Multimix 8 + SM57 trouble

[Malaky]

Hey there, I'm new here and got a small problem:

I've got a small setup going on at home where I use an SM57 that goes right to an Alesis Multimix 8 Firewire. So all in all it's:

Line 6 Spider III 120W TO: SM57 TO: Multimix 8 TO: Computer TO: Speakers.

When I play I only use the sound of the amp (So I turn off the speakers) but when I record and listen to it, I hear a lot of room noise coming from the recording. Basicly There is a lot of background noise in my recording. I use audacity as my recording program if that helps any of you.

So I was about to try turning down the gain of the mixer a bit and lift the volume of the amp a bit more to see if that help.

Also, the speakers work just fine, so that's not the problem.

Thanks a lot in advance for all the help you can provide!

See ya.

Malaky

[Electriclight]

I would guess you're getting room noise because there is room noise. What kind of room is it? Lots of reflections bouncing around?

Another consideration is mic placement. Typically the mic is right up on the grille at the speaker cone. If you have the mic further away you'll pick up more room noise. A hypercardioid mic would be more directional and perhpas a better choice tha the 57 but it's a classic and you should be able to work with it.

[Malaky]

I found the problem yesterday. It was a glitch in audacity where my Audio I/O imputs were reseted and it took Microsoft Sound mapper as default for recording even though it passed by the mixer. In fact it was more a hiss than room noise.

Anyway I have another problem... My recording seems to skip when I listen to it afterward. It cuts and jumps weirdly and I don't know whats going on. It's probably within Audacity or my PC itself.

I run:

-DELL Studio 1535 laptop.
-Intel core 2 duo 2.00 Ghz
-3G Ram
-IDT high definition audio

I just don't know how to solve this...

[Electriclight]

Experiment with buffer sizes and latency settings. In Audacity I think it's found in preferences.