[JoetheArachnid]

My friend is looking into doing some basic audio recording (voice work, mostly) with a Shure C606 microphone and his laptop, so I recommended that maybe he get an external sound card with a decent ADC to give some kind of a boost in quality. His budget ain't huge, but it would be nice if there was something sub £40 that would provide clear sound and joy for all. Much lower prices are welcome, but not much over.
 
Would it actually be worth the money for the upgrade over an onboard sound card, or would there only be a difference in the higher price ranges? His lappy is a cheap Toshiba, if I recall correctly.
 
Thanks.

 

[faileas]

At that budget, not hugely. One of the main reasons i use a external device for recording is the software and the XLR inputs, but i think what i use (m-audio mbox2) is about 500 USD and out of your budget- (out of curiocity, how exactly do you plug in your mic into the laptop? never seen a good mic used with a mini plug before).
 
On the other hand, you might get huge improvements from software adjustments. There was a free software that was damned near magic when it came to speech, but i'm having problems remembering what it was (i'm checking around and will edit once i've found out)
 
And... dipping into the wealth of wisdom of the collective... Levelator is what i was thinking of

 

[JoetheArachnid]

Thanks a lot, I've looked at the software but i don't have any speech WAVs on hand to try it with.

 
As for the mic into the laptop... Apparently it either comes with a XLR to 6.3mm or vise-versa, so either way it should plug into something somehow. Then it's a matter of having a 6.3-3.5mm adapter on top of that, then into the microphone port of the laptop. Kind of a messy setup now that I think about it, but it should work fine and any degradation of SQ will probably be negligible at this level.
 
Down the line, is there anything for maybe ~£100 or so? Seems to me that there's quite a big gap between cheap consumer ADCs and professional ADCs in terms of price and quality.

 

[faileas]

Yeah there is, absolutely. I think part of the problem is that very nearly every single modern onboard soundcard (of the same era at least) uses the exact same realtek sound chipset, and most people these days don't bother with a additional,quality soundcard.
 
The expensive interfaces like the mbox (i believe bring a few things into the picture - software (granted i hate protools for most things, mainly cause its a seriously complicated, dog slow programme), 48V phantom power (which many mics need) and such. I think maudio has a budget line and this might work depending on UK availability. You're stuck with a cut down version of protools to record with i suppose (I don't like protools that much, audacity is a lot less complicated, but it *is* what a lot of professionals use), and only one XLR port and a guitar one. If its anything like my mbox, its tough, and will probably work quite well hardwarewise.
 

 

[JoetheArachnid]

Thanks again. The Protools thing looks fairly nice and is available for £66 from Amazon, so it may be within budget eventually.
And the cut down version Protools may not be a problem. My friend has fairly 'light fingers' where software is concerned...

 

[faileas]

well, most of the cut downyness wouldn't affect you unless you do some serious mixing its mostly to do with how many tracks it supports, and considering you can't record more than 2 tracks and once, and can mix it on say, audacity, its a non issue as far as i am concerned - protools however is a wee bit slow to start, and least on my laptop tends to act up if i have too much other stuff running- i really wish i could use an mbox or a fastrack style device with audacity