nev young wrote:
On 06/08/11 17:13, Anthony Anson wrote:
Thanks. I'll look into it further. To connect to the audio bit on the flaptop I've got to make-up the cables (phono to midi-jackplug) before I do anything else -
Rusty, Take care if you're using a flaptop. The mic input is mono. The second ring on the jack supplies volts to the microphone.
Ah, oh, ta.
Has to be the flatpot because the hi-fi isn't portable, neither is the (full) tower with Lenny on it. Tower's upstairs and hi-fi's down.
The record should be mono (1961), so I'll experiment with the headphone jack and the amp set to mono - output there is on volume control, and I have a suitable cable for that.
On 07/08/11 10:24, Anthony Anson wrote:
s to be the flatpot because the hi-fi isn't portable, neither is the (full) tower with Lenny on it. Tower's upstairs and hi-fi's down.
The record should be mono (1961), so I'll experiment with the headphone jack and the amp set to mono - output there is on volume control, and I have a suitable cable for that.
Right so does your laptop only have mic in and not Line in..if you only have mic in then it is going to sound rather erm...special...after it has been through all the microphone equalisation. That's assuming you don't wire the connector wrong and send the bias voltage to your preamp and kill it first. Don't connect the ring of the mic connector to anything and I'd probably recommend against using a mono connector in the mic socket.
Check you don't have a laptop with HDAudio as these may have a multimode input socket that can be either mic in or line level in.
Wayne Stallwood wrote:
On 07/08/11 10:24, Anthony Anson wrote:
s to be the flatpot because the hi-fi isn't portable, neither is the (full) tower with Lenny on it. Tower's upstairs and hi-fi's down.
The record should be mono (1961), so I'll experiment with the headphone jack and the amp set to mono - output there is on volume control, and I have a suitable cable for that.
Right so does your laptop only have mic in and not Line in..if you only have mic in then it is going to sound rather erm...special...after it has been through all the microphone equalisation. That's assuming you don't wire the connector wrong and send the bias voltage to your preamp and kill it first. Don't connect the ring of the mic connector to anything and I'd probably recommend against using a mono connector in the mic socket.
Mic? I shall not be using the mic socket. Headphone jack on the amp, volume set to zero, then adjusted as necessary.
Plug other end into line-in on Asus.
Play record and monitor volume on Asus using output from the headphone jack and/or vU graph, if progs have one.
Play with reording progs - see which one I prefer (should have vU meter), burn test CD
Check you don't have a laptop with HDAudio as these may have a multimode input socket that can be either mic in or line level in.
I might just carry the big bar^h^h^ba-ba-bra Anne downstairs and do it through the Soundblaster. I know how that works, and had presumed the Asus was similarly endowed...
Thanks for the warning(s)
On 07/08/11 14:42, Anthony Anson wrote:
Mic? I shall not be using the mic socket. Headphone jack on the amp, volume set to zero, then adjusted as necessary.
Plug other end into line-in on Asus.
Ahh right, you see line level inputs are not always that common on laptops quite often they just have mic in, hence my concern.
Wayne Stallwood wrote:
On 07/08/11 14:42, Anthony Anson wrote:
Mic? I shall not be using the mic socket. Headphone jack on the amp, volume set to zero, then adjusted as necessary.
Plug other end into line-in on Asus.
Ahh right, you see line level inputs are not always that common on laptops quite often they just have mic in, hence my concern.
'Course I meant 'the Acer', and there are three jacks: phones, mic, and one with a sort-of ((·))' symbol, which I presume is line-level. (And which I would have expected to be stereo, but for Nev's info')
On 7 August 2011 19:18, Anthony Anson tony.anson@girolle.co.uk wrote:
'Course I meant 'the Acer', and there are three jacks: phones, mic, and one with a sort-of ((·))' symbol, which I presume is line-level. (And which I would have expected to be stereo, but for Nev's info')
That rings true, many even low end Acer laptops have a line jack socket in which is unusual. I remember having to get an external USB sound card for my Dell Latitude D800 so I could record from line in. So it appears you lucked out there Tony.
