Topic: attenuant at the mics or recorder?

[willndmb]

you might have missed my mic test above

but my lb has off/48v/20v
then a aux plug for plug in power

[willndmb]

one more test
white noise (line out) > m10 (line in AND out) > fr2le (phantom off)
the m10 showed the white noise exactly
the fr2le had to have the gain turned up to approx 2:00 to match db wise on the meter - thats an increase from 12:30 when receiving the white noise directly from the stereo vs the m10

[Walstib62]

So are you saying that the M10's inputs seem to be more sensitive than that of the FR?
I know there are other M10 owners out there. (not me). Hopefully they can help shed some light on this. I know it's frustrating dealing with issues like this. Again, good luck. It seems like you're on the right track.

[willndmb]

So are you saying that the M10's inputs seem to be more sensitive than that of the FR?
I know there are other M10 owners out there. (not me). Hopefully they can help shed some light on this. I know it's frustrating dealing with issues like this. Again, good luck. It seems like you're on the right track.

yes in my tests the m10 was much more sensitive
the good thing is that i am now onto what needs to be done as far as not clipping so it shouldn't be to much of a problem unless i am really close to the sound source (which sometimes i am )
also on a plus side i did learn that unity seems to be closer to 4 vs 6 which means if was adding approx 4db of gain at the recorder
so all in all i was set up at the sbd running akgs > LB (set as low as it would go, 6db of gain) > m10 (adding 4db of gain)
and was peaking around -2.5
all a learning experience that didn't cost me a bad recording

[willndmb]

good news here
so it looks like the Blues Traveler show was just LOUUUUUUD
ran the same set up for soulive in a club and had to put the gain around 11 to 11:30 to the get same results i was getting at the BT show
not that i want to run that hot but just testing it out
so thanks for those who helped me look into the issue and answer my question of where to attenuate if needed

[fmaderjr]

also on a plus side i did learn that unity seems to be closer to 4 vs 6 which means if was adding approx 4db of gain at the recorder

Unity gain is around 6. Guysonic reported that after performing his famous test.

[willndmb]

also on a plus side i did learn that unity seems to be closer to 4 vs 6 which means if was adding approx 4db of gain at the recorder

Unity gain is around 6. Guysonic reported that after performing his famous test.

yes and in my first "test" i got 6 too
but after doing a series of test after that i got 4 many times so i assume i did the first wrong and guy poss did too

[page]

also on a plus side i did learn that unity seems to be closer to 4 vs 6 which means if was adding approx 4db of gain at the recorder

Unity gain is around 6. Guysonic reported that after performing his famous test.

yes and in my first "test" i got 6 too
but after doing a series of test after that i got 4 many times so i assume i did the first wrong and guy poss did too

john had some questions about that as well when he ran it behind the sax. I'm not saying someone has done something wrong, but a lot of test cases don't seem to match up...

[aaronji]

^^^ I am pretty sure unity is less than 6 (famous tests notwithstanding!).  I read somewhere that 0 dBFS on the M10 is 1 Vrms (~2.2 dBu).  Couple that number with Will's SVU-1 experiment (-3 dB re: -10 dBu on the SVU-1 and -3 dB at 6.5 on the M10), and you'd be adding about 12 dB gain at 6.5...Assuming all the numbers are more or less accurate, of course...

[willndmb]

^^^ I am pretty sure unity is less than 6 (famous tests notwithstanding!).  I read somewhere that 0 dBFS on the M10 is 1 Vrms (~2.2 dBu).  Couple that number with Will's SVU-1 experiment (-3 dB re: -10 dBu on the SVU-1 and -3 dB at 6.5 on the M10), and you'd be adding about 12 dB gain at 6.5...Assuming all the numbers are more or less accurate, of course...

as a follow up aaron (after learning about the svu info) i then made a cd with 3 white noise files
first -10, then -6, then 0
i played it back on my bose via line out (dual rca > 1/8) > M10
on 4 the m10 read the files all exactly as they were -10, -6, 0

bottom line for me is that i had the best results as far as gain is concerned on 4 and it sounds fine to me so i am going to stick with it for now

[aaronji]

^^^ So far, I have heard a 2, a couple of 3s, a 4 and a 6...This is more complicated than a 1040! 

[fmaderjr]

I have to admit willndbm appears to be correct that unity gain is about 4. His results spurred me to record white noise at just below 0dB onto a CD . When I played it back and went line out from the CD player to line in on the M10, it took a setting of around 4 for for the M10 levels to reach 0 dB. My mistake-I thought guysonic's tests were so scientific they couldn't be wrong, but nobody is perfect.

Settings of 2 & 3 are definitely attenuating the signal.

And as illconditioned reported months ago, settings above 6-7 add almost no gain (I tested that with a white noise track peaking at -30 dB). It appears that you can add approximately 14 dB of gain when going line in to the M10, but most all of it is added by the time the record level wheel hits 7/10.

[aaronji]

To be honest, I don't think this definitively answers the question (although maybe I am missing something).  You still need to know two numbers, I think: the voltage that the test signal generates at the CD player's line-out and the voltage corresponding to 0 dBFS on the line-in of the M10.  Then you could figure out the level on the M10 that corresponds to the same voltage coming out of the CD player...

I read somewhere that 0 dBFS corresponds to 1 Vrms, but I can't for the life of me remember where I read it (and can't find it again either), so take that with many grains of salt.  And there is no real standard for CD player line-outs, so that can vary from player to player.

[willndmb]

To be honest, I don't think this definitively answers the question (although maybe I am missing something).  You still need to know two numbers, I think: the voltage that the test signal generates at the CD player's line-out and the voltage corresponding to 0 dBFS on the line-in of the M10.  Then you could figure out the level on the M10 that corresponds to the same voltage coming out of the CD player...

I read somewhere that 0 dBFS corresponds to 1 Vrms, but I can't for the life of me remember where I read it (and can't find it again either), so take that with many grains of salt.  And there is no real standard for CD player line-outs, so that can vary from player to player.

i'll try it on a couple of other players and see what i get
thats the best i can do because i have no way to test the voltage

[fmaderjr]

To be honest, I don't think this definitively answers the question (although maybe I am missing something).  You still need to know two numbers, I think: the voltage that the test signal generates at the CD player's line-out and the voltage corresponding to 0 dBFS on the line-in of the M10.  Then you could figure out the level on the M10 that corresponds to the same voltage coming out of the CD player...

I read somewhere that 0 dBFS corresponds to 1 Vrms, but I can't for the life of me remember where I read it (and can't find it again either), so take that with many grains of salt.  And there is no real standard for CD player line-outs, so that can vary from player to player.

That's way beyond my comprehension-I don't know the technical stuff. Maybe guysonic was right as I should have suspected. However even if unity gain in really 4 and you set the M10 to 6 it shouldn't really audibly effect the recording in a negative way since the M10's pre is very quiet.