Unusual Distortion

[Bill Davis]

Total guess, but I suspect maybe a capacitor (or another component in the circuit somewhere) is going bad.

Kinda makes you wonder if that is why the original owner was selling it?

If it persists, you’ve got to get it to a qualified tech who can put it on a tracing scope and wait patiently until it screws up – and he or she can see what’s actually happening.

But clearly the waveform is getting trashed at somewhere between the diaphram and the recording. And I’d suspect it’s at the mic’s own electronics.

Again, all wild supposition. But it mostly sounds to me like what you’d hear if a circuit component is failing.

Anyone else?

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[Andrew Rendell]

I rather agree with Bill, I see it’s a FET+bipolar design and I think it’s the kind of thing you hear when the supply or bias voltage is screwed.

Intermittency might mean it’s a cracked track or dry joint rather than a failed component, but that’s something of a guess (partly informed by my experience that physical shock is more likely to cause a failure in the wiring / connectors than component failure these days). So, stumbling in the dark really, but my gut feeling is that if an engineer looked at it on the bench they might identify the problem with a magnifier and AVO meter without needing to turn the scope on.

[TBH, my experience of “front line maintenance” (wielding a meter and soldering iron to keep tape decks running) is a good few years past, I only really get involved at component level with electric guitars these days, so please don’t take this as anything more of a diagnosis than a possible sign post.]

BTW, the Scarlet 2i2 should let you monitor it’s input without going through the computer – that would be a very good thing to do (plus it’s another way of eliminating any other possible source of the problem, e.g., if it sounds ok there but you get a distorted recording then the problem isn’t with the mic – it’s very easy to assume that the problem is at one point in the chain without actually eliminating everything else when something like the mic being dropped makes it “obvious” that’s that’s what must be wrong).

[Ty Ford]

Hello Tom and welcome to the Cow Audio Forum.

Sounds to me like you may have a mismatch in the sample rate or channels. Back in the early days, speeding up or slowing down was sometimes due to something as simple as choosing mono versus stereo. Maybe you clicked on the wrong thing on a panel somewhere.

The glitches were there to tell you something wasn’t quite happy. You may need to adjust Audacity or look for a new software driver.

Try the mic on another computer. If you get the same results, it could be the mic, but still may be a driver issue.

Regards,

Ty Ford
Cow Audio Forum Leader

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[Tom Prigge]

Bill and Ty–Thank you for the advice. Do you think I can rule out the mic? Through the headphone jack on the Scarlet 2i2 I do not hear any weirdness whenever the recording goes bad. Wouldn’t I hear it through the headphone jack if the mic was the problem?

[Peter Groom]

Im with Ty
Sounds like a digital mismatch.
Sample rates mismatch or 1 device locked to a different speed than the other.
Peter

Post Production Dubbing Mixer

[Tom Prigge]

Thanks to everyone that replied. Looks like it might have been the mismatch. I had Audacity set at 16 bit 48k. The Scarlet 2i2 default is 16 bit 44.1. I’ve matched them up and so far, so good.

[Peter Groom]

I knew it.
I once had to create a very similar effect on a track which I deid by mismatching sample rates .
Peter

Post Production Dubbing Mixer