This is all still very weird IMO.
Mr. Sobel runs his HOT beyers directly in to his oade 661.
A lot hotter than the Oktavas.
That was the exact first thing that came to my mind. Even with the -15db pad on the bodies, that is still approximately 8 mv/pa after pad.
Either the published specs for the 661 are wrong/crap or there is a setting that is misunderstood. What's strange to me is now we have another reported incident where mics in the same mv/pa ballpark (the BSCS-1s) also overloading.
Mathematically it just doesn't make sense to me.
It must be the mics overloading?
The problem with presuming that the mics are overloading is that 130db would be the constant and I just don't see that occurring at a steady rate...
right, my guess is that the problem is with the mics somehow overloading.
If you need to set the level knob on the PMD-661 to ~4.5 or below in order to not get digital clipping, you run the risk of overloading (brickwalling) the pre-amp. My first time out with the beyerdynamic CK930's and the PMD-661, I did just that. I didn't have the -15dB switch turned on on my mics. It wasn't constant throughout the music, but all the loud peaks brickwalled the pre-amp. Since then, I've just left the -15dB pad on my mics engaged, and I haven't had the problem since.
but even though you had the level meter at 4.5, I don't think you were brickwalling the pre-amp. the originally poster said:
I was hitting -12dB peaks with the 661 volume control at about 4.5
With peaks at -12dBfs, that means that you didn't
need to run the PMD-661 at 4.5, you could have raised the knob and peaked higher. With the level meter at 4.5, only very loud peak are going to brickwall the pre-amp. but your peaks are at -12dBfs, which shouldn't be enough to overload the pre-amp, even with the level knob at 4.5.
All this leads me to believe that it was an issue with the mics.
OK, I think I figured out what happened. The first set (which I didn't listen to first) sounds OK. There is no brickwalling, the levels peak about -10, sounds good (though frankly, I prefer the mini-shotguns. Perhaps I'm just more used to that sound from my old taping days with the Nak 300 guns.) When I started the second set, I'm very embarrassed to say, I may not have engaged the phantom switch. The recording sounds fainter, though clear, except that it sounds as though someone is banging a large tympani drum out of rhythm. I'm guessing that that's simply the mic diaphragm freakin' out from no power.
I will experiment with the 10dB pad, as supplied, and as suggested. I'm guessing that it's going to give me just the extra bit I may need to have more breathing room and to record a bit "hotter."
You guys are really great, very generous with your time and comments. I have to say that the level of technical expertise you all have is impressive, and the gear that's being used now would have been unimaginable when I started taping in the late 80s. Thanks for not making me feel like a moron.
I don't think that is the problem. Your mics need phantom power to work. If you didn't turn on phantom power, you would have noticed it right away. your levels would
not peak anywhere near -12dBfs if phantom power was not turned on. basically, you wouldn't get anything that is recognizable as music, if you didn't have phantom power turned on. I still think the problem was something with the mics being overloaded, but I don't think it was caused by a lack of phantom power.