Questions on set up for webcam

[RamonS]

Hi everyone,

First of all, I'm no expert on this. I've been experimenting on getting a good set up for recording yourself on a webcam, the aim is to get a decent to good video and sound for review by Jaime. Here's the set up I've settled into.

Guitar --> Amp --> Mic (placed in front of speaker)--> mixer --> PC (line in)

This seems to be the best set up for me so far. My first try the volume seemed low but tolerable, and I was too tired to experiment. Will fiddle with it later. I'm wondering which volume control is better to increase/decrease? The guitar, amp, mixer or PC? The line in also has volume control for recording and playback and the PC speakers as well . I've tried putting the amp (through its line out) directly into the line in of the PC but I kept getting pops and ticking noises in the playback. Any comments would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Ramon

[N E Y]

Hello Ramon,

Hi everyone,

First of all, I'm no expert on this. I've been experimenting on getting a good set up for recording yourself on a webcam, the aim is to get a decent to good video and sound for review by Jaime. Here's the set up I've settled into.

Guitar --> Amp --> Mic (placed in front of speaker)--> mixer --> PC (line in)

This seems to be the best set up for me so far. My first try the volume seemed low but tolerable, and I was too tired to experiment. Will fiddle with it later. I'm wondering which volume control is better to increase/decrease? The guitar, amp, mixer or PC?

MIxer preferably. The other gain controls will change your sound as well....However, for reference, when stagediving you should increase the amp volume to the max!

The line in also has volume control for recording and playback and the PC speakers as well

They are 3 different things.... Line in CAN have a gain trim control, but more often has none on non-professional eqpt. More likely your software preferences under audio will have a slider input volume for microphone/line.... use that!


Playback volume is not the same as the recording gain control. The recording gain adjusts how much input to the converters you have.

. I've tried putting the amp (through its line out) directly into the line in of the PC but I kept getting pops and ticking noises in the playback. Any comments would be greatly appreciated.

You have to trim down the input if there is trim control. By going direct (DI) injection you are not getting the tone of the power amp and the speaker. That may be fine with you......but keep that in mind. A mic will give you the real amp tone as you hear it in the room. If you do not have a trim pot . just turn down the mixer master output. The DI situation has no way out unless you run your amp DI into the mixer and THEN adjust the volume DOWN on the way out to the computer. It will still be DI sound but it wont distort digitally ( the cracks, the ticking is something else and I don/t have the time here to go into every detail)

Adjust by ear and don't let the signal peak above -15 dbfs on the meter , If you don't have a DAW meter...then don't let the louder parts go above half way to the top or you will distort your plugins input stages later on. You can put a compressor or if you don.t have one, then normalize the sound ( not done by pros for many reasons but for you it is the easy way to get you heard clearly for evaluation by Jamie.

If you use a mic turn off air conditioning, fans, fridges, space heaters, furnace, anything that makes small noises and point your mic the opposite direction from you CPU and its noisy fans.

Shine a light on you so the camera can see clearly what you are doing.



Regards,

Ramon

Saludos!




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[RamonS]

Thank you for the advice, Ney. All those knobs staring at you can be mind boggling.

Ramon