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Rode has now a device which allows to plug in microphones which need to be powered by power usually provided by smartphones (2.7v) through TRRS such as Rode's Lavalier Go or Shure's MVL/A to a USB sound card or any mic entry using XLR.
This is Rode VXLR+. The XLR has to provide 12-48V phantom power.
From Rode's site:
The VXLR+ is a 3.5mm female TRS ...
3
It won't necessarily be lower quality, but it could be.
USB ports can quite happily deliver 5v at 2 amps - but if your PC/laptop/mac is under heavy load you may find that it drops a bit, or the 5v isn't very pure so you may get fluctuations in the power supply to your mic adaptor.
The same thing happens with a mains supply, but it can be easier to filter ...
2
Speaking as an electronics engineer, the general rule (below radio frequencies), when designing amplifiers and various audio interfaces is try and make outputs low impedance and inputs high impedance. If you connect a high output impedance to a low input impedance you get signal loss and when restoring that signal loss (with gain) you'll amplify the noise ...
2
It depends a lot on the kind of equipment. Sometimes equipment is designed to have a low impedance output and be connected to a much higher impedance input. Other times equipment is designed so that the output and input impedances are to be matched as closely as possible.
The possible consequences are wide-ranging. Anything from loss of signal strength to ...
2
Go with the audio interface. The "mixer" borders on useless. It is basically just a cheap interface with some near useless features worked in to it. You are paying for unused features rather than an audio interface that includes a clean pre-amp and quality ADC. You want an audio interface for your purposes. The reason to go with a mixer would be if you ...
2
I've no experience with this type of gear, but functionality depends on the use-case.
This device (and there are several others available with similar function) is mostly useful on ribbon and dynamic mics. But in most cases, as a sound designer or sound engineer, those types of mics are used on loud objects (drums, guns, explosions, cars).
If you want to ...
2
Yes you need a preamp, but you already have one (its just not that good)
A good preamp is one of the most important tools in a studio and perhaps one of the most important in the recording input chain. With out a decent preamp you will never get a decent recording since you will start out with a bad signal. Here is the issue in a nut shell:
A microphone ...
2
The MTX isn't just a matrix box that you could do on a mixer but actually the power supply of the microphone. Think it like two neumann km100 bodies for two ak20+ak40 capsules. The signals that the rsm alone is outputing or inputting from the DIN connector, according to my manual are
-50 V
+50 V
Side
Mid
GND
+10 V
N/C
So nothing like Mid Hot-Cold-GND and ...
2
High-quality linear components generally need more than 5V supply, insofar the claim is reasonable.
However, it is nowadays not a big deal to include a DC-DC converter to attain a higher voltage. Of course this needs more current, but USB offers rather plenty of Amps. Then you also have enough headroom to smoothen out most interference with fixed-voltage ...
2
Actually, the mic pre amp you are mentioning is a pre amp plus a processing chain (a dynamics processor and some filters and eqs).
You cannot emulate the pre amp itself in software as amplifying the mic signal is inherently done in the analog domain. The cost of a mic pre amp is related to the analog components included, their selection and association to ...
2
I'm in full agreement with audionuma's answer, but just to add that a 3 grand mic preamp will not fix a 10 buck microphone.
As you didn't mention in your question what mic & preamps you currently have, this is a bit of guesswork, but assuming it's a fairly basic setup, you can gain a reasonable amount of sound quality by using a USB pre-amp - they ...
2
The Scarlett has a pre amp built into it. Most likely the issue is the distance you have the microphone from your mouth. An SM57 is not ideal for podcast recording because you will need the microphone inches from your mouth, as well as dealing with proximity effect. You would benefit more from a condenser microphone than an external preamp.
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You just need a mixer (before the headphone amp) to control what and how much goes into your in-ears. In live situations this is a very simple task for a monitor engineer but if there isn't one, the FOH engineer could send you a mix of what you need (clicks, guitar and vocals) if he has a spare auxiliary out and a spare line on his multi.
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Here's some basic checks you can do at each stage. This applies more generally to pretty much any signal chain too. I'm sure if you go through and check everything, you will find a place where your preamp volume is too low, you have a bad cable, or you're not getting power to the mic, or something else simple along those lines. Your signal chain should be ...
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Just rang Rode directly as I needed an answer myself.
SmartLav+ = you use the Rode SC3 adaptor. The VXLR+ adaptor that someone linked here is for the traditional lav microphones that have a TRS connection already.
