At 10:58 PM -0400 8/6/07, J. Rhett Aultman wrote: >Guys, > >We've been trying to improve our sound setup, but to no avail. I'm >mildly desperate for advice. > >Most of the time, we've been using a Shure handheld microphone. Sounds >great, but looks stupid unless you're in the field. So, we tried to >upgrade. We bought an SE Electronics SE1A condenser microphone, boom, >and a Peavey PV-6 mixer to provide the condenser mic its phantom power. >We hook everything up, and we check the headphone out (after adapting >the 1/4" stereo plug to 1/8"), and it sounds beautiful. Love it. Can't >wait to use it. So, we run one of the outputs to the camera (again, >this requires a 1/4" to 1/8" adapter). Even with the gain turned all >the way down, there's a constant audible hiss in the background. It >doesn't matter if everything on the mixer is off and all the inputs are >unplugged. It also doesn't matter if we run the headphone (stereo) out >to the camera or if we run one of the mono channels to the camera. The >noise floor is there, it's just a question of how many ears we hear it in. > >So, what gives? Why the hiss and noise floor when we run it to the >camera, but not when we listen in on the headphones directly? Is there >a way to remedy this, or did I get an expensive pile of junk for my >birthday? > >-- >Rhett. ><http://www.weatherlight.com/greentime>
Hi Rhett-- The sensitivity (output) of the SE1 is 10mV/Pa which is the lower-end of condenser mics but still acceptable. Noise of 17dBA is acceptable. It seems to want at least 44 volts phantom. It doesn't sound like you are getting just mixer or camcorder preamp noise-- more like you are not getting enough phantom power to the mics or have a mixer -> camcorder connection issue. The Peavey PV-6 pre/mixer manual specs don't state that the phantom voltage is 48 volts. I've seen Phantom power at 40 volts or less on some inexpensive mixers. Are you going to a 3.5mm mic level input on a camcorder or line level? If the former, I'd just use a Rolls PB224 which will provide 48 volts and add absolutely no audible noise. You can make a 2-XLR to 3.5mm stereo plug unbalanced Y cable and plug right into the camcorder's stereo mic input. The Rolls PB224 is small enough to attach to the end of your boom pole and its stereo so you can run two SE-1's. The Rolls will power just one mic at a time too but use the stereo cable. Takes 2- 9 volt batteries (~2 hours) or you can make a sled with 8-AA's (~6-10 hours) for the 12 volt coax input. If you are using line inputs on the camcorder, let us know more about the model, jacks etc. Rob D. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]