Topic: Mic diaphragm damaged? Help needed.

[lordbelial]

Hi there guys,

I hope this thread could help me solve a terrible doubt I have right now.

A few weeks ago I taped an open air festival. My gear: AT853 (3-wire) > ST-9100 > Iriver IHP-120. When I heard to the results I found out that there was some distortion on the low end, the shows had LOTS of bass, but the wavefile were OK, no saturation at first sight or in close view.

Here's a sample file: You can hear that distorsion as drums or bass come in.

http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/4/25/1015964/anathema-deep-hellfest.mp3

The 4.7 Kmod switch on the preamp was turned off. So this may be a cause.

Later I heard a recording using an Edirol R-09 with internal mics, same band, same place, and there was no saturation on low end (only a BIG presence of bass). IN that precise moment I started to ask myself.

I was talking to Chris Church (who's always been helpful with this issues) and he told me that a possible cause would be that the diaphragm of my AT mics could be damaged.

This next weekend I have another open air festival. I'm gonna grab a pair of at943 loaned from a friend, but I'd like to know if there's some kind of test I could run at home to diagnose if my mics have been damaged some-how and the diaphragm is just f**** up. I don't wanna screw up another 10 recordings...

Thanks for any suggestion.

[lordbelial]

Solved. It was caused by the lo-sens option. I was wrong with the setup. Thanks for the space!