Why am i getting so much distortion when recording my vinyl?

[Please]

I'm running into a bit of a problem. Whenever I record my turntable through logic i'm getting tons of distortion (not vinyl popping, and the levels in logic don't seem to be clipping).

I have my turntable hooked up to my dj mixer, with a pair of headphones out of that which i use for monitoring. While listening through the headphones I hear your standard vinyl pops/cracks, but nothing too drastic. However, when I hook my mixer up to my audio interface (profire 610), and record it into logic it is distorted to all hell, sounds as though someone put a bit crusher on it. As I said before, the levels in logic aren't even close to clipping. I also tried messing around with the levels from the mixer itself but nothing seems to work.

The vinyl itself is brand new, I just opened it yesterday. I also tried other vinyls and they all seem to have the same problem. They are fine when monitoring them, but as soon as they hit logic they get distorted.


Any tips/advice? All help with be appreciated. thanks in advance.

[Storyville]

sounds like a gain staging problem. give me more details about your set up and the distortion. Do you feel like the low end is becoming really thinned out, and you hear sort of a square-wave type of distortion in the upper mids?

What kind of level are you running out of your turntable/mixer? Are you going turntable phono out to mixer to mixer line out to line in on your interface? Are you going out the headphone out into your interface? Does your turntable have a line out mode on it?

[Please]

Originally Posted by Storyville

sounds like a gain staging problem. give me more details about your set up and the distortion. Do you feel like the low end is becoming really thinned out, and you hear sort of a square-wave type of distortion in the upper mids?

What kind of level are you running out of your turntable/mixer? Are you going turntable phono out to mixer to mixer line out to line in on your interface? Are you going out the headphone out into your interface? Does your turntable have a line out mode on it?

It doesn't really seem to matter what level i'm running out of my mixer, I tried from 1/2 to almost max and still get the distortion. I'm going from my turntable to my phono in on my mixer, then from my mixers record out to my interface. I tried using multiple interface inputs (ones with pre-amps, and ones without), I also tried running from my headphone out on the mixer (since when I was monitoring i was not getting any distortion) to my interface, but that also resulted in distortion once it was recorded into logic.

My mixer has phono and line in. It also has record/master out.

[Storyville]

Ok, so your setup should look like this:

Turntable, running a phono signal out into the phono in on your mixer. Here it converts to line level, and it sounds fine on your headphones. You then connect line in on your interface. This should work perfectly fine.

Connect your monitors to your master outs on the mixer. See if you get distortion in your monitors.

I'm assuming you've run another signal through the line in on your interface to make sure it comes through clean right?

Also, zoom in on the wave shape you are seeing when you record. See if it's clipped - if it is, it's peaking somewhere else along the chain.

[bgrotto]

Maybe you're running the output of your mixer into the mic preamp on your Profire 610?

[3rd Degree]

I would guess it is probably gain staging too. But, have you hooked anything else up to the same inputs on your interface? If not, hook up something with a line out you own, or even like an Ipod if you don't have something with a line out. See if that is clean as well.

[viewingstuff]

the send on my old numark dm2002x is much cleaner compared to the master and booth out(booth out sounds terrible). i'm worried now that i have to replace it with maybe a newer m3 with record outs and no sends if it will be as clean also.