some newbie questions about mics

C

chuckberry

Member
I'm not technically inclined, have done a lot of recording but equipment still mystifies me.

I have an AKG 4000 and I'm recording into a Roland VS-1680.

Have had this mic for awhile and it's fallen to the ground a few times. Seems to work fine except there is a bit of electrical noise, a low buzz when plugged into my recorder. I don't remember this quite as much 5 years ago. Any ideas about getting rid of this noise ?

My second question is even more embarrassing. I notice when I record vocal tracks that I end up getting some bleed from the backing tracks that are playing on my recorder. I believe this is due to the fact the mic is so sensitive it picks up sound from my headphones. The headphones are high quality Sony MDR-7509, why is this noise escaping ?
 
Headphone bleed is pretty typical. Normally that's not an issue. Why does it happen? Depends on the type of headphones you use and at what level you record and monitor at.
As far as the mic goes, you need to do some trouble shooting. Do you have another mic and cable to experiment with?
 
The headphones are closed back types and so should not leak a lot of sound. Are you sure you are making a good seal around your ears?

And yes! LEVEL is all! Are you tracking too hot and therefore have the mic gain too high?

The buzz: Process of elimination, buy a new XLR lead (you can never have too many!). If that doesn't fix it try the mic on another system, try another mic on your system, the phantom power supply might be faulty. Remember though, we DO get fussier as we progress in this audio game. What keeps us poor and "them" rich!

Dave.
 
chuckberry said:
Thanks, I think I'll try buying a new cord for the buzz.
Click to expand...

Yes do because as I say you can never have enough leads of all descriptions but I have to say I am not at all hopeful that it will fix the fault. Had it been a dynamic mic you might have a buzz if the shield was O/C but in the case of a cap' mic you would get nothing since you would lose the phantom power return.

Dave.
 
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