From the Left and Right audio plugs on the back of my DVD player I have a cable connecting these to the line-input hole on the back of my CPU.

This works and I am getting sound. It records, BUT...
I keep getting some crackling at various points and it also sounds as if certain beats and notes are omitted from some spots.

My sound card is a Sound Blaster LIVE and the cable is brand spanking new.

Can I stop this problem somehow?

NP: Meet Joe Black - T. Newman
*****/*****

What program are you recording into on your PC? Your input levels may be set too high and may be why you are getting these problems. If the input level is too high, it leads to clipping (i.e. the cutting off of the tops/bottoms of the waveform) which causes distortion and sometimes complete dropouts of the audio signal. If you have a volume control down in your system tray, do the following:

-double click on it; this will bring up the "master out" mixing console. This isn't the control you want so...

-from the pull-down menu, select Options->Properties

-now push the radio button "Recording", then from the list of options below it, make sure Master Record, Wave and Line In are checked (it's alright if any others are checked), then press OK

-adjust the Line In and Master Record sliders until you get a usable signal; you may also have to adjust the Wave slider as well; be sure to mute the Mic control if you have one hooked up to your soundcard

Remember that you are recording from an analog source by doing it the way you described. It's truly better if you could use a DVD-ROM and go thru the long task of extracting/deprotecting the VOBs, then extracting the AC3 stream, converting this to a WAV format, amplifying to a good level, downsampling from 48KHz stereo to 44.1 KHz stereo and finally chopping them up into individual cues and burning them to CD-R. Doing it this way keeps the signal digital during the entire process. Yes, it's a tedious task, but it provides the best results.

Barring that, if you actually prefer to listen to the score while recording it to your PC from an external DVD player, you might want to invest in a sound card with digital inputs. That way you can run your digital output from your DVD player to the soundcard which will keep your signal digital. Because it's at line-level though, you will probably still need to amplify the resulting waveform, but this is an easy task with a program like Cool Edit or Soundforge. However, a good quality sound card is more expensive than a DVD-ROM, so you may just want to take the plunge and get that if you happen to have the extra cash.

A tip for the Windows mixer: It seems to be that at least some of the sliders have the 100% setting IN THE MIDDLE! The annoying thing is, the value isn't displayed as a number anywhere, so you really have to use the damn sliders and try to find the best position manually.

I was using creative recorder (which came pre installed on my computer) and I had to fiddle around with the levels for a bit because the recording volume was way too high.
With regards to the analog signal, I figured the signal would be crappier, but I like this score and just an okay version would do for now.

Good to see you around. Just before I left, you said you were taking a sabbatical. Of course, you've probably been back for a while, and I'm making a fool of myself, but...

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