Microphone question

Okay, so I plug a computer mic in, and I get a loud recorded sound (with lots of background hissing)

Now I went out and bought an actual mic, but it hardly picks up vocals at all...any ideas why?

The mic is a 50 mic from radio shack, so it's not like i'm trying to record an album, but I need it to lay down ideas I have so I don't have to waste time in the ACTUAL studio...

well for starters you should invest another 50 bucks on a cheap usb preamp
so you can get some decent gain, untill then try this , go to you windows mixer
(volum control) and click on options, make sure ther is a check by the advanced option, once advanced is checked click on the properties, you should now see awindow that says ADJUST VOLUME FOR: select record and then hit ok
make sure microphone is selected and adjust volume, if its still low you should see an advanced tab in the microphone window,hit it and then select mic boost

you gotta play around with these settings and the settings in the program your usin to track for proper gain staging( but thats a whole diff subject)

hope this helps

peace
MEGA

you need a preamp for it. it doesn't cost much
depends on the brand , the quality, ...

u could use ur first mic but u have 2 adjust it.

well i hope it helped

I played around with settings, that didn't work. I was afraid I'd need a mic pre-amp....thanks for the info

if it needs phantom power... then you need a preamp

read around on the packaging.... I don't know of too many radio shack mics that need phantom power.

I'm just gonna return it and get my money back...I don't really need to record shit anyways

^
Lol

now that's the wrong attitude... u wouldnt of bought it if you didnt wanna lay vocals... derrhhhhh


anyway... its pretty simple get a hiss reduction and/or noise gate program... ;)

I have cool edit 2.0 and adobe whatever it is. Hiss reduction and noise reduction didn't work? Anyway, the point of it was to have a quick and cheap way to lay down vocals to get an idea of what things would sound like. The real recording goes on at the studio.

At this point in time I have neither the time or the money or resources to start learning all the technical stuff about recording and engineering and stuff.

did some research and found this for you

http://slavebell.orgfree.com/tutoriall.htm

yeah slavebell is good, also peep my frequency help thread

Thanks, I'll look into that method

wow, i googled round and find this thread so i registered just to say thak you for puting my tut here... Im realy happy now when i see someone atualy find my tutorial usefull. Thx again
Ill visit this page here and there so if ull have any mixing/mastering questions just ask me.

good to have ur help :thumbup:

I ended up getting a maudio box