ok folks, we have here a red alert!!
I've got the perfect oppertunity for another party type catch tomorrow, and my shiny new mp3 player arrived a day early luckily. ok... its actually a cheap shitty samsung thingy off ebay, but its here in time.
I've quickly discovered that the inbuilt mic isn't particularly good, and the options for how it encodes when recording from the inbuilt mic don't help matters. thats ok though, I can record from line input and specify my bitrate. sounds great doesn't it? hmmm... but whenever I try this, encoding at 128 kb/s for now just to see how things sound, I get a tiny bit of the signal from my mic which is totally overpowered by a ton of hiss and what sounds sort of like disk activity (a sort of digital clicky mess is the only other way i can describe it). At first I thought my signal wasn't hot enough, its meant to be line level after all. Added a little preamp in to the setup, and still no joy. true, the signal from the mic is slightly louder, but its still unusable because of all the shit this thing is putting in.
my question is, has anybody else ever heard of this? i mean i never expected this thing to be beautiful, just useable would do nicely. I thought i'd ask here first before I go through the hassle of trying to exchange this with the ebay seller to see if its just a dodgy player.
If you've got any suggestions at all, please reply quickly, my next catch may depend on it because I don't have a backup recorder at the moment!
Sc0tt-uk
does my mp3 player just suck?
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mjj9994
- Knight
- Posts: 1042
- Joined: 20 Dec 2005 23:06
- x 183
Hmm.. tough one there Scott.
My only 1/2 way similar experience was experimenting with the Mic input on my Creative Zen Nano's. I used mics similar to the ones I have been trying to pawn off on everyone (ha). Anywho.. I could not notice much if any difference between the built-in Mic and the external ones I used, except for perhaps a slight decrease in volume (hardly noticeable). As for quality.. they both seemed pretty much the same to me (no noticeable hiss/static, etc).
My only suggestiions would be to perhaps check:
1) Make sure all your connections are clean (doubt that would explain the 'digital noise'.. but might help).
2) If the recording function offers a volume on Mic, try to lower the volume a bit.
3) Try a different Mic entirely, just in case it may be the Mic.
4) Maybe the settings are just a bit TOO high (yah I know, we go for quality here).. maybe try tampering with different settings to see if a lower bitrate, etc results in a better sound.
5) Try to record from a regular audio sorce (CD, MP3, etc) to see if your settings may be distorting the sounds
Just a few ideas.... I have heard the sounds you speak of... but that is normally caused when I am trying to amplify something too much.
Hopy you can get your device 'tweaked' before the big party
- Mark
My only 1/2 way similar experience was experimenting with the Mic input on my Creative Zen Nano's. I used mics similar to the ones I have been trying to pawn off on everyone (ha). Anywho.. I could not notice much if any difference between the built-in Mic and the external ones I used, except for perhaps a slight decrease in volume (hardly noticeable). As for quality.. they both seemed pretty much the same to me (no noticeable hiss/static, etc).
My only suggestiions would be to perhaps check:
1) Make sure all your connections are clean (doubt that would explain the 'digital noise'.. but might help).
2) If the recording function offers a volume on Mic, try to lower the volume a bit.
3) Try a different Mic entirely, just in case it may be the Mic.
4) Maybe the settings are just a bit TOO high (yah I know, we go for quality here).. maybe try tampering with different settings to see if a lower bitrate, etc results in a better sound.
5) Try to record from a regular audio sorce (CD, MP3, etc) to see if your settings may be distorting the sounds
Just a few ideas.... I have heard the sounds you speak of... but that is normally caused when I am trying to amplify something too much.
Hopy you can get your device 'tweaked' before the big party
- Mark
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sc0tt-uk
- Knight
- Posts: 1228
- Joined: 20 Dec 2005 12:43
- x 30
Hey Mark - yep I tried all those things yesterday with no luck.
No matter what I try the encoding is ruining the signal still. I can't believe people don't return these to shops if mine isn't dodgy, because its just as noticeable when you encode from a line source playing music and thats what they meant it for. Hopefully mines just a duffer.
no word back from the ebay seller yet, but if i get stuck with it i'll palm it off on the Mrs and probably get me a zen nano instead.
Of course I missed the party catch in the end, although we'll never know if there was a catch to be had. However, I've hatched a plan that could yield one beauty of a post so all is not lost.
sc0tt-uk
No matter what I try the encoding is ruining the signal still. I can't believe people don't return these to shops if mine isn't dodgy, because its just as noticeable when you encode from a line source playing music and thats what they meant it for. Hopefully mines just a duffer.
no word back from the ebay seller yet, but if i get stuck with it i'll palm it off on the Mrs and probably get me a zen nano instead.
Of course I missed the party catch in the end, although we'll never know if there was a catch to be had. However, I've hatched a plan that could yield one beauty of a post so all is not lost.
sc0tt-uk