Trouble with Yamaha MT50 4 track setup

[Hibernation]

Hi,

I'm trying to setup something at home for my own music. It'll be mainly acoustic guitars, vocal, harmonica and some electric guitar. But i'm hitting some snags that i'm hoping you can help me with.

I have an old Yamaha MT50 tape 4 track running into a Nio 2/4 and then into Reaper on a laptop.

I'm having issues with the mics going straight into the 4track though. I've got a Shure SM58 that will be the vocal mic with a no brand xlr to jack lead...that works fine.

I have a Shure SM57 that will be the guitar amp mic with a d'addario planet waves xlr to jack...that gives off a very loud buzz. If I swap the leads the SM57 works fine and the SM58 loses about 80% of its volume.

Then I have a Rode NT1-A condensor mic to use as the acoustic guitar close mic and that doesn't work at all with any lead. I'm guessing this has something to do with the phantom power but my technical knowledge is pretty dreadful so I don't know how to attempt to check or resolve it if that is the case. Do i need a preamp??

Once that is sorted my plan was to put the two acoustic channels (sm57 and condensor) hard left with the vocal hard right and then i can separate them when they come into reaper. Does that sound right?

I really hope you can help me out. I'm getting really frustrated not being able to use everything i've saved up for.

Thanks

 

[famous beagle]

Hi,

Ok, so. Are you going to be recording all the sound sources (vocals, harmonica, acoustic, and electric) live at once? Since you said it's for "your own music," I'm guessing not, but maybe you have a buddy that's going to play electric or something?

If you're not planning on doing everything live, and you're planning on doing some overdubbing, then I'm not sure why you have the Yamaha MT50 in the picture at all. It sounds as though right now you're just intending to use it as a mic mixer because your A/I only has two inputs. Is that right?

Regarding the two dynamic mics (57 and 58), I'm guessing one of your cables or adapters is bad. There shouldn't be any noticeable difference in the output of a 58 or 57. Or possibly one of the inputs on your MT50 is bad? I couldn't exactly understand what you meant when you say you "switched the lead."

Regarding the condenser mic, yes you need phantom power for it, or it won't work at all. Your Nio interface actually has an XLR jack with phantom power on it (according to the specs I see), so that would be a way you could use it.

So ... just give us a little more information and we can help you:

1) Are you planning on recording live or overdubbing yourself?
2) What's the reason for the MT50? Are you just using it as a mixer, or are you planning to record to tape and then bounce that into the computer?

 

[gecko zzed]

I'm having issues with the mics going straight into the 4track though. I've got a Shure SM58 that will be the vocal mic with a no brand xlr to jack lead...that works fine.

I have a Shure SM57 that will be the guitar amp mic with a d'addario planet waves xlr to jack...that gives off a very loud buzz. If I swap the leads the SM57 works fine and the SM58 loses about 80% of its volume.

That just sounds like a dodgy lead. Get another one.

Then I have a Rode NT1-A condensor mic to use as the acoustic guitar close mic and that doesn't work at all with any lead. I'm guessing this has something to do with the phantom power but my technical knowledge is pretty dreadful so I don't know how to attempt to check or resolve it if that is the case. Do i need a preamp??

The NT1 needs phantom power. A pre-amp won't necessarily deliver phantom power, but your Neo does. YOu would need a pre amp that also has phantom power.

Once that is sorted my plan was to put the two acoustic channels (sm57 and condensor) hard left with the vocal hard right and then i can separate them when they come into reaper. Does that sound right?

The principle is right. The vocals would be separate from guitar. The two guitar mikes would not be separatable.

Rather than getting a pre-amp with phantom,consider putting the NT1 going straight into the mike channel of the NEO and using its phantom power. You can put 57 and 58 through the MT50, and take a single line out to go into the other NEO channel.

Better still, consider getting an interface that gives you more than two mike channels and bypass the MT50 alogether.

 

[Hibernation]

Hi, thanks for the input. Massive help, i was beginning to wonder what i was going to do if i couldn't get it to work. I was planning on recording the acoustic and vocals live in one take into the mt50 to get the more gritty tape sound and then record the tape through the nio into the computer. Then any extra overdubs i was planning on doing without the mt50. Or will the tape warmth be the same if i just record at the same time on the tape and computer?

If i press record on the mt50 with the 57+58 running through it and press record on reaper will the nt1a come through as a separate channel running through the nio then?

I'll get another lead to see if that's the issue. I've had two planetwave xlr to jack cables now that have been dodgy! I thought they were supposed to be high end leads.

Hope that makes sense?

Thanks again
Steve