Problems setting up and moving into my new recorder...............

[Opossum]

Hi friends,

I'm old school without a daw and have used a Boss 12 track hard recorder for years until it died.

Now I am trying to educate myself and moving into new equipment but have hit a roadblock setting up to do a test recording.

I have a TASCAM DP-24 and while setting up to get a good signal level for both a guitar and vocals on my condenser mic, I cannot get sufficient levels....even when turned up all the way.
I'm using a good AKG condenser and NEVER had signal strength levels issues with it using my Boss recorder.
After asking friends about this, the only answer I could get was....."just get a mic pre-amp".
Even though that does not answer my question about why the signal strength is low, I bought an ART Tube Mp mic pre-amp.
In hooking it up and using an XLR mic cable for both the input and output, it gets crazy when I plug it in.....?

I am using Phantom power on the Tascam of course and as soon as I plug in the Tube Mp, the needle on the ART goes all the way to the right !....even with the input and output knobs turned OFF !
I get no effect with any of the level knobs of either the Tascam or the ART......just a MAX needle reading (like something is hooked up wrong). I do not have the Phantom power on the ART Tube Mp on....as I did not know if I needed 2 phantom power sources ?

Please help...... Sorry for being a dumb newbie....

Thanks friends !

 

[mjbphotos]

If you are plugging the mic into the ART, then it's phantom needs to be on, not the Tascam's. Make sure you are plugging from the ART's OUTPUT to the Tascam input.

 

[Opossum]

Thanks so much Mike !...........Thats one big problem solved

 

[arcaxis]

Opossum...

Let me suggest using a different cable from the ART MP into your DP24 which will prevent the DP24's phantom power from getting to the preamp if you should need it on for another condenser mic connected to the DP24....... XLR3F to 1/4" TRS

This will connect the 'balanced' XLR output of the ART MP into the 'balanced' 1/4" TRS(tip-ring-sleeve) Line input of the DP24. If for some reason the phantom power on the DP24 is enabled, by design it is not applied to the 1/4" part of the 'combo' jack.

Mic > XLR -----XLR > ART MP > XLR-----1/4" TRS > DP24

I did find a schematic of the ART MP and it appears that phantom power connected into the XLR output would go to the meter which is a rather poor design.

What AKG mic do you have? I have a Tascam 2488NEO and I can record a condenser mic directly into the machine without an added preamp. I would think the gains of the two machines might be similar.