Microphone/setup problems - all help welcome.

[P_Bag]

Hi all,

I've been recording for about a year, originally on a Sony condensor mic for pretty much everything. It was a small mic with a 1/8" cable/jack (i.e. no XLR cable). I was, and still am, using a Soundblaster Live! soundcard, and hadn't really run into any problems other than some hiss which was easy to remove.

Unfortunately, I had to return that mic to its owner, so I picked up a mic of my own (the Sennheiser e835 dynamic omnidirectional mic). I noticed that with my current setup the amplitude I could get out of it was extremely low; if I turned the recording volume up enough to get a decent signal, the noise would almost overwhelm it. I had a friend rig up a small preamp for me which seemed to solve the problem but still wasn't perfect (sounded tinny, especially with acoustic guitar). The Sennheiser uses an XLR cable and a XLR-to-1/8" adaptor.

So, I went and got an APEX 170 cardioid condensor mic for acoustic recording, which has battery-power - but even with a fresh battery, there is pretty much no signal, even with the recording volume all the way up.

Anyone have any ideas of what might be wrong?

once again, the setup is:
Soundblaster Live!
XLR cable to 1/8" adaptor
Sennheiser e835 dynamic mic
Apex 170 condenser mic
basically no amplitude .

 

[Warhead]

Your sound card just might not have enough juice to bring it up to level? Also, are you plugging this into a line input or is there specifically a mic input on the card?

War

 

[kid klash]

With either mic, I'd go :

Mic > mic pre > cable (mic pre out connector to 1/8" connector) > Live! 1/8" audio input.

Go into the "Live audio mixer" software window and select LINE, not MIC; adjust the input volume in the same window, and you should be good to go.

Happy recording!

 

[P_Bag]

There is a mic input on the card; I have it plugged into there.

In terms of the card possibly not having enough "juice", is there anything I can do about that?

And - I'll try switching the recording input to LINE rather than MIC, and see if that works out.

In terms of the battery in the condensor mic, does it have to have a certain output (i.e. 1 mA), and so be a certain type of battery (i.e. alkaline rather than rechargeable)?