Cheers, BJ
John Woodard wrote:
On 7 August 2011 19:18, Anthony Anson tony.anson@girolle.co.uk wrote:
'Course I meant 'the Acer', and there are three jacks: phones, mic, and one with a sort-of ((·))' symbol, which I presume is line-level. (And which I would have expected to be stereo, but for Nev's info')
That rings true, many even low end Acer laptops have a line jack socket in which is unusual. I remember having to get an external USB sound card for my Dell Latitude D800 so I could record from line in. So it appears you lucked out there Tony.
Lucked-in Shirley? In that Mohammed can go to the mountain rather than lug the mountain downstairs...
It was a very cheap secondhand buy from that stall at the top of Norwich Market - it has a pre-loved (and scored) screen replacing the broken one which was on it, and a new battery, and had a semi-working corporate version of XP Home. (Won't play with installing some software packages - though: Photoshop 7 and IIRC, Pagemill.)
I wish I'd replaced that XP Home with my (never used!) XP Pro - now I have Squeeze on the same machine, I understand it's not a sensible thing to try to install the better version of XP...
Never mind - I'm throwing together a fast and powerful midi tower with a caddy for different OSs.
On 07-Aug-11 19:47:39, John Woodard wrote:
On 7 August 2011 19:18, Anthony Anson tony.anson@girolle.co.uk wrote:
'Course I meant 'the Acer', and there are three jacks: phones, mic, and one with a sort-of ((·))' symbol, which I presume is line-level. (And which I would have expected to be stereo, but for Nev's info')
That rings true, many even low end Acer laptops have a line jack socket in which is unusual. I remember having to get an external USB sound card for my Dell Latitude D800 so I could record from line in. So it appears you lucked out there Tony.
Cheers, BJ
Now that's interesting, BJ! I hadn't heard of such a gadget. Are they still around?
For the record (no pun intended ... ): I have an Advent 8117. Nice little machine. It has an input socket on the front with a "microphone" symbol beside it. I've wondered about trying to feed a line-im *very* gently into it, to see what would happen (it's fine for microphone input). However, I've not dared taking the risk of blowing the input circuitry!
The (very sketchy) manual that comes on the CD with the machine appears to be somewhat inconsistent about this question.
On the one hand, it says:
Chapter 1 getting to know the basics System At A Glance [...] 2. Microphone/Audio Line-in Jack The microphone/Audio Line-in jack (3.5-mm diameter) is where you connect a microphone or an external audio input source such as a CD Player.
which explicitly suggests that it is possible. On the other hand, there is no other mention of using "an external audio input source" anywhere else in the manual, and the only other reference is:
Voice Recording You will need to plug-in an external microphone to the microphone connector to record sound.
which tends to suggest that you can only use a microphone! However, I'm not too trusting of the thoroughness with which the manual may have been prepared. It may be that they simply skipped over mentioning audio line-in, since they were talking here about voice recording. Or it could be that they should not have included mention of "an external audio input source" in the first place!
I've had a long-going (and slow-going) project to make digital copies of vinyl & shellac records (some 80+ years old ... ), and of old audio tapes. So far, I've had pretty good success by using a high-quality microphone, carefully adjusting the quality of the speaker sound on the record/tape player, carefully positioning the mike, starting it all up and then very quietly leaving the room (if I scratch or sniff, it gets recorded). One can always try again if the first try isn't good enough.
So either:
[A] I can bite the bullet and very gently try a line-in input. In which case: Do people have good practical advice on how to proceed carefully so as to avoid zapping anything?
or:
[B] I can get one of those USB sound cards (which should be safe). In which case: Where's a good place to look, and which are good ones? (Oh, and would Debian readily recognise it?).
With thanks, Ted.
-------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) ted.harding@wlandres.net Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 07-Aug-11 Time: 23:20:55 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
(Ted Harding) wrote:
/snip/
[A] I can bite the bullet and very gently try a line-in input. In which case: Do people have good practical advice on how to proceed carefully so as to avoid zapping anything?
