New Mic. Noise Problems. Defective unit, or just bad design?

M

mattlach

New member
Hey all, My first post here.

I recently bought the Audio-Technica ATR2500-usb. I know it is not a high end mic, and I wasnt expecting it to be. I actually wasn't planning on buying a cardoid condenser mic. All I needed was a desktop mic, but since this unit was on sale, and rather cheap, I figured "why not?"

Anyway, I am recording in a silent room (all doors and windows shut, all fans off, including computer fans, and I am getting what I feel is significant noise, but I am not sure since I am new at this, so I figured I'd ask for your opinion.

When I use Audacity to measure the RMS volume and compare it to a track generated with silence, I get a difference of 11.3dB RMS.

Here is a sample I recorded:
(never mind, the site apparently won't let me post links to other websites....)

So I used windows settings to set it to 48Khz, turned the volume up and just recorded, and this is what I wound up with.

What do you guys think.

1.) Should the mic really be this noisy?

2.) If not, is mine defective, should I try to have it replaced?

3.) Or is there something I could have done wrong settings wise that is causing this noise?

Much obliged,
Matt
 
Try setting the mic up in a closet and recording a quick sample and see if it sounds the same. I think it could be room noise that is there because of the size of the room. A closet, especially with clothes lining it, will be a smaller area with less noise building up. Essentially you would be creating a cheap isolation booth. If the problem still exists then it could be a mic problem. Maybe the problem is the USB connection. I don't mess with USB mics at all, but my guess is the quality isn't that great. Maybe what you are hearing is poor quality of the analog to digital conversion going on within the USB connection. If this is the case get an interface and an XLR mic. The interface will do the a/d conversions in that scenerio. Could also be your soundcard. Not sure thats pretty much just a guess.

I'm not an expert by any means on this, but it'd be worth a shot.
 
Thank you.


I'll give it a shot.

I'm not hearing any static noise in the room at all, but I'll try it just to see what happens. I closed all doors and windows, shut off all fans, and turned off the fans on my computer (it has a sealed water cooler that seems to be able to maintain safe temperatures at near idle without the fans on)

For clarification, the RMS of a section of the recording with only noise is -48.7dB, and the RMS of an artificial silent pattern is -60 dB

It's too bad the board won't let me post a link, as this question would work so much better with a recorded example.


--Matt
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top