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Author Topic: Recording anomoloy... What could cause this?  (Read 8136 times)

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Offline Gutbucket

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Re: Recording anomoloy... What could cause this?
« Reply #15 on: June 12, 2018, 01:12:22 PM »
My question is, can a dying battery cause the soft clipping?  For example, will a certain mic not clip at all at a given spl when given the right amount of power, but soft clip at the same spl when underpowered (e.g., from a dying battery)?

Yes.  It's very common for the levels at which the max SPL clipping limit occurs, and the somewhat lower levels at which any particular measured distortion threshold is encountered, to decrease as the microphone is starved for power.
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Offline ycoop

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Re: Recording anomoloy... What could cause this?
« Reply #16 on: June 12, 2018, 01:16:01 PM »
My question is, can a dying battery cause the soft clipping?  For example, will a certain mic not clip at all at a given spl when given the right amount of power, but soft clip at the same spl when underpowered (e.g., from a dying battery)?

Yes.  It's very common for the levels at which the max SPL clipping limit occurs, and the somewhat lower levels at which any particular measured distortion threshold is encountered, to decrease as the microphone is starved for power.

Any insight into the technical reasons for this?
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Offline heathen

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Re: Recording anomoloy... What could cause this?
« Reply #17 on: June 12, 2018, 01:33:48 PM »
My question is, can a dying battery cause the soft clipping?  For example, will a certain mic not clip at all at a given spl when given the right amount of power, but soft clip at the same spl when underpowered (e.g., from a dying battery)?

Yes.  It's very common for the levels at which the max SPL clipping limit occurs, and the somewhat lower levels at which any particular measured distortion threshold is encountered, to decrease as the microphone is starved for power.

I assume that one can't tell whether the cause is a dying battery or a mic that's overloaded, at least in terms of soft clipping, purely from a picture of a waveform like the one in the first post.  Is that correct?
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Offline Gutbucket

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Re: Recording anomoloy... What could cause this?
« Reply #18 on: June 12, 2018, 06:24:58 PM »
I can't, but educated guesses can be made.

Any insight into the technical reasons for this?

Microphones are like people.  If you aren't well fed you can't do hard work well.  If you aren't fed at all you'll stop working all together.

« Last Edit: June 12, 2018, 06:26:47 PM by Gutbucket »
musical volition > vibrations > voltages > numeric values > voltages > vibrations> virtual teleportation time-machine experience
Better recording made easy - >>Improved PAS table<< | Made excellent- >>click here to download the Oddball Microphone Technique illustrated PDF booklet<< (note: This is a 1st draft, now several years old and in need of revision!  Stay tuned)

Offline Church-Audio

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Re: Recording anomoloy... What could cause this?
« Reply #19 on: June 21, 2018, 02:25:01 PM »
Sorry to bump an old thread.

Referring to the waveforms shown in the first post, some people attributed it to a dying battery and others to soft clipping.  My question is, can a dying battery cause the soft clipping?  For example, will a certain mic not clip at all at a given spl when given the right amount of power, but soft clip at the same spl when underpowered (e.g., from a dying battery)?  Or can the waveforms shown above always be attributed to soft clipping caused by the spl exceeding what the mic can handle?
In the case of a battery box the voltage would have to be pretty low like 3 volts and I have never seen a 9v go that low :) The 933 will overload one of two ways electronically or physically Electronically is a matter of overloading the fet of the mic capsule or the input of the recorder. Both can look the same.... The other physical distortion comes from when the diaphragm hits the backplate that tends to be rather harsh looking. You can also starve the fet of voltage this can have one of two effects lowering amplitude and distortion on the other end of the capsule where its connected. Or distortion in extreme cases by reducing headroom due to the lack of voltage. Based on the waveform I would say this was not a lack of voltage because the whole thing would be distorted or more then a few parts provided that the SPL was constant. I would say its possible this could have been backplate distortion on a transient low end spike. But these are all just guesses.
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