...so I thought it was my old £20 mic and went out and bought a new Sennheiser, but capturing a guide voice over through this also sounds REALLY awful and low level.  I have the 20dB pad in on the input settings side and the Soundblaster Audigy card input settings (that the mic is plugged into) seem good, but my guide voice is awful quality - noisy, poppy, hissy, rumbly, low level.

Could this be a lack of a proper pre-amp thing?  And if so why does my souncard have a mic input then!!!?

Trawling here I read of Samson USB mics - guess it wont capture to an Avid bin via the capture tool, but that's not a big deal.

Any ideas guys?

Thx

D

 yes it is a pre amp thing sennheisers require  a pre amp. soundcards have a mic in but it is a hi z mic in  not a low z mic in and loose the 20 db pad  as that is for high level recording  ie:gun's drum's race cars  not voice  unless your voice is a marine di

tompearson:

gun's drum's race cars

This could be a good tag line: Sennheiser: Guns, Drums & Race Cars

adios,
Carl

Thanks Tom!  Thought it was a PLUS 20dB pad mind not a minus?  Boy do I need it without a pre-amp!!!

D

What's the type of your microphone? Does it have the XLR connector? If it's the condenser type you need a premp with phantom power unless it's a battery powered micropohone like the K6.

PP

Hi - its a Sennheiser e815s.  Looks like a std cardioid vocal mic similar to the industry std Shure SM58 which is why I went for it.  350 ohm impeadance and a low sensitivity of 1.5mV/pa so it wont pick up my Quadro fan when voicing in the suite!

Doesnt work though, as mentioned!

D

DIESELE:

Trawling here I read of Samson USB mics - guess it wont capture to an Avid bin via the capture tool, but that's not a big deal.

I don't know about the samsons, but I can at least confirm that there is no general problem with usb microphones and Avid MC. We have two t450usb (1" dia, connected directly via usb, relabled by german music store thomann, not sure what brand it is originally) and use them regularly without any problems and are quite pleased with their performance. It _should_ work the same way with any usb microphone, as long as it operates with standard windows drivers.

Interesting. So you can actually do a live 'punch in' to the timeline visuals via an USB mic then? 

Cheers

D

Yep. I posted my experience here: http://community.avid.com/forums/p/60231/338046.aspx , but in short: it just worked.

One thing to notice though: At least our USB mic has a noticeable latency, presumeably due to the usb-protocol, so that all sound recorded via punchin is "lagging" behind the timeline action by a fraction of a second. Of course once you know about the fact you can easily drag-move the voiceovers to the right position.

Thanks all - nice to get a conclusion.

Cheers

D

Bought a Samson G Track USB mic thanks to the advice here and it looks and sound great.  I can even connect a guitar to it and headphones!!!  What a mic!

The USB connection works just like an analogue one.

Thanks again

D