New to home recording. Could use some advice on troubleshooting my new studio

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Hubbell23

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I am new to this forum (first post)

I don't plan to to do any serious recording yet, but wanted something to play around with and experiment on. I purchased a second hand AKG C2000B. I am trying to run it through a Neewer 48v phantom power supply to a Lexicon Alpha that I have had laying around and in to my desktop running Windows 10 and Audacity. Now, I know that there are no current drivers for the Lexicon for Windows 10, but I downloaded the 8.1 drivers and things seem to work ok.

Anyway, here is my issue. Regardless of whether I have the phantom power supply on or off, I am getting the same signal from the mic into Audacity. And the signal seems strong, albeit very tinny. I was under the impression that if a condenser microphone didn't have power going to it, that it wouldn't work at all. This is not the case with my set up. To test it, I plugged the mic directly into the Alpha and I still got the same signal.

The other thing to note is that, even when I have the mic plugged into the power supply and the power supply into the audio interface, the mic input knob on the Alpha doesn't have any affect on the signal being recorded in Audacity.

I am not sure if the alpha drivers are the issue, but can someone help out this newb?

Thanks!
 
The C2000B will work at 9volts (and probably less with reduced performance) and draws less than 2mA of phantom power. It is likely then that there is some residual power retained in the mic.

Now, don't want to be rude but! You have noticed that the MIC control is NOT first from the left as one might think?

Does the Alpha play out CD sound and internet radio/Toob ? If so I strongly urge you to try a simple dynamic microphone and tell us the result. Also post an MP3 click as soon as you are able.

Dave.
 
Leave the mic connected, turn the phantom power supply off, and leave it overnight. The next day power up your interface, but not the phantom power and see if the mic passes signal to the interface. The phantom power box likely has some capacitors for filtering the DC to the mic. The capacitors might hold a charge for a while and supply enough voltage to the mic to operate it for a while. Leaving it off overnight may drain the residual voltage and put your mind at ease that there aren't any real 'phantoms' residing in the mic.
 
I am turning the second knob, line 2/mic, with no result. The alpha does play back sound from the computer through the head phone jack. I will try a dynamic mic to see the difference. I apologize for my ignorance, but what is an mp3 click? Just a short test file?

Billy.
 
arcaxis said:
Leave the mic connected, turn the phantom power supply off, and leave it overnight. The next day power up your interface, but not the phantom power and see if the mic passes signal to the interface. The phantom power box likely has some capacitors for filtering the DC to the mic. The capacitors might hold a charge for a while and supply enough voltage to the mic to operate it for a while. Leaving it off overnight may drain the residual voltage and put your mind at ease that there aren't any real 'phantoms' residing in the mic.
Click to expand...

So the power supply has been off overnight. I left it off and the sound is still passing from the mic to the audio interface and into the computer. I have attached a sound file.View attachment Test File.mp3
 
Well I just hooked up an AKG C2000B I've got. I powered up the phantom and got normal audio signal through it. Powered off the phantom and the audio decayed down to nothingness (a brief sizzling wind sound as it finally faded away).

- If you try the mic direct into the Alpha without the phantom box do you get audio through? edit... missed that you already tried this)
- If you unplug the mic altogether (the C2000B not connected to anything, do you get audio? (Maybe a Skype mic or other hooked up and picking up the audio?)
- Audacity has the Alpha selected for input? Below is for Tascam, but should be something interface relate.
 

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arcaxis said:
Well I just hooked up an AKG C2000B I've got. I powered up the phantom and got normal audio signal through it. Powered off the phantom and the audio decayed down to nothingness (a brief sizzling wind sound as it finally faded away).

- If you try the mic direct into the Alpha without the phantom box do you get audio through? edit... missed that you already tried this)
- If you unplug the mic altogether (the C2000B not connected to anything, do you get audio? (Maybe a Skype mic or other hooked up and picking up the audio?)
- Audacity has the Alpha selected for input? Below is for Tascam, but should be something interface relate.
Click to expand...

Ok. So if feel like a completet idiot. Talk about being a newb! After reading your post, I checked the microphone input selection on Audacity and realized it wasn't set to Lexicon Alpha:facepalm:

Once I did that everything seems to work better. There was no input into the computer until I turned on the phantom power supply. Once I did that, I was able to adjust the input gain on the Alpha and the sound quality that was recorded was much better.

Now, the only issue I am still seeing is that it is only recording the right channel in Audacity. It looks like Audacity is set to stereo, but i'm only getting signal on the right channel.

Audacity 2.PNG
 
I'm not sure which microphone it was picking up before, because I don't have another one set up on my desktop. Unless, it has a built in one somewhere.
 
"Now, the only issue I am still seeing is that it is only recording the right channel in Audacity. It looks like Audacity is set to stereo, but i'm only getting signal on the right channel."

That is how things should be. Audacity is recording two channels (well, a stereo pair) but you are only sending in ONE mic signal. This a feature (drawback? problem?) of almost all Audio Interfaces because they rarely have an INPUT mono'ing button nor a "pan" control, you would have the latter on a mixer for example.

Solution? XLR to 2x XLR splitter or you might be able to pan the recorded signal to both tracks in Audacity, don't use it enough to know.

N.B some (most?) DAW software gives you the option to setup a single input as double mono, effectively a software input "pan". One such is Samplitude and you can download the 30 day trial od Sam Pro X (ver 3 now?) Big, BIG DAW but I find it remarkably intuitive. There is a free forever 8 track version, Samplitude Pro X Silver.

Dave.
 
Does Audacity not have the typical 'stereo, or L-mono and R-mono track input options to choose from?
 
'I'm not sure which microphone it was picking up before, because I don't have another one set up on my desktop. Unless, it has a built in one somewhere. '
Government surveillance. Your computer is bugged:D:D:D:D:D
Has your LCD monitor got extra wires going to it from the audio jacks of the PC, like for builtin speakers and perhaps a mic?

'Now, the only issue I am still seeing is that it is only recording the right channel in Audacity. It looks like Audacity is set to stereo, but i'm only getting signal on the right channel.'
Set Audacity to record 'MONO' (between where you set the interface selection). You won't have a stereo audio tracks, but it will/should playback from both left and right sides. You can use the pan slider to move the audio left of right.
 
"Set Audacity to record 'MONO' (between where you set the interface selection). You won't have a stereo audio tracks, but it will/should playback from both left and right sides. You can use the pan slider to move the audio left of right."

Aha! Gotcha Mark. Just plugged the KA6 into this HP i3 lappy and I can set it to Stereo or Mono (WDM drivers only tho'but) .

It seems newbs find the "stereo should give two tracks" concept a tricky one. It is a good idea I think for them to download the block signal flow diagram of a small mixer (they are all much the same but I recently dldd the Mackie 802VLZ4, pretty standard) and follow the logic of the signal paths.

Dave.
 
Unfortunately, I am not very familiar with Audacity yet. I'm sure as I get more into home recording I will want to purchase a recording program. Audacity is not bad for freeware, but I know there is much better out there. For the time being I just set the input signal to mono. It will work for now.

The only thing I couldn't figure out, is that if it is only going to record one channel, wouldn't it normally be the left? I thought your left channel is usually your 1st or default channel, if you will?
 
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