Church - Audacity recording

[GWall]

I need help..
Can someone please advise me.

We are attempting to record the services from our church using audacity.
What is the best way to record to the programme?
Using the Aux Out (sends) and connecting to the PC input?
Please ask any questions if you need more information.
Any help would be appreciated.

Gareth.

 

[indianajo]

What kind of a microphone input device are you using? A mixer? what make & model? Usual outputs on Peavey equipment (I own) are main, mon, tape. Main goes to house sound power amps, usually. Monitor or tape can go to the recorder. Tape outputs are usually 1/4" RCA jacks and meant for short distances. Mon can be differential output, which is more hum resistant. Mon is meant to go to the amplifier that drives the speakers that point up at the band.
How far away is the mixer from the PC running Audacity? Under 10' you can use RCA or 1/4 phone plug cables on the mixer end, stereo 1/8" phone plug on the PC end. Over that length you might get hum. Long length you can use stereo 1/4 phone plug on the source end with twisted pair cable with shield to the body, or XLR with shield to 1, but at the PC end you would need a line receiver to convert the differential signal to single ended for the standard PC input.
You can also use standard radio links, or optical, to take the signal long distances, for <$100 these days.

 

[MAAC0]

I would invest in a USB preamp, since the Laptop sound cards are usually crap.
There are also mixers with USB outputs like the Yamaha MG series.
If You are trying to record a choir, You'll have to invest in good microphones also. Condenser comes to me in mind since they are more sensitive and capture a few feet away.

 

[Paul Hirst]

We currently use Audacity to record our services.
Like those that have posted before, you need to tell us what type of equipment you are using. We have a mixing board with a USB out and we plug that into a laptop. In Audacity you select the mic input, in our case it is usb and that is basically it. If your board does not have a usb you can use an RCA to jack adapter (two RCA to one jack). Plug the RCA into the "record" outs of the board and plug jack into "mic" on the laptop. Select the mic in the drop down box for input.

 

[GWall]

Hi all.


Thank you for your responses.
It is primarily to record a single voice i.e. tie mic, vocal mic (sm58), goose head mic at lectern etc..
Current set up:
Soundcraft LX7ii (standard analogue - would love a digital!)
Standard Desktop PC
Currently the connection is going from the Aux Send (1/4 jack) to mic input (1/8 jack).
Is this the best type of cable to use or would a different cable produce better sound quality?


Thanks.

 

[indianajo]

For a 2 m cable or less, that setup is fine.
For runs of 3 m or more, if there is a hum problem, a twisted pair cable may help a little.
My PC makes slightly better sound if the line level input (1 to 2 vac)is put in the aux jack (blue) instead of the microphone input (pink). It hisses a little less that way. Later models don't have an aux input.
I've found Dell & Gigabyte Tech tower case mainboards both had decent sounding digitizers. I was not pleased with the encoder in my laptop computer.

 

[Paul Hirst]

If you are experiencing hiss it is very easy to reduce with Audacity. Do a search on youtube and you will find a few tutorials. We run our mic to a ZED-14 board then usb to an old 1st gen laptop. We can trim the sermon, reduce hiss, and convert to MP3 in about 5 minutes for a one hour sermon. Uploads take about 10 minutes. If your speaker moves around a lot I suggest a clip-on mic.

 

[jplesset]

You may find that the "send" output overloads your mic input, and is better matched to your "line" input on the PC.

 

[turk 182]

if your only after a single input i would use the "direct out" on that channel or apply it to one of the "group" outputs and use that in stereo. and as jplesset mentioned if your pc has line input separate from mic input go with that, as an additional precaution a 6 or 12 db pad might be handy to have so as to not overload your pc input (if it is a mic input).

additional note bridging inputs without summing resistors can be problematic.

 

[GWall]

Many thanks! I'll give your suggestions a go at the weekend.

Gareth.

 

[Damo s]

If you are stuck with analogue outs for the source then I would buy an external soundcard. As suggested above the standard PC ones tend to be poor and a mic input on that is not where you want the connection to be going. You don't need an expensive one something with a dedicated line input of reasonable quality to take from an aux output from the mixer.

When recording make sure you give yourself plenty of head room (6db or more, it shows the level in audacity when recording) especially if there is no compression on the source output because you cant really get rid of recorded clipping if you overload the soundcard.
The final level adjustment (normalisation) and some basic mastering can easily be done in audacity after (trimming, fading if required, perhaps noise reduction, compression / limiting to reduce unwanted peaks in the recording and get the overall level up).

 

[GWall]

Hi,

Thank you for your response.

Would something like this work for an external soundcard?
A link to amazon:

USB Sound Card,PHOINKAS USB External Stereo Sound Card with USB Hub/3.5mm Headphone and Microphone Jack，Suitable for Laptops,Tablets,Dekstops,Compatible Windows7/8/8.1/10/XP,Vista&Mac OS: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

Thanks, Gareth.

If you are stuck with analogue outs for the source then I would buy an external soundcard. As suggested above the standard PC ones tend to be poor and a mic input on that is not where you want the connection to be going. You don't need an expensive one something with a dedicated line input of reasonable quality to take from an aux output from the mixer.

When recording make sure you give yourself plenty of head room (6db or more, it shows the level in audacity when recording) especially if there is no compression on the source output because you cant really get rid of recorded clipping if you overload the soundcard.
The final level adjustment (normalisation) and some basic mastering can easily be done in audacity after (trimming, fading if required, perhaps noise reduction, compression / limiting to reduce unwanted peaks in the recording and get the overall level up).

 

[turk 182]

this would be what i would use Scarlett 2i2 | Focusrite

 

[Damo s]

Agreed. known brand of decent quality ^

 

[MAAC0]

Those small Yamaha MG06 series mixers work fine for Your application.
Hint .. if You get buzzing / Hd spinning etc try a non-grounded PSU on the laptop.