S/N problem

jiff 41

jiff 41

An Ex Tractor Fan
hi, i'm using an alesis IO2 express, which with nothing plugged in has hiss, when i plug my sm58 in, hiss dissappears, same with guitars,but when i plug my berhingerB1 the hiss stays, so apart from gating is there any other tricks to be used, what i've been doing is lowering the gain & singing closer, the shure mic goes max gain with no hiss at all, just room noise, any help lovingly received!! thanks.
 
jiff 41 said:
hi, i'm using an alesis IO2 express, which with nothing plugged in has hiss, when i plug my sm58 in, hiss dissappears, same with guitars,but when i plug my berhingerB1 the hiss stays, so apart from gating is there any other tricks to be used, what i've been doing is lowering the gain & singing closer, the shure mic goes max gain with no hiss at all, just room noise, any help lovingly received!! thanks.
Click to expand...
As in the IO2 always has this noise unless it has something plugged in(?) ..except for the B1 where if you lower the gain it's ok again? I would have suspected room noise being lumped in with changes from the electrical noise from gain changes but you've covered that as a difference.

gadds..had to reboot!
Anyway to add.. it could be that B1 is a real noisy mic (or defective..
On the other hand it'd be totally expected to have to run the gain way lower on a condensor mic like that.
Not sure what to make of it.
 
Last edited:
Jiff 41:

Many devices produce noise when nothing is plugged in. This is not necessarily abnormal, because open (unterminated) inputs kind of act like antennae, picking up all sorts of electronic noise. Which goes away, as you observe, when you plug in your SM58.

Could be that the noise is either related to the B1 (faulty or intrinsically noise, as noted by mixsit above), or maybe noise on the phantom power?

Or, possibly, the B1 may be more sensitive and is picking up some background sound - computer fan, aircon, ...

Can you access some other condenser mics to try out?

Paul
 
If you just stuck a 150 ohm resistor across pins 2 and 3 of the mic input (don't do that literally), the noise would probably go away as well. It's not that the sm58 is "taking away noise", it's just the the input circuit is not complete until something is properly connected. In other words, if the preamp is quiet with a sm58 plugged in, then the preamp itself is probably fairly quiet. It is an error to assume that the preamp is noisy by listening to it with nothing plugged in.

This is what makes me suspicious of the B1. Track Rat above suggests grounding or RFI - try placing the mic well away from your computer and sound hardware to see if there is any change.

Paul
 
thanks for the replies, i think the best way forward is to borrow a condenser from a friend & plug it in my lead on my system to see if the noise goes with a different mic, coz with the shure & guitars there is total silence even with gain up max, nothing like electrical, or anything else seems to interfere with it, just seems like the B1 needs to be turned up, if you know what i mean?
 
jiff 41 said:
thanks for the replies, i think the best way forward is to borrow a condenser from a friend & plug it in my lead on my system to see if the noise goes with a different mic, coz with the shure & guitars there is total silence even with gain up max, nothing like electrical, or anything else seems to interfere with it, just seems like the B1 needs to be turned up, if you know what i mean?
Click to expand...
well ..... if you're saying it seems like you also should be able to turn the gain all the way up with the B1 too, that's not correct.
The B1 is absolutely gonna need less gain than the 58.
We often get the opposite question ..... why does someone have to turn the gain up so high on a 58?
A phantom powered condenser is almost always gonna need the gain turned way below what a 58 will require.
 
..well ..... if you're saying it seems like you also should be able to turn the gain all the way up with the B1 too, that's not correct. The B1 is absolutely gonna need less gain than the 58..
Click to expand...
I was looking at that too. ..First post it seemed like he was turning it down so.. I B kung foosed :)

For that mater.. (I guess there's always exceptions..) can't imaging needing to keep stuff plugged in to keep a piece quiet
 
Last edited:
sorry guys, what i meant was, i turn it down & sing closer because if i turn the gain up the hiss comes & is recorded, whereas if i turn down the gain & sing closer the S/n ratio is different if you know what i mean, the hiss is much quiter, but when i try to record accoustic i have to turn the gain up & the noise comes with it!
 
jiff 41 said:
sorry guys, what i meant was, i turn it down & sing closer because if i turn the gain up the hiss comes & is recorded, whereas if i turn down the gain & sing closer the S/n ratio is different if you know what i mean, the hiss is much quiter, but when i try to record accoustic i have to turn the gain up & the noise comes with it!
Click to expand...
and that's where I agree with whoever said to look at that mic.
In general condensers need MUCH less gain than a dynamic. You shouldn't have to crank the gain on that mic if it's working properly to record an acoustic. I have to turn the gain down to only maybe 25% of what my dynamics need when I use any of my condensers.
 
hi again well it's like you said, i borrowed a mike(2 actually) from my mate, he even had a B1, & it's defo the mike that's at fault!, when i plugged his in loadsa gain on both!!, he loaned me a A/T2020 which i thought was a lovely mike when i used it previously so i've ordered one should be here in a few days, what i'm thinking now is can i do anything with the B1, i see some folks do mods on mike's over in the homebrew section, i'll have to check it out!!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top