I assume you have in Record Level control for the Line In set to where you want it.  That will control the input level.  

However, if you are using Sonar or some similar recording program you need a decent sound card.  The SoundMax is OK for basic PC listening but the latency alone will cause problems.  I haven't used Sonar so I don't know if it also has input control, and whatever plug ins you are using could also affect the input level.

The SoundMax is built on the motherboard, not a separate PCI plug in card and the entire motherboard would need to be replaced.

 

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@mollen wrote:
I have a problem with my Dimension 8400/SoundMax.

It is obviously related to http://delltalk.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=dim_audio&message.id=57266&query.id=235835#M57266

Whatever (and however) I record it's misalligned in the sence that zero is way above zero. In fact when I arm the Line In with nothing attached, it already shows a ca. -20 dB input. This screenshot from Sonar illustrates the problem perfectly:
http://www.fairytale-abuse.com/noise.jpg

I've tried both WDM and ASIO4ALL driveres - no difference.

I suspect my onboard SoundMax is flawed. Anyone have a clue? Should I ask for a replacement?

/Morten

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That screenshot shows musical input, not "line-in with nothing attached."

Yes, but the problem is - the recorded samples' zero does not coincide with the zero of the file.

This causes noise even though the recording quality is ok. The misalignment is many many times greater than the noise floor of the recording.

/mollen

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@mollen wrote:
Yes, but the problem is - the recorded samples' zero does not coincide with the zero of the file.

This causes noise even though the recording quality is ok. The misalignment is many many times greater than the noise floor of the recording.

/mollen

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Mollen, I'm trying to understand your problem a littlle better. When you say "the recorded sample's zero does not coincide with the xero of the file, exactly what "zero" are you referring to....time zero or signal level zero? And what are you referring to by the term 'noise"? Sorry to a little slow on this.
Arnie

Sorry - I'll try to make it a little clearer.

On the graphic, the yellow line is the zero signal level. Therefore the waveform is supposed to be centered around that line. The amount of vertical space between the yellow line and the center of the waveform is the misalignment I'm talking about.

The whole waveform is somehow shifted upwards from zero signal. Does this make sence?

In practice the noise floor is all the way up at -20 dB during recording. That's a seriouly bad quality even for an onboard interface and surely it's not supposed to be like this. The newest driver didn't change anything btw.

(The only reason I tried using SoundMAX for recording in the first place, was my discovery of the ASIO4ALL driver. To my great surprise it performs extremely well on the SoundMAX. I got a latency as low as 2.7 ms - much better than I can do with my SBLive using the kX Project driver. And since the Soundmax has 6 outs on the back, it's a lot more flexible for composing where quality is not a big issue.)

I guess I should just buy that pro sound interface I need anyway ;-)

/molle

I see what you mean! I had not noticed the yellow line, what happens if you open up that file in another wave editor? Look for a private message with my email address. You can then send me the audio file in question so I can take a look at it.