Topic: Microtrack II - Part 2

[nathan_g]

Wholesome - thanks for the info.

I think I'll definately need a proper fluffy windscreen at some point, not just foam, so I emailed this guy who's all over ebay selling windscreens specialised for each of the portable recorders. He says they should easily be able to make one for me, though I'm not sure whether he realises it's got the little T-mic and not something built in... Here he is btw http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/hearley/
Depends if I get a new mic for it of course! Need to find some opinions on the quality of the supplied mic...

You say I'd need a battery box to record loud shows - why is this? Seems counter-intuitive to me, in my ignorance, I'd have thought you were more likely to need extra power for quieter stuff? I assume the problem is not enough juice coming from the plugin power? How can I work out/find out if a mic will run ok without a battery box?

The t-mic with the unit has omni mics...much less susceptible to wind noise...may not be needed with the existing windscreens.  I can't say that I've heard anything great about the mic.  I imagine it doesn't give very good results.

The louder the music, the higher the sound pressure level and need for more power than plugin power offers.  Any standard electret mic is gonna need a batt box or preamp supplying 9v to prevent distortion.  I believe that having a 2.7k mod done, you can run fine off plugin.

I was surprised by the stock T-mic...obviously it's nowhere close to the quality of most any other similar mics (Church, AT, etc.) but it'll work in a pinch. To my ears it sounds much better than the internals on the R09 series. When I received my MT2 I had a bit of a wait before getting decent mics and stack taped a relatively loud show...turned out very listenable. Much better than I expected.

[taperwheeler]

Wholesome - thanks for the info.

I think I'll definately need a proper fluffy windscreen at some point, not just foam, so I emailed this guy who's all over ebay selling windscreens specialised for each of the portable recorders. He says they should easily be able to make one for me, though I'm not sure whether he realises it's got the little T-mic and not something built in... Here he is btw http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/hearley/
Depends if I get a new mic for it of course! Need to find some opinions on the quality of the supplied mic...

You say I'd need a battery box to record loud shows - why is this? Seems counter-intuitive to me, in my ignorance, I'd have thought you were more likely to need extra power for quieter stuff? I assume the problem is not enough juice coming from the plugin power? How can I work out/find out if a mic will run ok without a battery box?

The t-mic with the unit has omni mics...much less susceptible to wind noise...may not be needed with the existing windscreens.  I can't say that I've heard anything great about the mic.  I imagine it doesn't give very good results.

The louder the music, the higher the sound pressure level and need for more power than plugin power offers.  Any standard electret mic is gonna need a batt box or preamp supplying 9v to prevent distortion.  I believe that having a 2.7k mod done, you can run fine off plugin.

I was surprised by the stock T-mic...obviously it's nowhere close to the quality of most any other similar mics (Church, AT, etc.) but it'll work in a pinch. To my ears it sounds much better than the internals on the R09 series. When I received my MT2 I had a bit of a wait before getting decent mics and stack taped a relatively loud show...turned out very listenable. Much better than I expected.

Good to know.  Guess I'll keep mine in the gear bag in case of emergency.

[NOLAfishwater]

my T mic makes some crazy noise. hums real bad in the left channel. wouldn't ever use it again.

[popskull]

After smoking a power cable for the minime and schoeps pre, I put the T mic on a stand and used a -10 attn cable to the MTII

I was amazed how good this sounded, but then again, I was recording a 3 piece in a bar from 7' away......so a tin can and string would sound just as good I suppose

The soundprofessionals appear to make a very similar style mic

[Rockinman59]

I have a possible issue with the MT2 that I just bought a couple of months back here on TS.  I searched the old thread and this one and don't see anything mentioned about the MT2 having this problem.  I run akg460 mods/ck63 caps >Wmod UA5>MT2 (SPDIF in) running 16 bit only.  My first recording was fine as far as I know, but the 5 recordings since have had the same issue. I hear clearly on the wav file about 4 or 5 times in the first hour of the show about 2-4 consecutive pops/static and even a slight dropout on one occasion. I zoom into the spot and it's not a spike but a big long drop for about 2 or 3 seconds long, after the first hour the rest of the show is fine.  It can start at 4 min into the file or a little later but it's always on one channel.  The first 3 shows were on the right channel only but then the next taping appeared on the left channel only, so my guess is it's one of the mic caps and after talking to an AKG specialist, I sent the caps off to him for analysis.  I haven't tried recording on the ck61 card caps but will soon.  Oade Bros was trying to tell me the MT2 is famous for interference when using SPDIF input, but the likely culprit is the caps which are old since I'm the third owner of these mics.

Anyone experience anything like this on their wav files when using the SPDIF input?  I thought it might be cell phone interference but I used another pair of cables and same thing occurred and the fact that it has occurred on only one channel each time, it has to be one of those caps unless someone tells me they had a similar issue with their MT2.

Thanks in advance for any help or insight.


Tom

[jerryfreak]

sounds like dropped samples. is your card fast enough?

I have a possible issue with the MT2 that I just bought a couple of months back here on TS.  I searched the old thread and this one and don't see anything mentioned about the MT2 having this problem.  I run akg460 mods/ck63 caps >Wmod UA5>MT2 (SPDIF in) running 16 bit only.  My first recording was fine as far as I know, but the 5 recordings since have had the same issue. I hear clearly on the wav file about 4 or 5 times in the first hour of the show about 2-4 consecutive pops/static and even a slight dropout on one occasion. I zoom into the spot and it's not a spike but a big long drop for about 2 or 3 seconds long, after the first hour the rest of the show is fine.  It can start at 4 min into the file or a little later but it's always on one channel.  The first 3 shows were on the right channel only but then the next taping appeared on the left channel only, so my guess is it's one of the mic caps and after talking to an AKG specialist, I sent the caps off to him for analysis.  I haven't tried recording on the ck61 card caps but will soon.  Oade Bros was trying to tell me the MT2 is famous for interference when using SPDIF input, but the likely culprit is the caps which are old since I'm the third owner of these mics.

