Mic input too weak

Hey Dave, I'm at -3dB with the gain knob at 75%. I can boost the waveform to -15 to -20dB and it sounds ok. Maybe I'm onto something now.
But it shouldn't take til 75% to give me this kind of sound, I thought 50-60% would be about the normal level for recording.
 
Hey Dave, I'm at -3dB with the gain knob at 75%. I can boost the waveform to -15 to -20dB and it sounds ok. Maybe I'm onto something now.
But it shouldn't take til 75% to give me this kind of sound, I thought 50-60% would be about the normal level for recording.

Boris,
Which mic are you using that gets you to "-3dB at 75% gain"?? If you are using the SM58, it will need that extra gain. Or... Are you getting the -3dB signal with a phone input, as Dave suggested? Is it "muffled" too? [dont see a sample recording anywhere, so we can listen... Unless I missed it]
You said you "boost"? to -15 to-20dB.... That is actually a reduction from -3dB.
Dale
 
Last edited:
Boris,
Which mic are you using that gets you to "-3dB at 75% gain"?? If you are using the SM58, it will need that extra gain. Or... Are you getting the -3dB signal with a phone input, as Dave suggested? Is it "muffled" too? [dont see a sample recording anywhere, so we can listen... Unless I missed it]
You said you "boost"? to -15 to-20dB.... That is actually a reduction from -3dB.
Dale


Oh no this is the Behringer C-1 condenser, the new one I bought. No phone input, just straight into the interface through XLR-XLR on one channel. I recorded a bit of finger picking while singing as well and this is the waveform I got. Sorry I confused the numbers, i boosted it from -3dB as seen here to half way up and it sounds ok.. there's a bit of hissing from the background noise and a bit of crackling but otherwise it's ok. It should still give me a stronger signal at lower than 75% I'm thinking.

Boost-Signal — imgbb.com
 
Boris,
I went back and re-read the thread again. I am confused: are dealing with a muffled sound, or wrestling with the concept of how much gain you have to add?

I looked at your screenie and see a signal that I could live with. But it is one's ears that tell the tale. It appears to be boosted and not a raw, initial recording. If that is your initial capture, I see no weak signal. For my raw capture, I target -15 to -12dB, to minimize gain hiss. Then, I can "boost" post-production. With some gear I've used, some potentiometers have more effect at the top-end of travel. A little dab will do ya.... Some had a very narrow "sweet spot" to dial in... requiring ears, not eyes.

However, if it is the "muffled" you are troubleshooting, we cannot see "muffled" from a screenie. We really need a sound clip.
Dale

Add on- I just zoomed in to your picture and see why you were saying that you "boosted to -15".. Your meter reads from 0.0dB center to -24dB. That is completely different than any track level-meter that I have seen. Interesting...
image.jpeg
 
Last edited:
Boris,
I went back and re-read the thread again. I am confused: are dealing with a muffled sound, or wrestling with the concept of how much gain you have to add?

I looked at your screenie and see a signal that I could live with. But it is one's ears that tell the tale. It appears to be boosted and not a raw, initial recording. If that is your initial capture, I see no weak signal. For my raw capture, I target -15 to -12dB, to minimize gain hiss. Then, I can "boost" post-production. With some gear I've used, some potentiometers have more effect at the top-end of travel. A little dab will do ya.... Some had a very narrow "sweet spot" to dial in... requiring ears, not eyes.

However, if it is the "muffled" you are troubleshooting, we cannot see "muffled" from a screenie. We really need a sound clip.
Dale

hey Dale
I know it's confusing, because when i re-listen to a track I've just recorded not even I'm sure exactly what's going on - whether it's muffling or lack of gain, or whether one is causing the other. My ears go off comparing it to other professional recordings, and my levels aren't on par with their nice BIG FULL detailed textured sound that appears to surround you when you're listening on headphones. My sound seems too constricted and narrow, like the guitar and vocals (and imrpov solos if I add them in) are always battling each other. There doesn't seem to be enough FULLness or width to it. If any of that makes sense.

