Problem with Audio-Technica Pro 37 and Garageband..

[justink]

Hello everyone. I recently attempted to get into some home recording so I purchased an Audio-Technica Pro 37 condenser mic. I am running it into a M-Audio MobilePRE USB sound card and using Garageband to record. I seem to have run into a problem. Whenever I try to record I never hear anything. I set up the track, have the phantom power on, but nothing records. Also, as soon as I turn the phantom power on I cant hear anything through my speakers. So if I was playing the Garageband piano its not heard and the audio still doesnt work if I turn the phantom power off. Ive tried recording as stereo and mono and putting the mic into both the Channel 1 and 2 XLR inputs.

Just wondering if anyone with more knowledge on this subject could help me figure out if its the mic thats the problem or possibly the soundcard? Thanks!

 

[reddavid]

Hi Justin,

Whenever you get into any situation where something in a chain of components if failing on you, the best trick to use to identify where the fault lies is writing down the full chain. Here, we're going like this -

Mic > Mic Pre > Phantom Power > Internal DAC of interface > Send data over USB > PC Receives data over USB (OS layer) > Data is piped to audio app (driver layer) > Audio app outputs to line out > line out to amp > amp to speakers

There's probably more stages involved that I've missed, but this is just an example anyway. I bring this up because what we have here is a problem that is being experienced when you're using it on a start-to-finish basis. This can only tell us that something's wrong, not where in the chain the fault lies.

So, the task now is to isolate each part of the chain. Can we confirm that the mic works, or that the mic pre works by swapping with another mic or preamp? From there, do we have indications of mic signal? Do headphones connected to the M-Audio and set for direct monitoring pick anything up? Does MacOS pick up any audio?

If you worki though the chain like that, you should be able to find the failed part without much difficulty. I wish you the best of luck.

 

[antichef]

Have you tried repeating the steps without the mic plugged in? It's not a good practice to turn on phantom power without a mic plugged in, to be sure, but it may help isolate your problem.

edit: -- posted at about the same time as reddavid -- what he said

 

[guitar zero]

In garageband you have to select what you want as your audio input source. You might just check to make sure your MAudio USB is selected in garageband as your audio input device.

 

[hoops]

I'm not familiar with the sound card you are using. Is it powered by an adaptor or does the usb port power it? Your Mac may not let you use it if it is run off of the port only. The power requirements with phantom power maybe to great.