Ableton Forum

Hi all!
not sure to be at the right place, however...

I am playing vinyl records on a Technics SL1210 MK2 / ortofon 2M cartridge / Art pre II preamp going into Focusrite Saffire LE line in. When playing the records, they sound fine.
However, when recording them with Audacity (mac OS X 10., with levels correctly adjusted in preamp / audio interface / audacity, and audacity quality preferences :
44100 / 32 bit float / high quality everywhere, the result is baaaad. Not horrible, but definitely worse : slightly distorted, lack of bass, backgroung noise volume higher
than original... I have tried different settings in audacity "preferences", but it sounds about the same shit..
Any idea what could be the problem ?

I am supposed to dj with ableton live on a big soundsystem in 10 days, and there is no way I can play with such a bad sound
thanks!!

When you're recording and monitoring it and it's sounding fine, are you monitoring the output of audacity?
Why not record directly into Live? Set the record pref to 24bit and stay close to but not at the top of your headroom.

Check the impedance setting on your pre amp and the low cut filter settings, just do some short test recordings on a track that is giving the most obvious trouble until you find settings that record identically to the monitored sound.
Are you sure your not clipping the pre-amp?