Also, when you boost from -15 to -12 like you said, wouldn't that amplification make the hiss more apparent?
 
Hey Dave, I'm at -3dB with the gain knob at 75%. I can boost the waveform to -15 to -20dB and it sounds ok. Maybe I'm onto something now.
But it shouldn't take til 75% to give me this kind of sound, I thought 50-60% would be about the normal level for recording.

There is no "normal" level for gain controls on interfaces or mixers come to that (just as "11! means FA on a guitar amp!)

The level, in dBfs, that you record at depends on the loudness of the source, distance of source to mic, sensitivity of mic, gain structure of the AI. A finger picked acoustic e.g. into an SM57 at a foot needs my NI KA6 at flat out gain to get -18dBfs or so. Fortunately the noise floor of the KA6 is low and I get a noise floor of around -75dB fs, much of which is "room" even at 2am in leafy, suburban Northampton. When I used my A&H mixer into a 2496 soundcard the gain structure was different again.

Dave.
 
There is a BIG difference between 'muffled' and 'quiet'. In a normally operating system, the level you record at can be a range of different levels - some leave it high, some low - but everyone runs at a sensible level so their recordings are not noisy. - as in hissy!

If you turn a condenser mic 180 degrees around, it gets muffled as the most sensitive side is pointing the wrong way. If you use an SM58 very close in, it can sound muffled because there's lots of bass and little treble. Muffled, to us means lacking in HF in most examples. That's why hearing it is so important - loads of us will know what's wrong when we hear it.

One question - when you are listening on the headphones to the live output - is that muffled too? is there a mic position where it gets'unmuffled'. Your DAW is simply recording what it is given.

Level can be fiddled with, and if you are heaving to turn the gain up really a long way on more than one mic, then it suggests that you have a physical fault - BOTH faulty, a rare thing, or a cable fault, more common, but you have nice coloured ones which suggest they're unlikely to be both faulty - or the one shared component - the interface. I assume it's the same on both input channels if you record in stereo with two mics at the same time?

We need more factual info.
 
There is a BIG difference between 'muffled' and 'quiet'. In a normally operating system, the level you record at can be a range of different levels - some leave it high, some low - but everyone runs at a sensible level so their recordings are not noisy. - as in hissy!

If you turn a condenser mic 180 degrees around, it gets muffled as the most sensitive side is pointing the wrong way. If you use an SM58 very close in, it can sound muffled because there's lots of bass and little treble. Muffled, to us means lacking in HF in most examples. That's why hearing it is so important - loads of us will know what's wrong when we hear it.

One question - when you are listening on the headphones to the live output - is that muffled too? is there a mic position where it gets'unmuffled'. Your DAW is simply recording what it is given.

Level can be fiddled with, and if you are heaving to turn the gain up really a long way on more than one mic, then it suggests that you have a physical fault - BOTH faulty, a rare thing, or a cable fault, more common, but you have nice coloured ones which suggest they're unlikely to be both faulty - or the one shared component - the interface. I assume it's the same on both input channels if you record in stereo with two mics at the same time?

We need more factual info.

Good question - No. it sounds much better in my DAW (with my reverb, EQ, compressor plug ins which I monitor directly it sounds relatively clean) however it does get muddier the more tracks I add and the battle between guitar and vocals is still there. When I play it back in my DAW I hear exactly what I just heard live as I was recording myself. It's once I export it out of my DAW into a .wav file that it loses the better levels I had in the DAW and starts to get more rough and muffled. And yes it's the same on both input channels.
 
Last edited:
Here is my clip, hopefully it works. The video is through my webcam, the sound is competely RAW and unedited through my Studio One 3 DAW, I just synced the video and audio together afterwards. Starts at 50% level, then 75%, then I increase it to maximum. Due to the angle you can't really see, but the mic is about 25-30cm from the guitar sound hole facing the 12-15th fret.

