Arch Linux

ngoonee

Forum Fellow

From: Between Thailand and Singapore

Registered: 2009-03-17

Posts: 7,356

Improving SNR on Mic recording to built-in sound-card's mic jack

Hi all,

I've been doing my recordings from the built-in mic jack in my laptop (sound card is the basic Intel HDA). From the 'headphones' jack of my Korg, this is not a problem, as the volume level is plenty loud enough for my input volume in alsamixer to be set to about 13% or something like that, which basically means minimal/negligable noise.

However, I just purchased a Shure SM57 mic for vocal/guitar recordings. It's an XLR mic, so I use an XLR cable, an Audio-Technica transformer to convert it to quarter-inch, and then a quarter-inch to headphone-jack converter.

My problem is that the volume levels, as you may imagine, are really low on such a setup, such that I have to turn alsamixer input volume up near to 100%, AND activate some mic boost as well. This means that I get heaps of noise, which is obviously non-ideal.

How can I improve the SNR ratio? Some other sort of converting transformers? Do I need a pre-amp? Are there good noise-removal plugins in Ardour that you could recommend?

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