SwingDJs

Can I use the microphone that I use for djing and
plug it into my computer's sound card? Its a different
connector, I guess I'd need an adapter, right? Does it
otherwise work?

I have a cheap computer microphone, but my voice sounds
lousy when I record using it.

-Ron

With a proper converter as noted, yep.

-FF

It worked, but the sound comes in so quiet, when I amplify it, I get the background noise, too. Oh well.

And it was a 1/4" (microphone jack) to 3.5mm (sound card input) connector converter.

Off the top of my head, I don't know the exact tech lingo, but there are often impedance and OHM differences that might require you to get more than just a simple 1/4 inch to mini-plug adaptor: you might need a capacitor (or some sort of electronic do-hickey) that also changes the impedance from low to high or vice-versa. That is why most mikes designed for P.A.s (with an XLR plug) sound "tinny" when plugged into home stereo-type systems, and why microphones lose some clariity when plugged into a 1/4 inch amp. XLR plugs are high impedence, whereas 1/4 inch inputs are typically low impedance (or maybe vice-versa).

There might be other electronic variables that make it so that a mike made for a P.A. system "overpowers" a PC sound card so as to sound distorted or tinny. Your friendly neighborhood Radio Shack geek will most likely have the right convertor for you, but make sure you get the experienced geek, not the teenage dork who knows nothing.

Again, in summary, get advice from the Radio Shack geek, not the dork. (Or at a real music-equipment store.)

The reason the input was so quiet was that I eventually figured out that I had a setting wrong. If I remember right, it was something about making sure the card was treating the input as a mic input instead of a input from my stereo.