question for all you home recording types: i've been helping a friend of mine set up a "studio" (we use the term loosely) in his basement. it involves three dj mixers running in series, with the final mixer running the record-out to the line-in on a crappy sound card (various turntables and microphones are plugged into the mixers). we've been getting some wicked hum whenever we try to record anything on the computer. i realize it's unrealistic to expect pristine audio quality out of such a janky setup, but is there anything we can do to decrease the amount of noise without spending thousands of dollars on better equipment? also, are there any good boards for people with bargain basement studios?

make sure everything is grounded propperly.

also, i used to record off my mixer for DJ mixes to my computer and everything was perfect. Then one day i got a horrible buzz and could never figure out what changed. that's not very helpfull is it.

this is probably naive, but have you listened to the recording on anything other than the computer speakers? i.e., could it just be some of your equipment f'ing with unshielded speakers?

haq, i did try listening to it on headphones, but the headphones plugged into the speakers, would plugging them directly into the soundcard make a difference?

and as far as the grounding issue--do you just mean having the turntables properly grounded?

my guess is no, since it's the magnet in the speaker itself that is affected, but it couldn't hurt.

i'll give that a shot. i'm downright ignorant when it comes to grounding. would it be better if we had everything plugged into the same outlet or the same power strip, or does that even matter?