Hi all,
I'm new on this forum, joining largely because I want to learn a little bit more about recording techniques and technology. I have an incredibly cheap, basic recording setup, and I am an absolute noobie when it comes to recording as I'm really a musician, not an engineer. The problem I have is this:
I'm trying to make reasonable recordings of my acoustic guitar and voice into my laptop. More for songwriting and composing purposes than to release it, as the sound quality is just too crap. But I have quite a lot of background noise on the recordings I've made so far. I'm running a JTS TM-969 (p.o.s. dynamic mic) into my teeny tiny Phonic AM120 MKII mixer. I send the signal to the mic/line input of my laptop via the red/white AV style output plugs on the mixer, through the AV cable then to an AV to 3.5mm stereo converter plug. I've experimented with gain, output levels, etc. and nothing seems to get rid of the background noise. The best I can do is use the "noise reduction" effect in Audacity, which ends up just making the take sound "underwater" or "tinny". Basically that just replaces the first hissy background noise with another one.
Does anyone have any advice? I know I've got really bad equipment, but if there is any other way to get a better take without resorting to buying more stuff I'd appreciate the suggestion because I don't got no money. Basically, I want to know what you would do if you were stuck on a desert island with only my shit gear, and the option for someone to helicopter drop a cable or two, (or even a cheapo mic, or something, maybe in the $100 range) i.e. a cheap fix.
Thanks,
Nathan