[Five]

Originally Posted by ReverbReverse

five : It's all cool

What i said was "I use the mic in jack, and not the line in, since the recorder won't let me control the volume level," ..i should have been clearer, sorry. What i was meaning was that i don't plug the mic into the line-in, because if i do so (= use the line in socket and not the microphone one) then i can't set the levels - and everything gets instantly overdriven and distorted like there's no tomorrow. When i plug into the microphone socket on the contrary, i can set the levels.

..i don't know if i'm clear that way ?

I was a bit too much on the safe side with that one (was expecting the drums to be louder) but even if i get the highest level possible, it's only fractionally louder..

I was browsing these tutorials on the mcd site you were linking to.. and there's that guy who wrote one of them and makes the point that one should record at -20db in order to have more headroom to tweak with the sound afterwards. I get it in theory, but it left me perplexed since that's nothing i ever read anywhere else :-s ?

okay now I understand.

I think maybe its the CSBs you don't like... they're muddy and non-directional. maybe try some CSCs or other directional mics, that's about all I can think to suggest at this point.

you can try the line in with a preamp but I don't think that will help much. If you just use a cable with a volume pot as above the impedence will be mismatched (but who knows? might sound okay).