Help needed recording vinyl to computer

What happens when you switch RCA jacks, do the settings change from left to right according to channel swap?

Probably the respective left and right channels of the phono cartridge have a slightly different output level. This is quite common.

I can't believe there's not a way to balance the channels with the computer software, but you could always put the louder channel through a passive volume control (or the balance control of a good preamp) to balance the output before it goes into the computer...

Hi

I do archiving (originally intended for my car) often. The results are so good that the CD-R's also get played inside.

The setup I have is conveniently arranged with short cable lengths. I use a homebrew mc cart and the armleads go first to one of several dc step-up devices. From there it goes to the 'phono'input of my 'workhorse' pre-amp which is a Kenwood C1 Basic Stereo control amplifier, with MM selected.

From the pre-amp output, a high quality phono interconnect goes to an Edirol USB Audio Interface UA-1EX.

The output of this soundcard goes to a cheap Genius subwoofer with which I power 2 high quality mini monitors as I cannot stand the sound of computer speakers. The subwoofer part is turned to zero and only powers my speakers. The latter (subwoofer) also has an input for a wired remote which is very useful as I can control on/off and monitoring volume here as well. Magix Audio Cleaning Lab/10 is used as recording software. Recording volume can be set both on the pre-amp or on the Edirol device.

I've never had channel imbalance as the Magix screens allow many ways to view what happens during and after recording.

Hope this helps.

Coneflap

It's not a chennel balance issue - both channels are fairly level. It's the sound in each individual channel - the sound in each channel shows off center in the Audition waveform.

I've heard it was DC offset. The software allows for correction of this, and when it did a check for zero, it showed it was .035 off center. But when I ran the function, it did not seem to change the waveform at all.

Since the sound card worked fine with a CD input, I assume the problem is not in the sound card. How could I correct this issue?

I switched the left and right cables, and the problem changed in each channel. Does that rule out the sound card as the problem?

It definitely seems to be a DC offset problem, with the left channel having a positive offset, and the right channel a negative one. This DC offset is being generated by your phono stage. The first thing you should do is reset the zoom level in Audition (right click in the dB scale to the right and choose FULL ZOOM), in order to make sure the recording scale is at the absolute center. Then try this:

1) The phono stage may need to be loaded with a lower impedance (10 Kohms to 50 Kohms), because the sound card presents too high an input impedance (100 Kohms or more). In this case try to connect a 22 Kohm resistor in parallel with every output channel at the phono stage. You will need a couple of Y connectors and a bit of creativity. Make sure you don't accidentally short the preamp's outputs to ground.

2) If the former procedure doesn't work, insert an electrolytic capacitor of 10 uF or so in series with each phono stage output terminal (keep all grounds together). This should block any DC in the phono stage, and allow you to record the signal. Observe its balance in the recording display. They should both now be centered at around -infinite.

It's much better to eliminate any DC offset before entering the sound card, in order to have a clean recording. If you wish, you can eliminate any remaining trace of it using the Constant Amplification effect at 0 dB, and enabling the DC offset compensation. Once you get a decent recording, it's time to begin looking for better coupling capacitors or a better phono stage.

Regards,