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set up all my stuff and it sounds terrible. last week i had it somewhere else and it sounded good. whats goin on

i got an AKG 220 hanging in the closet with about 3 blankets and a mattress

hooked up to a samson phantom power box which then goes to the laptop.

when it records theres a slight constant buzz and on top of that it sounds terrible. i dont understand. the buzz was there before which id like to get rid of, but it sounded pretty nice in the other place

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anonymous Sun, 11/28/2010 - 19:22

Well, the equipment is the same....so, either,

Your setting up your recording chain(equipment) differently.
or
the other place sounds better than your closet.
or
you personally sounded better last week.
Wich one is it? lol

My guess, with the limited info you provided is a gain staging problem, try setting up in the middle of the room and turn the gain down and sing closer to the mic.
That might also tone down the buzzing..maybe.

anonymous Sun, 11/28/2010 - 21:56

well theres actually not a light in this closet

and the closet is roughly the same size as the otherone except probably 100 years older

um a stereo is plugged in to the same outlet as the phantom power adapter

the cords are literally all the same, and all brand new minus the one going mic to phantom power

and lol no its not me sounding worse

Boswell Mon, 11/29/2010 - 04:01

This sounds obvious, but have you checked that the microphone is facing the right way in your second location? The Perception 220 is a side-address cardioid mic, and has a front and a back.

Recording via a laptop sound card is never going to give you very good results, both from the point of view of sonic quality but also extraneous noises. Assuming you can sort out your immediate problem, your mic would sound much better if you were to get an external pre-amplifier.

A dual-channel pre-amp with USB interface need not set you back a huge amount. Something at the bottom end like the ART USB is very cheap and not great sonically, but even that would be better than using the computer sound card and external PP supply. If you could stretch to an unit like the RME BabyFace, you would suddenly bring your recordings alive and get the best out of your microphone.

anonymous Mon, 11/29/2010 - 11:34

i dono about picture rules but

no turntable in the stereo

the mic cant plug in without the phantom power box right.

i don't have a dynamic mic to see if there's no buzzing. this is all i got im a broke kid obviously haha

the cord running from the mic to phantom power box i THINK is pretty new. the first one i tried didnt work at all so i know that one was messed, but this one looks a lot newer. but it could be the problem still

and the buzzing cant be from wiring issues because of the old house because the first location was in a brand new room and it still had buzzing.

the age of the closet wouldn't be the cause of worse quality would it? disregarding the buzzing

audiokid Mon, 11/29/2010 - 12:24

Glad to see you have joined the site, time to move this in Home Recording Forum.

This is pretty simple. Isolate each thing. Remove the mic and phantom power system. Period. Is it still buzzing? Disconnect the Sampson ( un plug it out of the wall) and remove anything that is connect to your audio path on by one. Is it still buzzing? Take your system to another room, location and even to a new house. Is it still buzzing?

Learn how to identify and isolate buzzing. This will help you for years to come and teach you that low end product always have noise, poor wiring can be overcome by learning and doing or changing.

If your problem with this system is buzzing everywhere you go, upgrade..

Boswell Tue, 11/30/2010 - 04:36

OK, what you have there is a balanced jack lead, which would be correct for the balanced microphone output of the PP supply, but is probably not correct for the input of your laptop. The laptop almost certainly has a unbalanced stereo input, so you are not feeding the laptop with the correct type of signal.

Despite what you did before using an unbalanced TS 1/4" jack lead and a 1/8" jack adaptor, it's not generally a good idea to ground one side of the microphone signal from the PP unit. However, if that old method did work and you cannot retrieve the lead and adaptor that you used, you could try using a 1/4" mono jack adaptor at the PP unit output to see if it restored the respectable signal. You would, of course, see it only in the left channel in the laptop. [="http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2103725"]This item[/]="http://www.radiosha…"]This item[/] from RadioShack may do the job, but it's not clear whether the TRS ring connection is grounded or left open. A similar item for use at the laptop 1/8" jack end is [[url=http://="http://www.radiosha…"]this[/]="http://www.radiosha…"]this[/], but, again, no info on what they do with the ring connection. [[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.sweetwat…"]This[/]="http://www.sweetwat…"]This[/] insert cable from Sweetwater would do a better job, replacing your existing cable but nevertheless leaving one channel on the laptop with a dangling open circuit phone plug. Cue a mono dual jack adaptor...