Do I need to purchase a Preamp?

[OzzieJ21]

I recently purchased an M-Audio Fast Track Pro USB Interface and I'm using it with my Blue Bluebird Condenser Mic. When I try to record, I have to turn the gain to about 80% to hear anything at all and to hear a decent amount I have to increase it too 100% but it maxes out even when I'm speaking normally into the mic and causes the sound to become distorted. I've read that this might be a problem with the built in preamp within the Fast Track Pro. Is there anything I can possibly do to fix this problem or do I need to start looking for a Preamp and if so which one should I buy? Thanks.

 

[gecko zzed]

No . . . you don't need to buy a preamp.

You need to check some other things first.

1 Check that you are singing into the correct side of the microphone

2 Check that you have turned phantom power on

3 Check that the input/output balance on the interface allows you to hear the mike properly.

4 Check that your leads are working ok

 

[Bobbsy]

Gecko Zzed's suggestion are all good ones.

The Bluebird is a relatively high output microphone: 27mV/Pa @ 1kHz. To put this into perspective, my sE2200A is around 14mV/Pa and works fine with several M Audio interface preamps.

One question: rather than just judging on what you hear, what levels are you getting on the meters on your DAW? If you can get to clipping but still not hear what you're recording, that implies to me that you just need to turn up the OUTput gain somewhat, while using your DAW meters to determine a proper gain structure--you should be aiming for your recordings to average at around -18dB(FS) with peaks up to -10dB ish.