Re: SoundMeister recording quality?

["Rodney Hester" <rod72@optonline.net>]

"Michael J. Mahon" <mjmahon@aol.com> wrote in message
20030521170542.23152.00000070@mb-m13.aol.com">news:20030521170542.23152.00000070@mb-m13.aol.com...
> Rodney Hester asked:
>
> >However, the recording quality is _horrid_.  I'm not talking about mildly
> >annoying here, I'm talking about unbelievably noisy and faint to the
point
> >of being rather difficult to make out what was said at all (if you didn't
> >know in advance).
> >
> >I'm using a standard late-90s PC 'boom microphone' to do the recording,
and
> >even with sensitivity set to High in DigitalSession, the oscilloscope
shows
> >no more than maybe 1/4 of the total scope in amplitude when I yell into
the
> >mic.
>
> Try another sound source.  It sounds like the mic output level is
> way below the level that the card is expecting.  Is it a line-level
> input, as opposed to a microphone-level input?

It's not a powered mic (just your standard PC desktop boom mic), so I
assumed (according to Econ's documentation) that setting things to
microphone (instead of line) should account for this.

It may be that it's just expecting a completely different type of
microphone, I'm not sure.  I'm going to do a line-in test as soon as time
permits (and I can get some gear in there).

> >I'm relatively certain the wire soldering job I did is adequate - wire
> >current-carrying levels seem consistent across all three 'hot' wires (2
> >stereo + mic) and I've resoldered without improvement.  Both the
> >SoundMeister Control Panel and DigitalSession are set to record from
> >microphone (instead of line in, which I believe controls an amplification
> >circuit on the board?).
>
> If the wires are not shorted or open, then they're fine.  Is there a
> jumper on the card to select input level.  Microphones typically
> require 10x-50x more voltage gain than line-level (about 1v p-p)
> inputs.

No jumper - at least on my card, this appears to be software-controlled by a
custom control panel included on the installer disk (I've made a .2MG image
if anyone wants it - it's version 0.9).

Rodney