bad mic quality

[Jahrika!]

so i have a blue yeti microphone and its perfect. when i use it anywhere its completely fine, except cakewalk. It sounds super muffled, you can still hear me but its bad quality compared to when i use it in bandlab.  so if anybody has a answer or way to fix it, please tell me cause all i wanna do is make music 😭

[AndyB01]

It's a USB mic - not designed for recording with a DAW - fine for podcasts and such like but not music production.

You need an XLR mic through a dedicated audio interface using ASIO drivers. There are plenty of recommendations on the gear forum for microphones and interfaces to suit all budgets.

eBay and Marketplace also a great source if you're prepared to consider used.

Andy

Edited May 22, 2023 by AndyB01

[bitflipper]

I've never used a USB mic, either. However, it's just an LDC with a built-in A/D converter. I don't know why it would necessarily sound awful. The Blue Yeti is very popular among podcasters, popularity that would seem unlikely if it really sounded that  bad. 

This comment troubles me:

On 5/22/2023 at 12:46 PM, Jahrika! said:

i have a blue yeti microphone and its perfect. when i use it anywhere its completely fine

Question for the OP: where is "anywhere"? Have you successfully used it with other audio recorders or DAWs?

I ask because it seems that if it sounds OK with other software, it should sound exactly the same in Cakewalk. Whether the recording software is Cakewalk or Audacity or whatever, they're all receiving the same digital data from the microphone's driver. If it truly sounds different in Cakewalk, there must be a reason beyond "it's a crap mic".

Now, I totally agree that investing in a good mic and interface is a good idea. But I am always reluctant to a address any problem with the too-easy conclusion that "you just haven't spent enough money yet". Everybody here knows how that logic can take you down a GASaholic rabbit hole.

[Will.]

On 5/22/2023 at 9:46 PM, Jahrika! said:

so i have a blue yeti microphone and its perfect. when i use it anywhere its completely fine, except cakewalk. It sounds super muffled, you can still hear me but its bad quality compared to when i use it in bandlab.  so if anybody has a answer or way to fix it, please tell me cause all i wanna do is make music 😭

With USB mics, you need to make sure that the sample rate in windows are the same as that in Cakewalk. Secondly: change your recording rate within Cakewalk higher than 16bit.  

[msmcleod]

The mic should be fine for recording vocals.

If it's sounding muffled, there could be a few reasons:

The obvious ones first... (ignore these if you've already used it on that PC successfully):

1.  Make sure you're singing into the front of the mic, and not the back (not wanting to insult your intelligence here, but we all mistakes).  A cardioid mic blocks sound from the sides well, but sounds coming from the back will sound almost as loud as the front, but muffled - which is why I mention it.
2.  As it's USB powered, ensure you've got enough power going to it.  Using a USB 3 socket, or a powered hub can help here.  I had a Behringer C1 USB which sounded muffled due to insufficient USB power.

Now the not so obvious:

3. Make sure the sample rate / bit depth match what the mic is.  If it's locked to 16bit /48Khz, then make sure Cakewalk is set to that too.
4. Make sure any auto-gain or sound-enhancing effects in the Windows sound settings are turned off.  This will interfere with the sound quality, if Windows sees your mic as it's default mic.

Generally, USB mics are a bad idea in Windows for music for a number of reasons:

1. You can only use one ASIO driver at once in Windows, so you're basically forced to use WASAPI Shared if you're using another interface for audio output.
2. You're tied to the pre-amp built into the mic, which may be quite good, but you won't be able to plug it into a nice Neve 1073 clone if you had one.
3. XLR mics will last you decades. They work with, and will continue to work with just about everything with an XLR input.  There's no guarantee that the USB drivers will work with Windows 1x in the future.

Quality though, isn't really an issue - unless the mic's preamp is particularly bad.

Just a note about the fact that it's 16 bit / 48Khz.  The norm is to record at 24 bit nowadays, but you shouldn't really see a huge difference in quality with 16 bit.  Your dynamic range will be less, but if you're singing well (i.e. with steady levels, and not all over the place), this should be fine.  After all, 16 bit is fine for CD.

If Cakewalk was mixing in 16 bit, then that really would reduce quality - and quite drastically... but it's not.  Once the audio track is in Cakewalk, all mixing is done in 32 bit floating point (or 64 bit floating point if you have the 64 bit engine engaged).  It stays as floating point right up until the point it reaches your audio interface, where only then will reduce the whole mix back to 16 bit stereo.
 

[Jahrika!]

2 hours ago, AndyB01 said:

It's a USB mic - not designed for recording with a DAW - fine for podcasts and such like but not music production.

You need an XLR mic through a dedicated audio interface using ASIO drivers. There are plenty of recommendations on the gear forum for microphones and interfaces to suit all budgets.

eBay and Marketplace also a great source if you're prepared to consider used.

Andy

so is there no way to do it with a usb mic? i have to get a different one?

[Jahrika!]

2 hours ago, AndyB01 said:

It's a USB mic - not designed for recording with a DAW - fine for podcasts and such like but not music production.

