Topic: CA-14 mic in or line in?

[am]

I'm taping a very loud orchestral concert and was was wondering  if I should plug my CA-14 omnis with battery box into the mic in or the line in on the Sony D50 and with the 20db attentuation on?  I also have the CA-14 cards and I;M unsure if they would be better given the loud music. I will be sitting above 30 rows back from front of stage.
 
I'm a newbie taping shealth for the first time.

Thanks!

[Belexes]

If you are in "the sweet spot" in the venue and there will be limited audience participation (talking, clapping) I'd opt for the omnis.  Poor location with a noisy crowd, cards.

You said it'll be a loud show, so line-in may be all you need but if you are not getting enough gain switch to mic-in between songs.

[am]

Thank you!

[acidjack]

You did say "loud orchestral show" - if you mean an orchestra that will likely be loud, I'd suspect you still want to use mic-in with -20dB pad on.

If the show is actually amplified - the music will be blaring from a PA system as opposed to the natural sound of the orchestra - then line-in is probably best.

[Belexes]

Doesn't the -20dB only work for mic in and not line in?

The CA mics are not that sensitive (which is good, IMHO), so I'd record without it.

[sunjan]

I really don't see the need for attenuation here.
Like acidjack said: if it's a rock show with stacks, go line in.

[Church-Audio]

Mic in with a battery box. No pad on the input.

[F.O.Bean]

Mic in with a battery box. No pad on the input.

Really? I thought w/ both a BB and a pre, you would run line-in Or is that just for a preamp

[Church-Audio]

Mic in with a battery box. No pad on the input.

Really? I thought w/ both a BB and a pre, you would run line-in Or is that just for a preamp

Because my preamps are very low self noise if you get to a situation where you need more gain and you need lots of gain you can get half from my preamp and the other half from the mic preamp. AGAIN only in situations where you are recording something very quiet. If you have no preamp and you want to use the mic input you MUST use a battery box at the very least. Again though due to the high sensitivity of the mic input overload could occur so only use it when you need lots of gain and not in a loud show. I am thinking Bluegrass outdoors or small jazz club type settings. NOT loud concerts. If you have any of my preamps there is absolutely no advantage to using a battery box + my preamp. Unless its to power phantom powered mics. But that will soon not be an issue as we are coming out with our first phantom powered preamp FINALLY this year. It will be very VERY small. Much smaller than anything you can get right now and thats all I want to say about that

[aleal5687]

Mic in with a battery box. No pad on the input.

Really? I thought w/ both a BB and a pre, you would run line-in Or is that just for a preamp

Because my preamps are very low self noise if you get to a situation where you need more gain and you need lots of gain you can get half from my preamp and the other half from the mic preamp. AGAIN only in situations where you are recording something very quiet. If you have no preamp and you want to use the mic input you MUST use a battery box at the very least. Again though due to the high sensitivity of the mic input overload could occur so only use it when you need lots of gain and not in a loud show. I am thinking Bluegrass outdoors or small jazz club type settings. NOT loud concerts. If you have any of my preamps there is absolutely no advantage to using a battery box + my preamp. Unless its to power phantom powered micBut that will soon not be an issue as we are coming out with our first phantom powered preamp FINALLY this year. It will be very VERY small. Much smaller than anything you can get right now and thats all I want to say about that

Chris
Any update on your phantom power preamp?

[F.O.Bean]

Mic in with a battery box. No pad on the input.

Really? I thought w/ both a BB and a pre, you would run line-in Or is that just for a preamp

Because my preamps are very low self noise if you get to a situation where you need more gain and you need lots of gain you can get half from my preamp and the other half from the mic preamp. AGAIN only in situations where you are recording something very quiet. If you have no preamp and you want to use the mic input you MUST use a battery box at the very least. Again though due to the high sensitivity of the mic input overload could occur so only use it when you need lots of gain and not in a loud show. I am thinking Bluegrass outdoors or small jazz club type settings. NOT loud concerts. If you have any of my preamps there is absolutely no advantage to using a battery box + my preamp. Unless its to power phantom powered mics. But that will soon not be an issue as we are coming out with our first phantom powered preamp FINALLY this year. It will be very VERY small. Much smaller than anything you can get right now and thats all I want to say about that

Since acquiring my CA14's and an SP 9v BB, I have had to run mic-in every time, even FOB/DFC at MoeDown So Id imagine since now I have a CA9100 I can run Line-In and boost levels with the 9100

[Church-Audio]

Mic in with a battery box. No pad on the input.

