Noise from microphone

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lexicon25

lexicon25

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I am using AKG P120 condenser microphone that I bought yesterday. I am getting a very weird noise from the microphone. It is not there when I use a dynamic microphone. I checked the cables too.

The set-up goes like this Mic --> Mixer(with phantom power) --> Headphones and Audio Interface. Is it because of humidity or something called ground loop ?

I don't know much about condenser mics. I hope the mic is not broken. I can't find a solution. Please help me ?
I have attached the noise along with this thread.
 

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Well, to be honest it sounds like a fault but could be humidity. Put it somewhere very warm for a couple of days and let it dry. One of my 414s did this when I’d left it in the van for a couple of damp days. It dried out and was fine. 120s are unlikely to be properly faulty so hopefully drying it will work.
 
Is it good to expose it to direct sunlight to heat it ?
 
I can’t see that being an issue. In fairness the same noise happens with phantom power supplies that are not full voltage and iffy cables. An hour or two in the sun will tell you if that’s the problem.
 
Update - After drying the mic, the noise reduced significantly but still it's not dead silent. A small amount of white noise exists. Something like the noise of grains.
 
Keep drying. Unlikely a few hours is enough for moisture to evaporate completely mine took a couple of days
 
The fact that the noise dropped "significantly" is an indication that the problem was indeed damp and it just needs more drying time. But capacitor mics can never be dead silent as they contain electronics. It is the Signal to Noise Ratio which matters. Also....they PICKUP noise!
Set the mic up and get speech running* at an average of -20dBFS. Then, TOUCH NOT THE GAIN CONTROL, but bury the mic in a duvet. Keep dead quiet and check the meters in the DAW. They should collapse to better than -70dBFS (do this at 24 bits)
I did similar yesterday with a cheap Behringer C2 and that returned better than -60dBFS. SDC are potentially always noisier than the big jobs.

*from about a foot. Ooops! Just seen my verbiage was superfluous! You are fast than this old bugger Rob.
Dave
 
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