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Thread Audio adapters causing excessive signal fade

  • 6 replies
  • 4 participants
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Topic Audio adapters causing excessive signal fade
I've been trying to record from my mixer, which requires the use of an adapter to convert the cable from phono plugs to a 1/8" headphone jack. This seems to cause a lot of signal fade, to the point where the recording becomes inaudible. I'd really like to digitally record mixes from my turntables, but I'm getting a bit frustrated.

One adapter seems to cause around a 80% signal fade, and a situation involving two adapters seems hopeless. It might be because I bought them at RadioShack. Can someone confirm that adapters can really have that much impact on recording quality? I'd also like to run the signal through my guitar amp, to give it gain or reverb, but now I'm looking to get one cable to go from the source to the computer to minimize the effects.
2
Back in/around 1990 I bought a Tascam 688 midistudio (still have it....lol) and I later purchased some "made-up" XLR to 1/4" adaptor cables from an audio shop here in town. Before that I was using XLR to XLR cables for most of my mic connections. Soon after I began using the new cables I noticed a drastic drop off in my recording quality and a rather nasty hum that would not go away. After my 688 spent about two weeks in the shop the tech determined that it was indeed the adaptor cables. I chunked them and went back to using the XLR to XLR's.........

Turns out that you apparently cannot properly convert some 3 and 4 wire connectors down to a simple mono plug, lol......
3
I have not found a suitable soundcard installed on a laptop that does not color sound with noise or decreases quality or both.You can bypass soundcard for a price.A digital recorder with USB out will allow you to record digitally and the sound never touches the soundcard except on playback.Surely this is not the cheapest or best solution but it worked for me.Goodluck
4
I have not found a suitable soundcard installed on a laptop that does not color sound with noise or decreases quality or both.You can bypass soundcard for a price.A digital recorder with USB out will allow you to record digitally and the sound never touches the soundcard except on playback.I use a Fostex MR-8.Surely this is not the cheapest or best solution but it worked for me.Goodluck
5
well i have my mixer (turns) connected to my pc via chinch-cable, but i used to have a chinch-jack adapter.. in the beginning everything worked fine, but with the time i got a humming background noise..

first i thought it was either the adapter or the soundcard, but then i realized, that i made some mistakes when i rearranged the table with my turns: the audio cable was too close to the power-cable of my mixer which caused interference..

i changed this, got a better shielded cable and i never had the problem again..

now i got a different soundcard with an external unit, so i rather use a good phono cable..
6
I hadn't realized that the turntables could cause interference, I'll have to look into shielded cables, thanks! Unfortunately my flat is too small to rearrange my sound rig so the turntables are isolated, it was all I could do to keep them a safe distance from the computer.

I found that I could amplify the signal however much I wanted before it reached the sound card, but it was easy to overamp, causing the signal to be clipped at the high and lows in Cakewalk (CW), which made the recording sound distorted. However, if I made the signal volume so it registered as just under the max in CW, the resulting .wav and .mp3 files still came out a bit too quiet. *sigh* I'm such an amateur.
7
not the turntables caused interference, the power cable that crossed the audio cables did ;)

that was just a suggestion though, it doesn't mean that it has to be like this in your case..
the better cables and just arranging the cables differently worked for me at least

actually my turns/mixer are on the same table as my pc-keyboard and monitor right next to each other..