Noise in my recording

G

Gab0x

New member
Hi, I just want to give a heads up, I'm new here I my knowledge about microphones and audio engeenering is rather low, so please beasr with me.

I have a basic setup of a NEEWER NW-800 microphone and a NEEWER NW-100 phantom power. It is perfect for my use, but there is this awful noise when use it with my laptop's mic jack, (note that microphone is 100 and mic boost is 0 in win settings). I have this external sound card like thing (sorry I don't know the technical term), it looks like a big pendrive with 2 jack ports. Using that the sound is very clear but a tad too quiet, and there is no mic boost in the windows settings for that.
I would like to find out what causes the noise, and if I can increese the volume somehow.
 
Gab0x said:
Hi, I just want to give a heads up, I'm new here I my knowledge about microphones and audio engeenering is rather low, so please beasr with me.

I have a basic setup of a NEEWER NW-800 microphone and a NEEWER NW-100 phantom power. It is perfect for my use, but there is this awful noise when use it with my laptop's mic jack, (note that microphone is 100 and mic boost is 0 in win settings). I have this external sound card like thing (sorry I don't know the technical term), it looks like a big pendrive with 2 jack ports. Using that the sound is very clear but a tad too quiet, and there is no mic boost in the windows settings for that.
I would like to find out what causes the noise, and if I can increese the volume somehow.
Click to expand...

How long have you had the microphone? I ask because you may have got a faulty one. The NW-800 belongs to a family of very cheap capacitor mics, I have had two of the BM-800 variant (they will tell you here I am bit of a go-to guy for the bottom budget dept!) and I was lucky, they performed remarkably well but I have seen several posts where is was pretty plain that people had bought a "lemon". Not bad for the money at all but QC suffers.

You have Win sounds set to 100%. I think that is too high but I will dig out my BM and check. However, your setup is rather different from mine. I think you have an XLR cable from 48V supply to mic then an XLR to stereo 3.5mm jack to laptop? If so you are relying on the PC's mic amplifier. In this HP i3 laptop that works well with the BM-800 but there is no power supply with that, it run from the DC put out by PC soundcards. The BM can also be used with an XLR-XLR into an audio interface and I have done that as well and it works ok.

So, bottom line. You could have a particularly noisy laptop pre amp but my money would be a very low sensitivity mic sample. Can you try another computer? Also it would be wise to check that the power supply really does put out 48V.

Back soon,
Dave.
 
Sorry but I have a bit of a cold atmo and I couldn't find a pop shield post crimble mess!

The mic is plugged into the 3.5mm 3 pole jack on this i3 HP laptop. The noise level is about -60dBfs and that includes mic self noise, HP preamp noise and ambient noise in the room at 8:30am today. For a £25 microphone I think that is quite remarkable.

If you want me to I can do a similar recording via XLR and my NI KA6 interface. The noise level of that is way below -60 and so would show just the mic's self noise+ambient. It is a "gift" to today's home recordists that AMBIENT noise is usually the limiting factor even with dynamic mics.

Dave.
 

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mjbphotos said:
Usual answer: just get an audio interface with phantom power.
Click to expand...

Well yes Mike but if "they" all knew that upfront "we" would be a bit redundant! Then, I an pretty sure OPs bother is a duff mic. As I have shown, mine works fine into this lappy and I sent one to son and his worked ok into a SERIOUSLY crappy Dell!

If OP can find (or was given?) an XLR 3 female to TRS 3.5mm worth a do. N.B. The mic needs finding in Windows sounds as per my post^.

(had a nosebleed hr ago so maybe cold is abating?)

Dave.
 
The noise level in the recording is quite low and will not be an issue for most uses.

It's expected that a standard microphone input on a laptop introduces some amount of noise.
Considering that, I think the noise level on the recording is very workable.
Use a gate in post-processing to remove the noise during silent passages.

If you want to use the external audio interface 'thingy', you will probably need a separate mic preamp, as the jack inputs are probably meant to record line-level signals. Line-level signals are much louder than mic-level signals.
 
I think you are listening to MY recording Wooolf and yes, the noise levels are just about acceptable considering the cost of the microphone and the fact that it is going into a laptop.

GabOx, the OP has not posted any sounds. Then again, IF he did go for an interface he would certainly not need a separate pre amp as well, the pres in virtually all current AIs are good enough for even dynamics (tho' speech and an SM7b might be a stretch!) any kind of capacitor mic will be fine.

The mic the OP has is not of high sensitivity as caps' go but is, iirc, about 10mV/Pa which is some 15dB hotter than a 57.

Dave.

---------- Update ----------

I think you are listening to MY recording Wooolf and yes, the noise levels are just about acceptable considering the cost of the microphone and the fact that it is going into a laptop.

GabOx, the OP has not posted any sounds. Then again, IF he did go for an interface he would certainly not need a separate pre amp as well, the pres in virtually all current AIs are good enough for even dynamics (tho' speech and an SM7b might be a stretch!) any kind of capacitor mic will be fine.

The mic the OP has is not of high sensitivity as caps' go but is, iirc, about 10mV/Pa which is some 15dB hotter than a 57.

Dave.
 
I think you are listening to MY recording Wooolf and yes, the noise levels are just about acceptable considering the cost of the microphone and the fact that it is going into a laptop.

GabOx, the OP has not posted any sounds. Then again, IF he did go for an interface he would certainly not need a separate pre amp as well, the pres in virtually all current AIs are good enough for even dynamics (tho' speech and an SM7b might be a stretch!) any kind of capacitor mic will be fine.

The mic the OP has is not of high sensitivity as caps' go but is, iirc, about 10mV/Pa which is some 15dB hotter than a 57.

Dave.
 
Three bloody posts now!
After hitting send on the fifst one I got "do you want to leave this page". Had that before and said "no" and FA happened, i.e. no post. This time I said "yes" and FA happened! Again!. After some faffing about things moved and I found 3 versions.

So, is this the forum site locking up or some gremlin in Firefox? I think it may have happened in thefretboard.com but not sure. Pretty sure never in sos.com

Dave.
 
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