I've struggled with audio since the beginning. It seems incredibly difficult to get good, crisp audio into the computer. If you turn up gain too much on the mics, you get so much distortion it's worse than just being quiet. I've also tried using programs like Sound Forge to amplify the volume, but again there's the distortion issue. If you could just get a clear, well-defined signal, then you could have more options. Seems better to normalize or reduce an overly loud recording than try to amplify a quiet one.

I even bought the Mobile Pre USB preamp/audio interface thing from M-AUDIO to try to combat the problem. Even with that and a professional mic, I'm still struggling. Last go round there was a lot of hiss in the mic that had to be taken out with Sound Forge's EQ, but of course that dampened the tones a lot. I guess there's a reason there are professional audio guys out there. :)