Microphone and static

N

niamh

New member
I just bought a new Shure PG27 condenser microphone worth about €140. I'm using mixcraft 6 and Alesis io4 interface to record vocals, guitar and drums with this mic (I use a few others for drums). Anyway the first few days everything was great and the mic was perfect. I was able to record electric guitar parts by putting the mic right in front of my fender amp and get a great sound. Yesterday I did this again but started to get a static/crackling/popping noise when ever I hit the strings a little harder. The same thing happened with vocals. If I get too close or sing slightly louder there is static/popping.

Why did my mic suddenly start doing this? I positioned it the exact same and played the exact same song I did when it as previously working. I get that I can just position the mic further away and this would help but it's baffling me that I could put the mic right up to the amp before with no static or problems and now I can't. Anyone out there know hat is going wrong or is my mic damaged?
 
arcaxis said:
Although you positioned the mic the same way, have you perhaps changed the gain of the Alesis io4 so the signal is now clipping (red LED on the io4 flashing on louder peaks)?

The other thought is, do you have high humidity where you are? Not sure if this could cause the problem you describe, but moisture on the mic capsule can make for some odd problems.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply! Yeah I adjusted the gain on the interface and made it really low and it made no difference. I live in Ireland so don't think humidity is a problem! I've only had the mic two weeks and I take care to put it in its case after each session but Im starting to believe its damaged in some way. Why else would it suddenly start doing this?
 
Hi Naimh.
That PG mic has a 20db pad on it. This attenuates the output by 20db.
Is there any chance you had that enabled at first but now have it disabled?

If it's not that, do you have any effects or processes turned on in your software? It could be that your recording levels are fine but you're boosting the recording to the point of clipping in the software.
 
Steenamaroo said:
Hi Naimh.
That PG mic has a 20db pad on it. This attenuates the output by 20db.
Is there any chance you had that enabled at first but now have it disabled?

If it's not that, do you have any effects or processes turned on in your software? It could be that your recording levels are fine but you're boosting the recording to the point of clipping in the software.
Click to expand...

Yup the 20db pad was the problem. Fixed it now! Thanks for your help!
 
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