Posted by Joseph Ashwood on 04/23/06 00:53

"Sylvia Moreno" <entropy0@realemail.net> wrote in message
news:1145736056.838887.248660@e56g2000cwe.googlegroups.com...
> I tried the solution of getting a good sound card, and installed my ESS
> Maestro in the system.

Since I didn't recognise the brand at all I looked it up, the Maestro
appears to be a cheap consumer grade card with a modem, in fact the AC97
on-board is probably superior. Visit a good music store and ask them for the
Behringer UCA202 (http://www.behringer.com/UCA202/index.cfm?lang=ENG),
they'll try to upsell you decide for yourself. It's not going to be
professional grade, but it's probably the best you can get for $35, in fact
it's the only equipment of it's type that I'm aware of in that price range
(corrections welcomed, opinions welcomed, I don't own one). That is about as
cheap as you can get away with to get decent recording.

What you've come across is the substantial difference between a recording
capable device and a standard playback device. All the sound cards you've
probably ever bought have been playback devices, they have good DACs
(Digital-Analog Converter) and are capable of delivering sound to the
outside world, the inputs on these are generally not even worth considering.
What you need is a recording capable card, these cards are tuned the
opposite direction, they have great ADCs (Analog-Digital Converter) and will
properly translate everything that you feed them (including the hiss from
your microphone), the inputs on these are great, and they are generally more
expensive.

The other problem you're going to quickly run across is that your microphone
is probably in the same category, it's a $5 mic from a computer store,
you're going to want to change this. There are a number of inexpensive mics
around, and you'll probably need a mic preamp as well.

Combined these will probably fix the bulk of your initial problems. Your
other option is to change the sample rate on the voice recording, if you can
fool your software into treating it as 44.1 instead of 48kHz you're initial
complaint should go away. As another option your likely problem is that your
sound cards are not supplying the voltage that the mic requires to perform,
you can build an inexpensive box that creates a voltage bias on the wire, it
won't sound professional, but nothing in your signal chain is professional
so it probably won't be your biggest problem.
Joe

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