I am recording my mixes with Audacity. The problem I was having is that when I recorded the sound was always distorted. I have been able to correct this by turning down the channel gains and the master volume. The new problem I have is that now that I have turned down the output volumes, I can barely hear my mix when I am using my headphones. It is so soft I am having problems hearing parts of the music. Plus, even at this low output level, when I add an echo effect or certain baselines it still comes out distorted on my Audacity file.

What am I doing wrong. I am using the digital outs on my mixer and a high quality Monster cable that goes from dual RCA to minijack. It seems like I have something set wrong in Audacity or something. I have turned my headphones all the way up and I can stil barely hear my mix. I really do not know where to go from here and I would aprreciate any advice. Thanks in advance and have fun mixing!

The "problem" is your line input from your soundcard.

Most line inputs from soundcards are not calibrated precisely. That means that when you put the line input recording volume to 100%, it distorts the sound.

You can adjust this.

My line input only records at about 4% of the volume & I then keep my mixer in the green so it gives me a result of about -6db in Audacity.

After you're done, you just normalize the sound to 0db & you're finished

Conclusion: Just adjust the recording level of your line input from your soundcard. This can be found like this:

-> Start -> Settings -> Sound -> Recording

Then click your right mouse button on the line input & click on properties.

Play something from your mixer & keep it green. Open Audacity & you'll see your levels. Adjust the line input volume from your soundcard untill the levels in audacity are somewhere beneath 0dB. Not too low, but around -5dB or so is good enough.
By doing this you create extra headroom. But this is good, you can always normalize your mix afterwards to 0dB.

Greetzzz

Thanks JuG that fixed it for me.

quote:

Originally posted by DJVYBE:
Thanks JuG that fixed it for me.

No problem