ideas. Ill look into them just wondering if something like this would work http://www.musiconmypc.co.uk/maudio-fast-track-usb-guitar-vocal-recording-audio-interface-p-244.html

thanks so much...

Matt

I use a line into an Edirol FA-66, which not only works well, it's also Vista Compatible (was about the 6th time lucky when I was trying, buying and returning interfaces on just the recommendations of people in the shops). I stick that straight into Cubase for recording (though I quite like FL studio for editing, due to the combination of versatility and power and the ease of use inherent in it's design). A lot of interfaces come with free recording software though, which (although I've never used Audacity) will probably be better than internet freeware. It's usually partially restricted versions of buyable decent software. Depending on your price range, though, decent software for recording into may be preferrable. I went to a music college last year where they had good quality recording software, and between that and a decent producer my last band was able to get a reasonably decent quality song recorded. Obviously though, it will depend on the limitations of both the software and your own personal expertise how good a sound you can get out of it. Obviously, if your problem is unwanted distortion, turning down the input you're giving it will have a good effect, but beyond that you want the sound to be as good as possible, and that's where it starts getting complicated.

EDIT: I've just had a look at the interface you linked to and it looks functional - I like the one I have but from online prices it seems vastly more expensive (I think I got a reasonably good deal on it from a music shop - I always prefer buying things from shops because it's easier to return and I know a lot of people research things in shops and look for a better deal online, so I like to redress the balance a little). To be honest, the main thing you'll probably use it for is just DI from your guitar or amp, so beyond a volume control few other features are really vital. If this seems reasonably good, then it might be worth buying. Look for customer reviews and the like first, and check that there won't be any compatibility issues and the like, but if there seem to be no problems then it might be worth going for.