Problem with my recording - overloaded vocals

[RetroDude83]

Hi,
yesterday I taped a show and although the levels did't reach 0dB while recording the show the vocals of the singer turned out very bad. I attached an mp3 sample.

anyone knows what I did wrong? I use: Church Audio cardioids > CA preamp > Olympus LS(mic in), I'm all new to using mics with a preamp...

anyone have an idea how to smoothen the shitty vocals if that's possible at all. I'm also not familiar with equalazing and stuff.

cheers

[dorrcoq]

One tip - if you are using a preamp, go line in

[rspencer]

Your levels look fine. Running a pre-amp going mic-in runs a good risk of overloading the internal pre of the recorder. While it's not truly brickwalled, I'd bet that's the source of the distortion. Another possibility is that the mics were being overloaded.

Either way, there's really not much you can do about it. Be thankful it wasn't really bad.

[dcbullet]

Church Audio cardioids can take very high SPL's so I'd guess your problem either 1) mic input as discussed above 2) week battery in your pre.

[RetroDude83]

Church Audio cardioids can take very high SPL's so I'd guess your problem either 1) mic input as discussed above 2) week battery in your pre.

I was told not to use preamps with the line-in of the LS-10, even Chris Church says that (well at least for the preamps he sells).

I was assuming it could be the battery, which I haven't changed since june last year. I'll make sure to buy a new one.

Thanks for the input!