R/E/P Community

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

Pages: [1]   Go Down

Author Topic: help with mic/preamp setup  (Read 2611 times)

epic

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4
help with mic/preamp setup
« on: May 16, 2006, 06:34:16 PM »

Im not sure where to post this. having a hard time navigating the forums here.


i know nothing about mic preamps. but the vu meter on mine reads nothing, i have the gain and drive set at minimum (if i turn it up any it will clip). on my delta card, (default mic input settings are either +30dB,or +19dB. can be switched to line settings +14dBu,or +3dBu. via hardware jumpers). then it has further settings via software control panel, +4dBu -4dB or -10dBV, can also be set manually to anything between.

My problem is recording levels clipping. i lower recording level and now it is too low and sounds distanced and distorted with (digital echos? don't know how to describe). if i get it to an acceptable level without clipping, it seems like the audio is over-compressed and distorted as if it clipped (signal has long flat peaks like a majority of the audio clipped, but peak level was only -6dB). i can upload samples of audio if that would help.

and what range should my preamp be peaking? where should my audio card meter peak and where should the mass of audio range?


MXL 990 and a presonus tube pre. into a M-Audio Delta 1010lt
mic  http://www.mxlmics.com/condenser_mic/condenser_index.html
pre  http://www.presonus.com/tubepre.html

thanks to anyone who can help.
Logged

scottoliphant

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 721
Re: help with mic/preamp setup
« Reply #1 on: May 17, 2006, 01:16:19 PM »

it sounds like something weird with your sound card / software. do you have the ability to bypass the soundcard and monitor off another source to check? your pre should be able to get at least up to 0 comfortably. do a quick google for dbfs as it relates to sound cards.
Quote:

default mic input settings are either +30dB,or +19dB
this sounds a little weird to me, my break out box is set to +4dbu. It sounds like your daw front end / card thing may have a pre amp stage built into it (can you plug a mic directly in to your sound card and get levels?)

Daniel Asti

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 81
Re: help with mic/preamp setup
« Reply #2 on: May 17, 2006, 06:21:09 PM »

Try cables. Quickly go through removing and replacing them and try the different inputs on the card. Go line direct into the card etc.. - until you find the exact source. Is it all balanced?
Logged

14cells

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1
Re: help with mic/preamp setup
« Reply #3 on: June 13, 2006, 11:03:50 AM »

I had a similar problem when I set my 1010lt up with my pre's. All I did to solve it came down to trial and error. I adjusted the jumpers from the default setting (i think they are originally set on commercial levels, not pro). But when you set the jumpers, make sure you set both sets one set is located at the back of the card, and i missed them to begin with.

From there I just got my pre's levels so they were zeroing at the desk, then set the faders in the 1010lt control panel accordingly. (in the control panel click on faders where it has the channel levels.)

This worked for me.

Hope this helps.
Logged

tom eaton

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3640
Re: help with mic/preamp setup
« Reply #4 on: June 13, 2006, 08:39:57 PM »

Sounds like you're feeding the line level outputs of a mic preamp into the mic level inputs of the preamp on your computer card.  That would mean that pretty much any output from your external preamp would overload the card.  Run your card at the lowest level (+3 ref) and you should be fine.  If the card has a dedicated "line" input, you should use that instead.

-tom
Pages: [1]   Go Up
 

Site Hosted By Ashdown Technologies, Inc.

Page created in 0.062 seconds with 20 queries.