Hi again,
Quite unexpectedly so, I yesterday got an opportunity to test it, as when riding my bicycle home through the city centre, I noticed a big stage had been set-up, and some Dutch (televised) kinda Schlager-like festival (don't laugh!
) had been planned.
Due to other obligations, I could only make it to the final 3 songs of the event, just to give it a go. I'm glad I did; not for the music, but I did notice something seemingly odd.
I tried the following: switching the mic to on (i.e. using battery power), then putting it in the line-in, setting the levels manually to the max, and move right next to a speaker stand, with the mic pointing towards the speakers (FWIW: the recorder was set to high mic sensitivity, but as mentioned by Yousef, that probably is not of relevance when using the line-in jack).
Indeed the recorder picked up the sound, however, the level indicators (which feature a scale from 0-10) never made it any further than the 3rd bar, which is ridiculously low, especially considering the fact that I was standing right next to a speaker stand (about 1.5 meters away from it), and I was close enough to it, to feel the sound pounding on my body. Maybe it wasn't quite as loud as an Iron Maiden show, but the volume should not be off by such a big margin either, I think.
Not surprisingly so, when sampling it (with Audacity), the spectrum initially showed almost a flat line. Even when cranking up the "line in" volume setting, both from Windows as well as Audacity, the volume still stayed very low.
When listening back to it, and cranking up the volume, the sound quality didn't seem to be bad (the computer's speakers are though, so I'll have to try this on better speakers), but it may require lots of digital pumping up of the volume in order to get a decent sound level. I tried this on a small piece, and the sound then started to 'crackle'.
I strongly doubt this is as it should be. When using the recorder's powered "mic in" jack (with the mic's battery off), the recorder is very sensitive, and quite the opposite is the case: the levels have to be brought done substantially in order for the sound not to blast off the scale. For a brief moment I suspected the battery (though it is still virtually brand new, and of the correct (recommended) LR44 type). I just checked that using a multimeter, and it measures out at 1548 mV, i.o.w., nicely (slightly) just above 1.5V; no issues there....
Does anyone else who has tried this method of recording experience the same low input volume, or could it be that the battery's power supply to the mic's pre-amp (that's what it's called, right?) is not working properly?
I'm hoping you guys can help me out once more, as it doesn't seem to be a good idea to record with such low levels (I'd strongly expect all dynamics to get lost then) and then digitally pump it up a lot...
Did any of you also experience such low levels with this recording method, or do the volume levels work properly for you guys?
Cheers!
MM