mic distortion?

[7dollarsox.com]

okay so i record a little bit, but i hadnt been doing much vocals for like 3 months because i was recording the other instruments.

so im recording vox today and i noticed that my vox sound distorted. checked the input levels on the mbox, and stood a little farther away from the mic. now it sounds weak and stupid.

any thoughts on what this could be? ive never really had this problem with this mic before....

[Esrb99]

the preamps on the mbox are notoriously weak. im guessing you're trying to get it to 'cd volume' by recording... don't do that. that happens in mastering. you merely want Good, raw, tracks, peaking in your DAW (protools?) at no higher than -18 db's per track when recording!!! Seriously. leave the digital faders at unity (0.0 db,) and adjust gain on mbox, till the peak is between oh, say -26 to -18 on your daw. if you need to hear it better, turn your monitors up louder.


read some of the guides at www.tweakheadz.com that will help.

[IAmNietzche]

GlKL_EpnSp8

[Animalhill]

the preamps on the mbox are notoriously weak. im guessing you're trying to get it to 'cd volume' by recording... don't do that. that happens in mastering. you merely want Good, raw, tracks, peaking in your DAW (protools?) at no higher than -18 db's per track when recording!!! Seriously. leave the digital faders at unity (0.0 db,) and adjust gain on mbox, till the peak is between oh, say -26 to -18 on your daw. if you need to hear it better, turn your monitors up louder.


read some of the guides at www.tweakheadz.com (http://www.tweakheadz.com) that will help.
Exactly what I was going to say. You know your stuff sir.
I was also going to recommend using a different preamp than mbox... spend the extra $$$, it will be worth it.

[7dollarsox.com]

the preamps on the mbox are notoriously weak. im guessing you're trying to get it to 'cd volume' by recording... don't do that. that happens in mastering. you merely want Good, raw, tracks, peaking in your DAW (protools?) at no higher than -18 db's per track when recording!!! Seriously. leave the digital faders at unity (0.0 db,) and adjust gain on mbox, till the peak is between oh, say -26 to -18 on your daw. if you need to hear it better, turn your monitors up louder.


read some of the guides at www.tweakheadz.com that will help.


no, im not trying to do that. ive been recording with the same set up for about two years(not that im that good yet, haha) so i know kiiiinda what im doing. ive just never had this problem before.

im not trying to get the "cd levels" im just recording like i always do, its just that its become impossible to get a sound out of it that isnt either a)distorted or b) weakkkker than weak.


i know the pres in the mbox are shitty but theyve done okay for me until now!

[Esrb99]

no, im not trying to do that. ive been recording with the same set up for about two years(not that im that good yet, haha) so i know kiiiinda what im doing. ive just never had this problem before.

im not trying to get the "cd levels" im just recording like i always do, its just that its become impossible to get a sound out of it that isnt either a)distorted or b) weakkkker than weak.


i know the pres in the mbox are shitty but theyve done okay for me until now!

ok then... try recording with a diff mic if you have one. if not, try recording acoustic guitar. if it crackles, try di'ing an electric guitar or an electric bass, varying the gain on all. if its all crackling, your mbox's pres are shot.

[patrickhowell]

1) What mic are you using?
2) Are you using a compressor on the track to boost your volume?

[7dollarsox.com]

1) What mic are you using?
2) Are you using a compressor on the track to boost your volume?

im using a CAD gxl2400. it was a shitty cheap mic, but its done its job okay until now.

[Pappageo]

I've personally never recorded using an M-Box. I use Presonus interfaces with Cubase so I'm not really sure what is wrong with your system, but I do know that every once in a while some small setting will mysteriously get changed on either the presonus mixer or the many different Cubase tools and it will mess with my recordings. You may just want to go through and check all of the settings on everything your working with to see if something didn't get bumped or switched off.

Personally I have had a +12db boost button turned off on my firebox input mixer get switched off a couple of times and experienced almost exactly what you are talking about. Again, our setups are obviously very different but maybe something to look for?