Hello, I'm not a very technically minded individual, desperate for some help. I'm attempting to do some basic voiceover work using an old four track mixer, a PC and Nero Soundtrax.
I have the four track mixer hooked up to my PC (Compaq Presario 6000). When I play material through the PC directly from the mixer, the sound quality matches that of the original recording - so the PC speakers are working fine. During the process of recording the material onto the PC, the sound quality remains unaffected. However, as soon as the sound file appears in the editing stage (even before I have "exported to audio file" and created an MP3), and I play it back straight from the PC, a problem occurs.
There is distortion (as if too close to the mic) in the left speaker. If I turn the balance 100% to the right, the quality in the right speaker is as good as it was directly from the four track. Yet the output from the left speaker is of noticeably inferior quality. I have tried e-mailing the sound files to other computers, but the problem persists. So I think I can conclude that the problem is not the four track, nor the PC speakers. Anybody any ideas? Please!
You may have a problem in the recording area. When you listen to the sounds originally, they may be coming from a source prior to being recorded. Do you watch the level meters while you are recording and do both channels appear to be about the same and not going into the red area much? Have you double clicked on the speaker icon and checked the mixer for recording settings (possibly line in)?
Have you tried recording the tracks one at a time and mixing them later? You can use WaveEditor to record also, then just put them into SoundTrax.
Many thanks for that - recording into the Wave Editor made all the difference and the distortion has been eliminated. I've never really explored the Wave Editor before and most of the options are mind-boggling to me, so I think I'll be sticking to the default settings (can't seem to save changes in the tools and enhancements menus anyway!).