Anyone experience anything like this on their wav files when using the SPDIF input?  I thought it might be cell phone interference but I used another pair of cables and same thing occurred and the fact that it has occurred on only one channel each time, it has to be one of those caps unless someone tells me they had a similar issue with their MT2.

Thanks in advance for any help or insight.


Tom

[Rockinman59]

I have a 4gb 45kb card and a 15mb speed 4gb card, but the problem happens on both wav files and I used both of these 4gb cards on consecutive nights.  The problem only occurs like 4 times in the first hour of the 3 hour show and not after that which is strange. I'm waiting to hear from AKG on the mic caps, but in the meantime I will try taping with the cardioid caps and see what happens, then I'll know for sure.

thanks

sounds like dropped samples. is your card fast enough?

I have a possible issue with the MT2 that I just bought a couple of months back here on TS.  I searched the old thread and this one and don't see anything mentioned about the MT2 having this problem.  I run akg460 mods/ck63 caps >Wmod UA5>MT2 (SPDIF in) running 16 bit only.  My first recording was fine as far as I know, but the 5 recordings since have had the same issue. I hear clearly on the wav file about 4 or 5 times in the first hour of the show about 2-4 consecutive pops/static and even a slight dropout on one occasion. I zoom into the spot and it's not a spike but a big long drop for about 2 or 3 seconds long, after the first hour the rest of the show is fine.  It can start at 4 min into the file or a little later but it's always on one channel.  The first 3 shows were on the right channel only but then the next taping appeared on the left channel only, so my guess is it's one of the mic caps and after talking to an AKG specialist, I sent the caps off to him for analysis.  I haven't tried recording on the ck61 card caps but will soon.  Oade Bros was trying to tell me the MT2 is famous for interference when using SPDIF input, but the likely culprit is the caps which are old since I'm the third owner of these mics.

Anyone experience anything like this on their wav files when using the SPDIF input?  I thought it might be cell phone interference but I used another pair of cables and same thing occurred and the fact that it has occurred on only one channel each time, it has to be one of those caps unless someone tells me they had a similar issue with their MT2.

Thanks in advance for any help or insight.


Tom

[NOLAfishwater]

I think it is a problem with the UA-5. He tried using a different recorder and he was getting the same errors. Give them the whole story.

[Rockinman59]

It's definitely not the MT2 or UA5.  I sent the hyper caps off to the akg specialist and he said it's one cap and it responded the way I described it on my wav file. I had 2 different type caps so the original owner had already replaced one and the newer cap was the culprit.  He had to fix both so they were balanced within 2 db of each and they're good to go now.  It's good to know it's not the MT2 because I love this recorder.

[Chuck]

Well, I'm always behind the times. I just purchased an MTII. I haven't recieved it yet. I have a few questions...

As far as wiring. I have attached a drawing of what GuySonic suggested as the low noise way to go from an unbalanced pre-amp output to the balanced 1/4" inputs on the MTII.

Is this correct?
Is this the prefered way to run line level analog into the MTII, or is using the 1/8" jack the prefered input?

For external power, I need a mini-USB cable connected to a 5v battery pack?

Thanks in advance, Chuck

[tgakidis]

Well, I'm always behind the times. I just purchased an MTII. I haven't recieved it yet. I have a few questions...

As far as wiring. I have attached a drawing of what GuySonic suggested as the low noise way to go from an unbalanced pre-amp output to the balanced 1/4" inputs on the MTII.

Is this correct?
Is this the prefered way to run line level analog into the MTII, or is using the 1/8" jack the prefered input?

For external power, I need a mini-USB cable connected to a 5v battery pack?

Thanks in advance, Chuck

Chuck,

I used one of these and it worked great, real small and compact. (1000 mAh) . http://www.google.com/products?q=duracell+usb+battery&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7HPIB_en&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=RBtOSoKQLsG0twfsyrSqBA&sa=X&oi=product_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4

I also have some cheapo digital concepts 5v usb charger that take 4 AA batteries.  Got it a Walmart in the photo section.  Basicly any 5v usb battery booster will work fine.

Ted

[nathan_g]

Chuck,

As for external power, I use Energizer's "Energy 2 Go" - $20 from most any retailer. Starting with a fully charged MT2 + charger with fresh batteries (2 AA's - Energizer Ultimate Lithium), I've recorded about 3 hours and still had a full charge when finished. There are a couple of flashing blue led's that light up when in use but a piece of gaff tape covers them nicely. It's small, cheap, durable and effective.

[Chuck]

Thanks guys. Is the input cable wiring diagram correct for going line-in into the 1/4" jacks?

[Chuck]

Thanks guys. Is the input cable wiring diagram correct for going line-in into the 1/4" jacks?

Anyone know about the analog in cables?

Are there any 16GB CF cards I should stay away from? I'm going to buy one this week.

[nathan_g]

Not sure about CF cards to not use. My understanding is that Sandisk Ultra II cards are safe but I'm only running an 8gig. You might check the M-Audio user forums for further info, here:

http://forums.m-audio.com/forumdisplay.php?f=7

I've also heard good things about Kingston and Transcend CF cards.