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Gear / Technical Help => Battery Boxes, Preamps, Mixers, ADCs, and Processors => Topic started by: lewisfilms on August 18, 2013, 01:51:41 AM
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Hi,
I am an audio noobie. I'm also a documentary filmmaker who wants to capture outstanding sound for my short films. I bought a sound devices mixpre-d and a Countryman B3 wired xlr lavalier microphone. I also have Sennheiser HD280 headphones for monitoring. When I connect the lav mic into the mixpre and listen to the sound, I seem get low levels with the pot at 12 O clock. If i increase gain too much I hear noise. What am I doing wrong? I have phantom power on, gain at about 12 or 1 o clock, the lav mic is clipped to my shirt about 1 inch below my neck and the signal is low/a bit noisy. help??
Thank you!
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Can anyone help?
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I never used a Sound Device or Countryman but curious and may be others would need to know more about the setup such as: Which phantom power switched on the Mixpre, 12V or 48V? Looks like the Countryman B3 specs say they 3 to 12V microphones (if looking at the right specs). Does the Sound Device levels (LED lights) look good and peaking around -4 to 0 dB with source present? May be not that much of a noobie. May be trying to gain the mic too much and gaining the internal noise of the mic?
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Hi Jimmie,
I just tried comparing 48v and 12v phantom power. It works on both modes but when using 12v there is less noise/hiss. So maybe that was my problem (before I had only tried 48v). The mic seems marginally less sensitive with 12v though.
The levels on the MixPre D peak at around 0dbu to +4dbu when I speak slightly louder than I normally would.
My understanding was that I wanted levels resting around +8dbu because I have my gain structure set that 0dbu on the mixer would be calibrated to -20dbfs on my camera/audio recorder. So +8dbu would be around -12dbfs. Correct?
But it sounds like you're informing me that I shouldn't need to be reaching +8dbu on the mixer's meters? Where should normal human voice be registering on the mixer's meters? 0dbu? higher? lower?
Thanks for your time and help with this! I appreciate it!
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I would worry about overpowering a 12V mic using 48V on the preamp. However, I never used Countryman mics.
I'll leave those questions for the more knowledgeable people on here and that do more voice and natural recording. I have seen several members answer these types of questions. I only record music concerts and sometimes mass homilies. I set my preamp to peak just under -10dB (so it don't clip) and set the recorder levels to not clip (usually around 6).
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I think the million dollar question is this how are you connecting the countryman mic to the preamp? is there a countryman xlr connector on the end?
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Jimmy and Chris
The b&h store says the b3 runs 9-48v and the op says xlr
Lewis
Sorry I can't help any but jimmy and Chris prob can
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Opps, I was reading the specs to the wireless one.
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Jimmy and Chris
The b&h store says the b3 runs 9-48v and the op says xlr
Lewis
Sorry I can't help any but jimmy and Chris prob can
if its terminated fullsize xlr that says countryman on it than its 48v if its not and just terminated to a mini xlr or anything else it's 9v plug in power. this mic does not switch from 9v to 48v by it self it needs a converter.