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Using analog mic w/Voice Over
Well, this is a continuation of my effort to find a way to use my analog Scheops mic for narration recording directly into FCP. I bought PreSonus’ Inspire 1394 analog/digital audio interface so I could record the signal directly into the Voice Over tool in FCP. It does it, but unfortunately, there is static accompanying the voice in my tests. The Scheops is T-powered (external power source), so I also tried out a dynamic mic to see if there was a problem with the Schoeps power supply. The problem appeared as well with the dynamic mic.
I called PreSonus for tech support, but they weren’t of much help. They mentioned “latency” as a probably cause, but in the Mac version, their software control panel didn’t have a way to manipulate that.
Don’t know if anyone else is using this specific product to do what I’m doing, but I am open to any suggestions for figuring out how to get rid of the static (intermittent buzz and general “nose-blow”) that seems to be triggered by the signal (voice). In other words, it’s not something that is persistent, but rather, intermittent. Any help would be appreciated, as I have voice sessions scheduled for Monday and Tuesday.
Thanks,
David -
9 Replies
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Latency and static have nothing to do with each other. Latency is the delay time that it takes a piece of equipment to process the signal. Static is noise.
Have you checked your cabling? If it’s not the cable, it could be that the PreSonus is just a noisy piece of crap. Try a FW or USB interface from Tascam, M-Audio, Motu, or Mackie.
Arnie
Now in post: Peristroika, a film by Slava Tsukerman
https://www.arniepix.com/blog -
Sounds almost like a ground lift issue from your power source. How’s the power ground in your place? I just had to install a grounding field for our shop as we were getting intermittent interference on our plasma screens.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
Read my Blog!
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I needed to do some location audio recording and tried a M-Audio Mobile Pre I/O. I got the same results as you on my Mac Pro Laptop. Noisy audio. Not sure why these I/O’s don’t work. I ended up recording thru my HDX900 Camera instead using a small mixer/preamp and camera’s XLR inputs and firewire out to my laptop. Sounded pristine.
Ernie Santella
Santella Film/Video Productions
http://www.santellaproductions.com -
I was thinking of using the same camera solution, if this direct approach doesn’t work. But, interestingly enough, I just hooked up the same rig (Schoeps, Inspire A/D interface) to a different Mac that doesn’t have my Kona card in it and I got good clean audio. No static. The reason that I mention the Kona LC card is because someone else had said that exotic cards can sometimes introduce issues. Don’t know if this is the source, but I just know that I’m on the road to getting good audio directly into FC. The only difference is that the first Mac, which has my project on it, was a DVCProHD project and the test Mac that was successful in producing good audio had a DV timeline. My systems aren’t on a network, so I have to go through the process of rigging my drives to the second Mac to test conclusively if I can capture audio using the PreSonus Inspire into my DVCProHD project timeline.
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[David Donnenfield] “The reason that I mention the Kona LC card is because someone else had said that exotic cards can sometimes introduce issues.”
Exotic card? That’s pretty much standard operating gear for years now. We have Konas in all three of our suites. We record voice overs from analog mics directly through our Mackie 1202’s which are hooked up to the Konas. Never had static yet.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
Read my Blog!
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I use the FW 410 from M-audio and have no problems recording audio, into FC, Soundtrack, or Garageband for that matter. I use that on my powerbook, and I use the Alesis FW8 on my Powermac. Both provide excellent audio with no problems, no noise etc…
On the Alesis I feed 3-4 mics… on the M-audio 2 for location.
Have you tried the mic on a seperate recorder, and see if it produces static. It sounds like the problem may be in the mic. It would be abit unusual to have noise get into the sound mix, from the computer, so its probably coming directly from the mike or picking up static from a bad ground loop in the mike. Check your cables also.. Just a thought.
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I tested the mic on a different Mac and got clean audio. It’s not the mic. And for that matter, I also tested a dynamic mic and got the same bad result on the original computer. Walther Biscardi doubts that this is caused by the Kona card in the original computer. I just dunno what the source of it is. I’m just thankful that I can make it work on a different computer.
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In some sense are you saying I could have bypassed this PreSonus A to D converter altogether? I have a Mackie 1402. Could I have routed the output of the Mackie into the Aja patch bay and captured directly into the computer using FC’s Voice Over function? If so, I’m sorry that I never thought of that?
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This solved my issue:
https://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86655
Specifically, step 2. In a single room, I have two different circuits that feed the household current outlets. Having devices plugged into different outlets created noise. It wasn’t even the recording equipment that made the difference. It was a hard drive, which, when plugged into a different outlet, would cause intermittent noise in the circuit. The Apple Technote describes this as a Ground Loop problem. I don’t understand it….but it fixed the problem.
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