I used to record a lot on my old desktop computer through a Soundblaster Live! that had a 1/4" input jack (the standard plug that you use with guitars and microphones), but I have now upgraded to a laptop which has an 1/8" input, the size of small headphone jacks. I’ve tried putting my 1/4" jacks into it with the help of an adapter, but the sound quality is just abysmal. I would like to use the 1/4" jacks without adapters. I’ve heard that there are external USB adapters/sound cards available that can help me, but I’m not really comfortable just buying one without hearing about any firsthand experience. What are my options here, and is there a reasonably cheap setup that anyone can recommend?
I might be wrong, but it seems like the sound quality on the input on this laptop is much worse than the 1/8" input on the built-in soundcard on my desktop. I feel like there some kind of shielding issue here that makes your suggestion undesireable. Regardless, I think I’d like to have some kind of external soundcard because I want to be able to plug my laptop into my stereo anyway.
That was just an example. You may want to check with a music store. They may have a super industrial type. Or, if you have mad soldering skillz you can make your own?
for recording on all the laptops I have owned, I find running it on its batteries during the record significantly decreases the signal noise. If you have an “Active” signal coming out of your guiter (that is, your guitar has a 9v battery in it), you will have a lot more flexibility, otherwise, you might want to turn on “mic boost” when plugging it in to get more headroom. Should work fine with a 1/4" to 1/8" adapter. This should not affect the “quality”. Of course, if you want to do it “right” you could get a break out box, but in my experience there isnt much of an advantage to doing that generally speaking, having invested thousands in various break out boxes and configurations.
Without knowing what brand of computer you have, it’s hard to say what your experience with the signal to noise ratio is going to be like. Waaay back when I was most concerned about mic input, I also used a SBLive! card because it was the best ratio available, but I have found that laptops have a really diverse range of sound hardware built in.
mrrealtime’s suggestions bear investigating, if only because that’s the cheapest option. I have an older SoundBlaster Extigy USB sound device that I’ve used with my laptop and external sound sources with good success. All of my recent laptops have quite decent audio output capabilities, too – I had a Sony Vaio plugged into my Pioneer Elite receiver recently and it delivered excellent quality.
Well, it depends on what you mean by ‘reasonably cheap’. If you are willing to spend around $500 you can get an audio interface that will take mulitple inputs and comes with great recording software.
I got a Digidesign MBox for around $500. It came with ProTools recording software and a some plugins like Reason Adapted, Ableton Live and IK Sample Tank. This is a full recording suite and you can put out studio quality recordings.
In the first sample that is my acoustic mic’ed with nothing else on it but a bit of reverb. The second is my electric straight into the MBox using a plugin in called Amplitube. The drums and the rest were done with various plug-ins that were included with the MBox, though I did buy Sample Tank, which is does the piano stuff.
No question SleeStak’s proposal is better. I actually use a mackie mixer and an AKG 535 mic for my guitar, and a soundblaster USB input…but then you’re into a thousand bucks. For just recording your electric guitar, however, I still think all you need is a little el cheapo preamp (built into your guitar) and your mic input on your computer. You can get all the effects you could ever want with a program like coolEdit or whatever Adobe is calling it now…and do all your mixing with fruity loops…all that for under 100 bucks…and if you learn a bit about headroom and waveform editing, you can easily produce “pro quality” sounds.
A quarter-inch plug will not equate electrically to a 1/8" mini mic jack. A quarter-inch mic jack is a low-impedance mic, and mini/PC mics are high-impedance. The 1/4" to 1/8" adaptor is no problem, but it still won’t sound right. And a guitar’s level output is even lower than a low-impedance mic. In other words: neither a XLR/“stage” mic or a guitar is really supposed to be able to plug directly into a PC’s mic/line-in jack.
Most laptop “mic jacks” also double as line-in jacks; there is a setting in the OS sound properties for which you want to choose. The usual difference is a +20dB boost applied to the jack for mics, as mics have a lower level than a line-in source would. But the soundcard amp is usually pretty bad, most people like to use an external line-in level source if they can.
What you want is a preamp that you can run your guitar or mic through. You can use an external mising board and run the headphone-out of the mixing board to the “line-in” jack on the PC. Or you can get a direct-input box and run the mic or guitar through that. M-Audio used to have a little dual preamp called the AudioBuddy for PC use, that had 1/4" and XLR jacks and had phantom power as well. Its output was a line-level signal you could then run into a PC.
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you can make your own?