Really? I thought w/ both a BB and a pre, you would run line-in Or is that just for a preamp

Because my preamps are very low self noise if you get to a situation where you need more gain and you need lots of gain you can get half from my preamp and the other half from the mic preamp. AGAIN only in situations where you are recording something very quiet. If you have no preamp and you want to use the mic input you MUST use a battery box at the very least. Again though due to the high sensitivity of the mic input overload could occur so only use it when you need lots of gain and not in a loud show. I am thinking Bluegrass outdoors or small jazz club type settings. NOT loud concerts. If you have any of my preamps there is absolutely no advantage to using a battery box + my preamp. Unless its to power phantom powered micBut that will soon not be an issue as we are coming out with our first phantom powered preamp FINALLY this year. It will be very VERY small. Much smaller than anything you can get right now and thats all I want to say about that

Chris
Any update on your phantom power preamp?

Yep I am still working on it and it will come out when its ready. I am not going to build a preamp and have to do a million updates to it. When this comes out it will make some heads turn. But again I am not going to rush things.

[F.O.Bean]

Mic in with a battery box. No pad on the input.

Really? I thought w/ both a BB and a pre, you would run line-in Or is that just for a preamp

Because my preamps are very low self noise if you get to a situation where you need more gain and you need lots of gain you can get half from my preamp and the other half from the mic preamp. AGAIN only in situations where you are recording something very quiet. If you have no preamp and you want to use the mic input you MUST use a battery box at the very least. Again though due to the high sensitivity of the mic input overload could occur so only use it when you need lots of gain and not in a loud show. I am thinking Bluegrass outdoors or small jazz club type settings. NOT loud concerts. If you have any of my preamps there is absolutely no advantage to using a battery box + my preamp. Unless its to power phantom powered micBut that will soon not be an issue as we are coming out with our first phantom powered preamp FINALLY this year. It will be very VERY small. Much smaller than anything you can get right now and thats all I want to say about that

Chris
Any update on your phantom power preamp?

Yep I am still working on it and it will come out when its ready. I am not going to build a preamp and have to do a million updates to it. When this comes out it will make some heads turn. But again I am not going to rush things.

Will you make a Schoeps based preamp that I can use w/ my KCY Cable

[cunger]

Ok, now I'm confused! I bought the CA-14 and 9100 preamp last year. I've been loving it ever since. Records perfectly everytime! EXCEPT. The past two shows I've been having problems. The first was Bela Fleck at the Keswick. The recording sounds OK, but at some point, even though the levels didn't peak, the sound sounds like it did. I've been typically going from CA-14 (cards) > 9100 > Tascam Dr-07 Mic in.
Same thing happened to The Machine on 12/3 in Reading, using the same setup.
As for the levels, on the 9100, I typically turn the dial to approx halfway, and the levels on the DR-07 were set to less than 4.

I'm thinking there's something that got set in the DR-07, I'm going to try to reset back to factory defaults and see what happens next time around. Never had any problems with this setup for quite a while. Also, I haven't changed batteries on the 9100 for a while, but I would think the problem there would be having to constantly raise the levels on the 9100 or DR-07???

Thanks.

Links to the above referenced recordings:
Bela Fleck: http://www.archive.org/details/bfft2011-11-17.ca-14
The Machine: http://www.archive.org/details/tm2011-12-03

[Belexes]

^Battery issue. Put a fresh 9v in and that may solve it.

Also, I'd encourage you to run line in on the deck versus mic in.  You have a pre and should be using all the gain you can from it.