My condenser mic still doesn't work. Please help!

A

Adrián Morales

New member
Hi, for last christmas I bought a Rode NT1-A condenser mic and a Audiobox USB for plugging it to the pc. For months it worked pefectly, but I left the stuff in a box for 5 months and I wanted to use it again, and i found so many problems.

The first problem that im having is that when I open my Ableton, if my 48v button is activated (for the condenser mic), the audio just crashes and ableton says that it needs an audio motor to work!
The second problem that im having is that ONCE it worked but the audio it was just so distorted and i could hear so many pops that came from the audiobox, because the clip light wasnt turning on (yeah i put the mix knob all the way up to see if it was from the microphone)

Still haven't found a solution for this, can anyone help me?
 
Re-install the driver for the audibox first and if this doesn't cure it - re-install Ableton, and probably manually remove it first to make sure all the components go. It's probably just the driver. Although - the fact it crashes when 48V is applied suggests there is a possibility one of the capacitors has dried out/gone faulty and some residual voltage is reaching the preamp, crashing the software.

If the software fix fails, then the audiobox could be faulty.
 
Is there any way you can take your microphone either to a store or a friend's and try it with a different interface? That would help isolate the problem to the microphone, or something further "up the line."

Trying different cables is also something to do, eliminate those as a source of problems, and using different USB ports on the computer, all to rule out problems with those components.

Can you install Audacity and just see if you can record anything through the Audiobox? Also, maybe try plugging in an electric guitar directly, without the 48v/phantom power turned on, and see whether it's just related to either the 48v operation, or perhaps Ableton software?

Once you have ruled out hardware problems, go through the list of things to optimize your system for audio, removing unnecessary USB devices, not going through USB hubs, checking for driver updates, etc.
 
It might be worth trying a different USB port or, better yet, a powered USB hub.
If you can't get phantom power enabled and let it settle before trying anything.

Another thing to try is enabling phantom power with no microphone and cable connected.
If there's no crash, that would point to the mic, cable, or USB supply voltage.

It's also possible, I guess, that your cable could be damaged, causing an unexpected draw on the phantom supply.

I'd also make sure that drivers are up to date, that the audiobox is the chosen device under ableton settings, and that the buffer size isn't set too small. Maybe try 256 or 512 for testing.

See how you get on with that. :)
 
Presonus has new drivers for their interfaces. I was having some strange problem with mine a few months back, went and installed their latest, I have not had any problems.

I suggest updating and also, make sure your blocksize isn't too low. Downloads for Interfaces | PreSonus
 
Are you perhaps on Windows 10 and had some updates? If so lots of people have had audio kit stuffed by this.

A short on the phantom power supply should not cause any problems since the maximum current pull would only be 14mA although I doubt the Audio box could supply even half that.

As folks have said, a good clean out and re-installation of drivers is a good plan and yes, try Audacity, pretty failsafe.

Dave.
 
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