severe microphone distortion

[augustwilldecay]

Hey guys, new here and have some questions about microphone inputs on mixers / insert loops and using multiple rack effect units on vocal tracks.

first question will running the microphone into the mixer directly and daisy chaining the rack effects together and using the insert on the mixer yield less problems with distortion on the mic?

i am currently using a 48v phantom power supply on the mic and running the mic into a behringer virtualizer multi effects then through some other things (which i can elaborate on later) i am getting a lot of distortion on the mic, maybe eliminating the power supply and going directly into the mixer and use the phantom power on the mixer will work better?

ultimately the mic after going through all the processors is entering the mic through the line level input could this also be a problem? mismatched low and high levels?

im not 100% sure i know even how to begin to describe my issues here...

 

[gecko zzed]

Run mike straight into mixer, using mixer's 48v.

Take an aux send from the mixer to go into virtualizer (and then maybe to other stuff).

Bring the output of those effects into an aux in.

The nature of the effects maybe an issue. Knowing what you want to use, what they are, and what the mixer is will help.

The issue is that some effects (such as compression) operate best in series with the signal, while others (such as reverb) operate best in parallel.

 

[Farview]

What mic are you using?

The Phantom power supply is not a mic preamp, so you have no control of the levels feeding the effects processor. Chances are your gain staging is all screwed up, causing the distortion.

When chaining things together, you need to control the signal going into and out of each processor, so that you have the optimum level for each unit.

 

[ecc83]

And, as soon as you can post an attachment of the sounds for we to harken unto. Has to be MP3 but at 320k they are pretty good.

Dave.

 

[Bobbsy]

Posted sample or not, the accepted way of working would be to run the mic into the mixer and using either the Insert or Aux Send/Receive to do your effects. However not that outboard rack stuff is NOT "plug and play". If you're daisy chaining you have to set input and output levels on each device for a proper gain structure to avoid overloading on the return path.

Of course, if this is a recording (as opposed to live) question, an even better way would be to record your tracks dry then apply the effects one at a time to the recorded track. This'll give you the ability to adjust things after every step and perfect the effects.

What are you using the Virtualiser for? I used to have one for live use to do funny voices on theatre shows like an annual British panto--but found the unit a bit noisy and the effects rather course for recording purposes.