Hot Potato

[hoth]

I'm running a C451-B into a Grace pre and then a Firewire 410. I find though that I have to pad the input, even when just mic'ing acoustic guitars. Is there something wrong or is this mic just that hot?

 

[scrubs]

I'm running a C451-B into a Grace pre and then a Firewire 410. I find though that I have to pad the input, even when just mic'ing acoustic guitars. Is there something wrong or is this mic just that hot?

Are you running into the XLR (preamp) input of the 410? If so, even with the gain all the way down, you are probably getting a boost from both preamps. That might be enough to cause clipping. Check the specs of the 410 to see if the 1/4" input (TRS, I presume) is not quite as hot, and maybe try that.

 

[sile2001]

hoth, I'll bet you plugged into either the XLR or the 1/4" in the Neutrik combo jack on the front of the FW410. Either one of those will try to run the signal through the FW410's mic preamps. What you need to do is on whichever channel (1 & 2), you need to flip that Mic/Line switch, and then plug your Grace pre into the 1/4" input on the back of the FW410.

 

[hoth]

hoth, I'll bet you plugged into either the XLR or the 1/4" in the Neutrik combo jack on the front of the FW410. Either one of those will try to run the signal through the FW410's mic preamps. What you need to do is on whichever channel (1 & 2), you need to flip that Mic/Line switch, and then plug your Grace pre into the 1/4" input on the back of the FW410.

Thanks. That's exactly what I did. I read in the manual that the back 1/4" was unbalanced and I wanted to keep my signal balanced. This seemed important because I have a lot of power cables and such together that I thought would cause noise on the line. Plugging into the back gives me a much more useable signal.