You need an XLR mic through a dedicated audio interface using ASIO drivers. There are plenty of recommendations on the gear forum for microphones and interfaces to suit all budgets.

eBay and Marketplace also a great source if you're prepared to consider used.

Andy

and do you know of any plugins that would make all the background noise go away? or anything to even slightly increase how it sounds?

[AndyB01]

Unfortunately @Byron Dickens  is right - it may be a harsh observation but it's true. Nothing you can do post recording is ever going to improve what is fundamentally not fit for purpose.

At the budget end you will find a Behringer or T.Bone mic that will be perfectly adequate, all the way up to brands like Rode, Audio Technica, Shure and Austrian Audio at the Prosumer end.

However, even this needs a dedicated audio interface, you cannot get by with on-board audio. Something like a Focusrite Scarlett Solo or 2i2 from Focusrite are good places to start.

HtH

Andy

[mettelus]

+1 on Andy's comments. Either a large diaphragm condenser mic or good dynamic mic through an audio interface is ideal. The Blue Yeti is locked to 16-bit, 48KHz, so another thing to try is make sure the DAW project reflects that before recording, and probably WASAPI shared for drivers settings. You may be seeing mismatch in bit depth/sample rate, but even if this improves you are not going to do your audio recordings proper justice. Andy's recommendations are spot on.

[reginaldStjohn]

3 hours ago, mettelus said:

+1 on Andy's comments. Either a large diaphragm condenser mic or good dynamic mic through an audio interface is ideal. The Blue Yeti is locked to 16-bit, 48KHz, so another thing to try is make sure the DAW project reflects that before recording, and probably WASAPI shared for drivers settings. You may be seeing mismatch in bit depth/sample rate, but even if this improves you are not going to do your audio recordings proper justice. Andy's recommendations are spot on.

While there are better mics you should be able to get a usable signal and output with this mic without sounding muffled.  Make sure you have the correct driver selected for you mic and that your project bit depth and sample rate match what the mic can do.

[Bill Phillips]

6 hours ago, mettelus said:

The Blue Yeti is locked to 16-bit, 48KHz, so another thing to try is make sure the DAW project reflects that before recording, and probably WASAPI shared for drivers settings. You may be seeing mismatch in bit depth/sample rate, but even if this improves you are not going to do your audio recordings proper justice. Andy's recommendations are spot on.

I agree. It should work, though, I haven't tried it. Also, latency may make including the vocal in a headphones mix impossible, and additional connected I/O will be limited to the PC audio interface. 

[John Vere]

N/A

Edited June 5, 2023 by JohnnyV

[Bill Phillips]

2 hours ago, John Vere said:

There is no real option other than using a proper audio interface with ASIO drivers if you are recording audio. Everything else is a waist of time and money.

@John Vere are you saying that a USB, large diaphragm condenser mic using WASAPI can't be used to make a decent vocal recording? I haven't tried it. So I don't know; but it surprises me that it flat won't work.

I understand that the USB mic limits you to recording one track at a time and, a ASIO audio interface is needed for recording other instruments. But if your favorite mic for vocals is the USB condenser, couldn't you use it and WASAPI drivers to record the vocal?

[John Vere]

We are not talking about the audio quality that should not be the issue. We are taking about the need for all the other things that a proper audio interface with ASIO supports. Most important is track synchronization.
I find it very odd that very few people realize how important ASIO really is to audio recording being in sync.  
You record the vocals to a backing track in WASAPI shared mode and it will be at least 60 ms late. WASAPI exclusive performance is better but not all devices support it and it will still be late , just by less.  

Then there’s monitoring etc. 

[Bill Phillips]

2 minutes ago, John Vere said:

We are not talking about the audio quality that should not be the issue. We are taking about the need for all the other things that a proper audio interface with ASIO supports. Most important is track synchronization.
I find it very odd that very few people realize how important ASIO really is to audio recording being in sync.  
You record the vocals to a backing track in WASAPI shared mode and it will be at least 60 ms late. WASAPI exclusive performance is better but not all devices support it and it will still be late , just by less.  

Then there’s monitoring etc. 

Thanks, @John Vere  That answers my question, Using WASAPI is a significant drawback, particularly for a new DAW user, to deal with.

[Byron Dickens]

1 hour ago, bitflipper said:

But I am always reluctant to a address any problem with the too-easy conclusion that "you just haven't spent enough money yet". Everybody here knows how that logic can take you down a GASaholic rabbit hole.

And I am reluctant to encourage people to continue fighting with substandard equipment that is clearly not up to the task. 

It is not a matter of spending more money, but spending it in the right place. When many cost effective solutions are readily available that instantly solve 99% of  one's audio problems, it seems foolish to me not to recommend that one just bite the bullet  and pony up the cash to avoid the headaches.

It kinda saddens me to see people struggling and fighting after wasting their money on tools that are not suitable for the job.

 

[Starship Krupa]

2 hours ago, John Vere said:

You record the vocals to a backing track in WASAPI shared mode and it will be at least 60 ms late. WASAPI exclusive performance is better but not all devices support it and it will still be late , just by less.  

Then there’s monitoring etc. 