Hope that helps.
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From the manual for the Scarlett 2i2:
The preamp gain is appropriate for microphones when an XLR plug is inserted, and for higher level signals when a jack plug is inserted.
Get a jack->XLR adapter, preferably the device listed by ojacques because you also need the 2.7 V power supply.
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Since this is a condensor mic, you should activate the 48V phantom power switch and try again; this may be required to power the active electronics in this specific mic.
You could also try actually recording in your DAW, even if the indicator doesn't light up.
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Remember that the output from your iPhone or Mac is likely stereo. Do you have TWO of these speakers? Or do you want to combine the Left + Right signals together into a monaural signal? You will need some way to combine the Left + Right signals together if you have only one speaker.
There will be no significany "loss of quality" feeding the headphone ...
1
In theory there shouldn't really be any difference: Lets say you add some gain at the channel input, and reduce it equally by turning down the fader. Then there should be no difference.
But preamps have their limitations: the more amplification, the greater the chance for clipping and non linear behaviour. Unless that is the exact effect you're going after (...
1
I suggest considering the wide range of small mixing consoles that Behringer make. The one I've been using for the last 10 years or so doesn't appear to be on the market now, but this one looks similar. They make smaller and cheaper ones than that too, and all appear to include mic preamps that should be of the appropriate standard. I've been very happy with ...
1
Most of the popular-priced two channel mic preamps as you are asking about include USB audio interfaces built-in. So keeping your UCA-202 while finding a low-price standalone dual mic pre severely limits your choices nearly to zero.
Behringer makes a rather nice dual mic preamp with built-in USB interface in the "U-Phoria UMC202HD Audiophile 2x2 USB Audio ...
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The standard electret bias network is simply a 1.5V - 3V battery with a 2k2 or so resistor in series.
Connect the sleeve connection to ground and connect the free end of the resistor to the plug tip connconnection. The tip connection also feeds the preamp input.
You may need a DC blocking capacitor in series with the preamp input. Most preamp inputs ...
1
Using a pre-amp between the EQ and the AutoHybrid should handle your needs. I have personally used this tube pre-amp before, though I was using the unbalanced input to the balanced output, but I believe it should work for your needs as well. It isn't the best quality ever made, but it is a decent value for the money.
Seeing what your system layout is like ...
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I haven't used the NT1a in a very long time, but the issue I remember having with it was being pretty cold and not having a firm core to the sound. The NTG-2, on the other hand, sounds awful. I've never actually used my own even though I got it for free from a friend (I did give it the benefit of a doubt when I first got it in the studio alright to see if it ...
1
If you are using a mic, you need a pre-amp. Microphones produce weak signals (mic level) which must be boosted up to line level. This is what a pre-amp does. It may be integrated in to the microphone or the mixer or the audio interface or a stand alone unit, but there is one somewhere with any microphone you use.
1
For reference, such a mic is typically called a condenser mic rather than a capacitor mic. Condensor is a former term for capacitors, but condenser continues to be used to describe microphones that work on the principal. That's a type of mic that uses changes in an electrical field between two wires to detect sound and it is more sensitive in general than ...
1
For me a mic input is usually a balanced input and has "extra" electronics inside that give a few dB more gain with a lower noise circuit.
If you put your mic into a normal line-input connector the gain (amplification) will be lower and when you correct this by upping the volume on that channel, you'll hear more hiss and background noise.
When you say "...
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In theory, there are electro-physical reasons as mentioned by Dr Mayhem.
In practice, you will find AC power supplies almost only on larger multi-channel USB interfaces and hardly ever on a one-channel or two-channel device. If you do some research and explore reviews about audio quality of USB interfaces, you will find out that the quality of semi-...
1
Actually, there is already a preamp stage of sorts in your signal chain in your PC's in-built MIC IN (I assume you're using mic in, and not line in, right?). In-built sound inputs, however, are usually pretty poor in quality - noisy, not much gain, etc.
Another potential problem in your signal chain could be the XLR-3.5mm cable connection. The output of ...
1
The problem with the RE20 of current production is that they make use of an SMD PCB and the PCB has errors in the layout and components which are noise generators.
This can be verified by taking any RE20 with filter assemblies from previous iterations and compare with the newer style RE20 A/B on an FFT. You will find the newer RE20s have an unaceptable ...
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