Testclip - Streamable
<div style="width:100%;height:0px;position:relative;padding-bottom:75.000%;"><iframe src="https://streamable.com/s/yfaws/gbhbej" frameborder="0" width="100%" height="100%" allowfullscreen style="width:100%;height:100%;position:absolute;left:0px;top:0px;overflow:hidden;"></iframe></div>

And here is the screenshot of the levels

testclip — imgbb.com
 
Last edited:
Hi Boris,
The gain ramping up like that in the last 10% of the pot-turn, or so, is normal enough.
You don't really need to aim for the loudest possible recording - Just a recording that's louder than the base noise level by enough of a margin.

The main thing that jumps out at me here is the sound of your room. It's very live in there.
The closer your microphone is the less you're going to hear that but it'll always be audible to some extent.

To be honest it's so pronounced that I started wondering if the mic was rotated backwards. It's happened before! (plenty of times!!)
Just to clarify, the text on the microphone body is facing towards you?

In short it doesn't sound like there's anything wrong with your setup other than the sound of the environment itself.
 
Hi Boris,
The gain ramping up like that in the last 10% of the pot-turn, or so, is normal enough.
You don't really need to aim for the loudest possible recording - Just a recording that's louder than the base noise level by enough of a margin.

The main thing that jumps out at me here is the sound of your room. It's very live in there.
The closer your microphone is the less you're going to hear that but it'll always be audible to some extent.

To be honest it's so pronounced that I started wondering if the mic was rotated backwards. It's happened before! (plenty of times!!)
Just to clarify, the text on the microphone body is facing towards you?

In short it doesn't sound like there's anything wrong with your setup other than the sound of the environment itself.

What do you mean when you say very live?

Yes the C-1 logo and the red light indicating that it's receiving phantom power is indeed facing me. (I did make the mistake when I first plugged it in it was facing away from me, but it is definitely facing me and the guitar in the clip)
 
What do you mean when you say very live?

Echoey/Reverby; Like the difference between singing in a bedroom and singing in a bathroom.

A room with acoustic treatment, or a room with lots of clutter and soft furnishings, is going to sound 'dry'. Clear, focussed...like a professional radio broadcast or podcast.
A room with bare walls and wooden floors, or tiles, and not much else is going to sound like you're playing inside a tin-can.

Maybe that's what you're hearing and not liking?
 
Like this...@ 4:00

YouTube

Interesting.

What I'm not liking is that my music covers, which sound really thin with not enough fullness YouTube

Don't sound anywhere close to this kind of 'studio' quality YouTube

It could be due to the treatment of my room, but there's probably more going on there. Because my ears don't 'just' hear how lively the room is when it comes to listening to a produced recording.
 
"Live" generally means lots of reflective surfaces that are bouncing sound to the mic. Lot's of ways to reduce too much reflections with blankets, etc. A condenser mic is more sensitive so it will pick up more of the "sound of the room" than a dynamic mic. If you are aiming for that sound it's fine but it can make mixing more difficult if you are trying for a "drier" sound or a different reverb than the room provides.
 
Good question - No. It sounds perfectly fine as I listen to it live (with my reverb, EQ, compressor plug ins which I monitor directly it sounds clean). When I play back it all back in my DAW I hear exactly that. It's once I export it out of my DAW into a .wav file that it loses that quality and clarity. And yes it's the same on both input channels.

That is most odd. WHEN you send us a clip, please either send a 320k attached MP3 or post a 16bit .wav on Dropbox or some other easily accessable, common platform.

Dave.
 
There are a lot of variables, sure, and the first thing that strikes me is that you're using a lot of long reverb there on your voice and guitar where the reference recording does not.
Your recordings are distorting a fair bit too making them sound harsh. It may be that the gain was too high when recording or it could be that they were boosted too far in software afterwards...Can't tell from here.

It all starts with the source, and I think the sound of your room is the first thing to look at.
 
Back
Top