I was wondering, I know that you tested various driver models, including WASAPI Shared, but did you ever get around to testing the sync performance of WASAPI Exclusive? They are very different animals. Shared goes through the Windows mixer, which adds a lot of processing and resampling steps to the process. WASAPI Exclusive should sync a lot better than Shared.

The Blue Yeti (and most other USB mics) comes with a built-in headphone amp for monitoring, so that should be taken care of.

In any case, the OP's stated issue is that when they record this mic in Cakewalk, it sounds muffled, whereas using the BandLab DAW, it sounds fine. Subsequently, almost everyone jumped on the "your mic's not suitable for music production!" train when the OP didn't even say that they're trying to produce music. Cakewalk is used for VO work and podcasts as well as music, maybe this person is just trying to record speech. They didn't mention anything about overdubs or any of that. They've been using the BandLab DAW (presumably to their satisfaction, audio wise) and it would seem they want to graduate to Cakewalk.

Guessing from their avatar and handle, good chance that they're doing hip hop or reggae style production, which may be less sensitive to the kind of sync issues that you describe. Probably everything but the vocal is going to be in the box.

Whatever else is going on, recording a Blue Yeti mic into Cakewalk shouldn't sound "muffled." Blue Yeti is a Logitech product that sells for about $90. It's not a "turd," it's a decent quality mic aimed at VO work. It comes with its own drivers (although probably not ASIO). And yes, it can be used to lay down vocal or instrument tracks. It's not the ideal tool for making music, but it should be able to perform the task with a bit more effort to set it up.

The person has been using a DAW that operates inside a web browser, and people are lecturing them on driver modes. I'll take a wild guess that the browser-based BandLab DAW doesn't sync perfectly.

3 hours ago, bitflipper said:

I ask because it seems that if it sounds OK with other software, it should sound exactly the same in Cakewalk. Whether the recording software is Cakewalk or Audacity or whatever, they're all receiving the same digital data from the microphone's driver. If it truly sounds different in Cakewalk, there must be a reason beyond "it's a crap mic".

Now, I totally agree that investing in a good mic and interface is a good idea. But I am always reluctant to a address any problem with the too-easy conclusion that "you just haven't spent enough money yet".

Thank you. As I said, the Blue Yeti is not a "crap mic." And it's the mic that the OP has. If someone doesn't want to help them get it to work with Cakewalk, fine. Me, I'd rather not have a potential Cakewalk user walk away with the conclusion that in order to use the program, you need to fork out $150 more just to be able to lay down a vocal. Then the word goes out that "Cakewalk isn't compatible with USB mics," which isn't true and is detrimental to the program's rep.

So, to @Jahrika!: since you mention background noise and level issues, it sounds like maybe you're not getting a hot enough signal from the Yeti for some reason. I don't think you need a plug-in or any special trick, just a good hot level. My hunch is that your signal might be going through the Windows mixer, and the Windows mixer might be attenuating it. In order to help you straighten this out, can you give us more information about your setup?

In Cakewalk's Preferences/Audio/Playback and Recording settings, what is your Driver Mode set to? Ideally, it should be ASIO, but if that's not an option, then WASAPI Exclusive.

Have you installed the Blue Yeti drivers from Logitech's site? It's s good idea to do so, but supposedly it comes with software that lets you add "broadcast effects," so make sure any Logitech mixer or control panel isn't screwing with your signal. All effects and processing should be switched off.

What hardware are you using to listen to your playback? Probably your computer's on-board sound chip? Look in Preferences/Audio/Devices and see what it says about your input and output devices.

[RBH]

 Spoken voice is not that dissimilar ( texture wise ) to a vocal being sung. USB mics can deliver adequate spoken word content. Nearly any audio interface designed these days will deliver adequate signal conversion. But all of the performance qualities are dependent on  proper synchronization. Internal Audio " interfaces " and USB Mics are likely designed with lower quality digital compression and limiting that are not friendly to quality audio when they are pushed into operating. So - as was mentioned , higher quality mic and a proper audio interface might be sure fire fixes.  BUT - also make sure you are not over loading the mic when singing / speaking. We can all guarantee that it is not a audio software issue with CakeWalk.

[John Vere]

Yes WASAPI exclusive has sometimes better round trip latency than even some ASIO devices at the same settings. But, I found many devices don't support it. The good news is the Realtek audio does support it so this makes it a very good driver for people using on board audio. The minute you plug in a USB audio device you will want ASIO. If you can live with the latency, fine. And that can actually be adjusted in sync and caching. You perform a loopback test and measure the difference and add or subtract it in the box I pointed out. 

The issue with the sound quality is a mystery but until the OP gets the mike working with WASAPI exclusive ( or shared)   mode we can only guess as it most certainly would be the driver.  I can see real bad sound happening in Cakewalk if using MME mode.  Another question is if the Driver supports the projects sample rate, that can also sound terrible. 

[Wookiee]

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[Bill Phillips]

1 hour ago, Will. said:

Secondly: change your recording rate within Cakewalk higher than 16bit.  

"Higher than 16bit?" Shouldn't it be 16bit?