Hi. Questions from a guy who has no idea what he's doing

[Drafhk]

Well, like I said, I have no idea what I'm doing, and am running into a lot of problems.

1) Buzzing. I guess this might be called gain? I'm not sure. I'm trying to record from a Yamaha S90 ES synthesizer, and it outputs fine into my headphones (no buzzing), but when I try to record, there's all this background "fuzz." Why is this, and is there any way to get rid of it?

2) The quality of sound is absolutely terrible. I'm recording from my synth through a Griffin iMic, and directly into Sonar from there. It almost sounds like its going through a phaser or something. I hit a basic piano note and it's all hiccupy and stuff. Why is this, and can it be fixed?

I think that's all the questions I have for now, but I'm sure there will be more in the future. Thanks in advance!

[michaelrb]

Need more info to give you a proper response. Are you recording midi or audio from the synth? Are the midi connects attached and routed correctly using sonar? Are you checking volume levels in sonar? What are your headphones attached to?, etc...

[TonyB]

Originally Posted by Drafhk

1) Buzzing.

2) The quality of sound is absolutely terrible.

Can you post a sample clip in mp3?

[Drafhk]

Thanks for the responses! I'm trying to record direct audio, not MIDI at this point (but that will come later).

I have new information that might help diagnose the problem. I saved an MP3 like you requested, but the MP3 sounds exactly spot-on. In Sonar, though, the playback and playthrough is absolutely terrible. Like, I can't even tell you how much it doesn't sound like what I'm playing. It would seem to be a problem with the software configuration, I guess, but I have no idea where to start.

Thanks!

[harcha24]

it sound to me like you might be using your headphone out to record. this is a powered signal not a line level one. that is probably the buzz issue.

[Metaltyme]

I'm thinking it might be your buffer i/o settings under "Audio Options" in Sonar, seeing as it apparently records correctly (because you say that it's spot on when you playback the mixed down mp3). In other words, if it sounds like shit in real time while recording, yet is still being recorded accurately proven by the "spot-on" mp3, then, I'm thinking you might have to raise your buffer values. If it's at a value of 128 kbps, change it to 256 kbps to see if that fixes the problem. If it doesn't, raise the value to 512. If that doesn't help, I'm thinking you may not have properly setup your iMic for Sonar to be able to work ideally with your interface (iMac). In any case, when you first opened Sonar, did you run the "Wave Profiler" under your "Audio Options" settings so that Sonar attempts to detect your iMic? If not, then do that. Let us know how things turn out. Good luck.