strange issue with recording from bass di...

[Kev]

right i have a weird problem

today i bought a cable, xlr - mini jack, so i could record straight from the mxr bass di+ to my laptop

however

when i record, if i play fast and quite hard, the volume of the recording suddenly starts to decrease, and the sound sounds a bit warped as well, certainly not normal. this doesnt happen when my signal just goes to my amp.

is this a problem with the cable (fuk knows what), or is it a possible problem with the di on the mxr??

[Kev]

example of this with one of my distortions. i do not adjust volume, or playing technique during it.

[url="http://rapidshare.com/files/85970424/weird_recording_problem.mp3.html"]http://rapidshare.com/files/85970424/weird...roblem.mp3.html[/url]

as i said this just happens when recording using that cable out of the di socket, it doesnt change at all when comin out the amp

[cheddatom]

what are you recording into? Have you set the line input to the correct recording level? If you're overloading the input of the laptop, it may have an automatic limiter function of sorts (although i've never seen this, it could explain it!)

[Kev]

recording usin sony sound forge

the input is not overloading

if i stop playin for a few seconds, and then play again, it goes back to full volume, n then goes down again

[Kev]

im bein told that it might be my sound card on my laptop that cant deal with it, but that doesnt really explain why it sounds fine at the beginning of the recording does it??

[cheddatom]

how do you know you're not overloading it? The level meter in soundforge will not necessarily say. If you're not playing as hard at the beginning (no speakers here sorry) then that's why it sounds fine. Use your windows mixer to lower the line input level almost to the bottom, and try again. You can turn it up after in soundforge.

[Kev]

sorry after doin more recodings, its not even when i play hard, its just when i play a constant line, like in the sample

im attackin the strings with the same strength throughout recording

[Kev]

i just decided to connect the di output using the cable to my amps input, played thru, and the sound didnt change, so it looks like its the laptop, and possibly the soundcard

im definatly not overloading the single, even with line in practicly at nothing, it still does it

interface needed? like a line 6 toneport? would this solve the problem?

[cheddatom]

yeh some sort of interface. I think a toneport is not necessarily great value for money though. You're deffinitely plugged into the line-in and not the mic-in yeh?

[BigBassBob]

It could be a way of your sound card compressing the signal possibly? I have no idea because I haven't had this problem myself, but from what you say I'd say that by attacking hard you're causing the sound card to react to this increase in volume by reducing the signal... possibly. I'd try recording with a lower volume level and then turning up the volume using whatever recording software you're using.

[BigBassBob]

[quote]im definatly not overloading the single, even with line in practicly at nothing, it still does it[/quote]

woops, didn't read this far down lol

dunno wat to offer sorry.

[Muppet]

Have you tried it without the distortion, playing lightly?

It sounds pretty much to me as if your onboard soundcard is not up to the job. Most onboard cards are designed to output better than to accept incoming signals and laptop generic cards are the worst of the lot. I'd consider a small USB external soundcard.

[Kev]

ye thats what i figured in the end

however wouldnt something like a toneport be up to the job?

[Muppet]

Yes mate absolutely - it's a USB external soundcard with modelling software that sits on your PC.

[cheddatom]

If you don't use the modelling, i'm sure there's something cheaper. I've seen USB mics really cheap on Ebay, so there must be a "USB DI" somewhere.

[pete.young]

Behringer do one for £40 - UCG102 .

Shoulda bought a macbook instead!

[Kev]

the toneport gx1 is £45

behringer or line 6???

[cathode]

the same thing happened to me

but when i changed the batteries in my bas it went away...

[Toasted]

Cathode is probably the best FX forum handle ever.

[dannybuoy]

Open your device manager, select 'show devices by resource' and check no other cpu hungry devices are sharing the same IRQ. I had a top notch EMU 1616m but I couldn't use it as my laptop was set up so that the cardbus shared the same IRQ as the graphics card and some other devices. It crackled like you describe, but not all the time. If you're using your built in crappy laptop soundcard, you can improve performance big time by installing the ASIO4ALL driver and set Soundforge up to use the ASIO driver instead of Directsound that you may be using now, that's how I started out recording.

Edited February 7, 2008 by dannybuoy

[Kev]

how would i go about setting soundforge up to use it?? i tried changin it in the preferences, but when i changed it from windows sound mapper to that, it no longer playbacked audio, just recorded, which is obviously prettttty useless lol

[dannybuoy]

[quote name='BassManKev' post='136121' date='Feb 7 2008, 10:27 PM']how would i go about setting soundforge up to use it?? i tried changin it in the preferences, but when i changed it from windows sound mapper to that, it no longer playbacked audio, just recorded, which is obviously prettttty useless lol[/quote]
Not sure as I haven't used Soundforge in a while... I do most stuff in Sonar where it lets you select which kind of sound driver you want to use, ASIO, WDM, MME, Directsound, etc. I'll have a look when I get a chance as I still have it installed on my music pc!