New to recording. Excessive Noise.

[Richie2708]

Behringer isn't for me. It used to be, and it served its purpose well. But I saw the need to better myself and my equipment, so I did. That being said. I absolutely love the sound from the Behringer B-1 microphone. It has been an ideal mic choice many a time in my modest little studio. Go Behringer

 

[arlouper]

LT. Bob, thanks for the advice. I did mention i'm a complete noob, this level of remedial tip might help. I'll experiment with this before taking the unit back.

 

[gecko zzed]

Armistice,

I am trying to record a spoken word, interview type program to be used as a podcast.

I ran the mic into the channel one 1/4" jack. I ran the board into my mac input jack with a dual 1/4" to single 1/8"(3.5mm?) cable. I did about 30 minutes of recording just constantly talking into my kit changing the levels one at a time, two at a time, etc. For the most part I kept the levels in garage band at 0 dB.

When I have the channel one level "centered" the main mix "centered" and the channel one gain "centered" there is no discernible noise, but the volume was too low. So by turning up the volume on the recording I start to get background noise.

You've got a lot going against you here. For a start, you mention running a mike into the jack input of channel 1. The mike should be going into an XLR input. You are most likely trying to run a mike into a line-level input. Secondly, you are going straight into the Mac without the benefit of an interface.

These two things are likely to cause you much more significant noise problems than the little mixer itself.

 

[arlouper]

all the points about how to achieve a mix and the quality of my equipment I'm sure are valid. but keep in mind I was hearing noise with no inputs in the board. when the only thing plugged into the board was the power cord and my headphones I was still hearing noise.

 

[jaygee]

all the points about how to achieve a mix and the quality of my equipment I'm sure are valid. but keep in mind I was hearing noise with no inputs in the board. when the only thing plugged into the board was the power cord and my headphones I was still hearing noise.

If the channel levels and the main outs were cranked up, I would expect you to hear some residual
noise coming from the mixer.

I used to have a Art two channel preamp that was quite noisy until a mic was plugged into it.

How do you have the mixer interfacing with your Macbook ? Make sure the main outputs on the
Behringer are driving line level inputs on the Mac and not going into a mic level input.

 

[JimmyS1969]

all the points about how to achieve a mix and the quality of my equipment I'm sure are valid. but keep in mind I was hearing noise with no inputs in the board. when the only thing plugged into the board was the power cord and my headphones I was still hearing noise.

So the noise was from the boards headphone output before any connection to the computer? In relation to what though was your listening level? On any board or interface, you will have audible noise if the headphone output gain is turned up all the way, even with no input. It is very true that the way you are connecting this without an external interface will lend itself to compounded noisy results, but we really need to know from what place you are considering it noisy.

 

[witzendoz]

Armistice,
I ran the mic into the channel one 1/4" jack.

This is 90% of the problem, Microphones are plugged into the XLR, line inputs are plugged into the jack. To get the mic gain up when it's plugged into the jack would mean that all the mixer gains from the input through to the output will be cranked right up, theres the noise, even a top quality mixer costing 100 times as much would have noise if you tried to plug a mic into a line input.

Why is it that no one reads the manuals, it will say very clearly where microphones are plugged into, it also will give information on how to set up the gain structure.

Alan.