The safest way to proceed would be a (line-level) feed from a headphone outlet into the microphone jack - which is also line-level, or should be. The output of this ought to be adjusted by the volume control, so you can work up to a sensible level.
or:
[B] I can get one of those USB sound cards (which should be safe). In which case: Where's a good place to look, and which are good ones? (Oh, and would Debian readily recognise it?).
First I've heard of them too, but filed in the noddle for future reference.
On 7 August 2011 23:20, Ted Harding ted.harding@wlandres.net wrote:
Now that's interesting, BJ! I hadn't heard of such a gadget. Are they still around?
It was a while ago and I don't think I used it under Linux. IIRC it was a Creative Labs Sound Blaster MP3 Plus sometimes call Creative Digital Music. I seem to remember it was used on Windows XP pre SP2. I expect I was running Linux Mandrake still on my desk top at the time but it worked well on XP with the Dell Latitude D800 and my subsequent upgrade to a Precision Workstation M60 Laptop. I used to use its optical out to feed my Yamaha AV amp and the sound quality was pretty amazing for a laptop at the time.
There are still plenty on USB sound cards about but I'm not too sure about Linux support, however Creative Labs used to supply Linux drivers back in the day. I remember installing modules to get my SB Live card to work in Red Hat 5.1 just after the second ever ALUG meeting @ the UEA! I expect my post to the list raving about the success of getting sound working in Red Hat is still archived. :-)
Cheers, BJ
On Mon, Aug 08, 2011 at 09:10:14AM +0100, John Woodard wrote:
There are still plenty on USB sound cards about but I'm not too sure about Linux support
Most of the cheap ones conform to the USB audio class, so are supported out of the box on Linux. If you're looking for the higher end studio quality ones then I believe some of those have custom drivers.
J.
On 08-Aug-11 16:17:28, Jonathan McDowell wrote:
On Mon, Aug 08, 2011 at 09:10:14AM +0100, John Woodard wrote:
There are still plenty on USB sound cards about but I'm not too sure about Linux support
Most of the cheap ones conform to the USB audio class, so are supported out of the box on Linux. If you're looking for the higher end studio quality ones then I believe some of those have custom drivers.
J.
Do you believe in happy endings? This .sig brought to you by the letter Q and the number 32 Product of the Republic of HuggieTag
That's useful, Jonathan. Thanks.
Many thanks to all for the comments and info. I did a google searchon "USB sound card" and found plenty out there, ranging. from basic at about £20 (suitable for connecting audio output from other sources) to well into the £100s, but the latter look as though I would need to be into doing fancier stuff!
Any further comments info will be welcome. Best wishes to all, Ted.
-------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) ted.harding@wlandres.net Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 08-Aug-11 Time: 18:33:17 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
On Mon, 2011-08-08 at 09:17 -0700, Jonathan McDowell wrote:
On Mon, Aug 08, 2011 at 09:10:14AM +0100, John Woodard wrote:
There are still plenty on USB sound cards about but I'm not too sure about Linux support
Most of the cheap ones conform to the USB audio class, so are supported out of the box on Linux. If you're looking for the higher end studio quality ones then I believe some of those have custom drivers.
I would be careful about the claims made for the hardware. As an example if you see a card advertised as converting to MP3 I would bet that it doesn't and that the card sends PCM to the PC. The included CD will no doubt include the software which does the MP3 conversion (under Windows or whatever OSes the manufacturer supports)
On 15/08/11 17:08, Steve Fosdick wrote:
I would be careful about the claims made for the hardware. As an example if you see a card advertised as converting to MP3 I would bet that it doesn't and that the card sends PCM to the PC. The included CD will no doubt include the software which does the MP3 conversion (under Windows or whatever OSes the manufacturer supports)
Well in that example it would be a good thing though surely ?
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Anthony Anson -
John Woodard -
Jonathan McDowell -
Steve Fosdick -
ted.harding＠wlandres.net -
Wayne Stallwood