[Ty Ford]

Hello Eric and welcome to the Cow Audio Forum.

Is there any possibility that you are using an unbalanced cable to whatever metering you’re seeing the reduced level on? A malfunctioning balanced cable with only one working signal leg would drop about 6 dB.

Regards,

Ty Ford
Cow Audio Forum Leader

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[Ty Ford]

Paul,

Use the process of elimination to get to where you want to be. Try another condenser mic that requires 48 V DC Phantom Power.

Read the manual to see if there’s a switch in the wrong position.

Regards,

Ty Ford
Cow Audio Forum Leader

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[Ty Ford]

Hello Paul and welcome to the Cow Audio Forum.

“The MiCon-5 is designed to connect to a standard 3 pin XLR, with P48 phantom power.”

“When using a condenser mic that requires phantom power, set the +48V switch to ON.”

The above sentences are from online info about the mic and recorder. Any questions?

Regards,

Ty Ford
Cow Audio Forum Leader

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[Ty Ford]

Fred,

Thanks for the followup!

Regards,

Ty Ford
Cow Audio Forum Leader

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[Ty Ford]

What I have done in the past (last time with The British Museum who came to Baltimore to record some audio for a touring show) was to carefully and determinedly call and leave messages (because they would never answer).

With The Brit, since they were “over there”, I emailed instead of calling. After not getting a response after several days, I went to their web site, found a publicity employee and sent them an email. I forwarded a very accurate record of my attempts to contact them about payment, with copied emails, etc. and letting them know that I was very capable of letting an enormous number of people know that they had stiffed me in an extremely rapid fashion.

This got their attention. Because they still seemed either totally unorganized or unwilling to pay in a timely fashion, I did as I told them and began to release info to forums I frequent. I had a few chaps in London offer to go down and knock on their door for me.

I did get paid. I doubt they’ll ever call me again, and I’m quite OK with that.

In another “bad pay” situation here, I went through the same procedure. After 30 days (or 60, I forget) I called and left a message. Hearing no response I waited several days and called again. Reminding them that I had called previously with the date and time of the call and that I was keeping a record of my attempts to contact them and their lack of response.

Monday of the next week I called, Tuesday of the next week I called. Everyday that week I called and left calm but concerned messages about payment and their lack of response and requesting that they contact me about payment. Friday I called and let a message that if I did not hear from them on the following monday and did not receive payment by that friday, that I would begin to circulate this body of information about their misconduct to a number of different forums, and to the PR/Marketing contacts of the client list they posted on their web site. I never ranted. I never screamed or called them bad names.

This last call did get their attention. I was told that the contact, “Had never heard of anything like this!!!!! This was outrageous!!!” I very calmly said that their conduct was the issue and I was as upset by the situation as they were and that they could resolve it and hope to salvage what was left of their professional reputation by paying me.

It was friday afternoon at 4pm. I asked when I would receive payment. He told me there was no one there to cut a check. He had a credit card. Could I take that. (knowing I probably couldn’t) I told him I had a paymaster that probably could. I hung up, called the paymaster, let him know what was up. He called, took the credit card number, verified it was good and accepted payment. I never worked for that company again. Who would want to! Yes there are stinkers out there.

Incidentally, I call this approach, “The big, slow vise” because you begin to apply pressure, remain very, very calm and never let up until you get paid. I don’t like putting that much energy into someone else’s bad behavior, but sometimes you have to. I have only had to use the vise 3-4 times over the last 27 years.

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[Ty Ford]

Hello Michael and Fred and welcome to the Cow Audio Forum.

Fred, I think Michael has given you the right approach to figure out what’s going on. If after the tests you still get different sensitivities, I’d reach out to Tram or the place from which you bought the mics.

Their site doesn’t show any different models with different sensitivities. I wonder if one of them was altered with to lower the sensitivity for really loud sources like opera singers. Can you take apart the plug on the less sensitive one to see if there’s a resistor in there? Or maybe it was wired for another type of transmitter and has a different pin out.

Please get back to us when you get an answer and post it so others may benefit from your discovery.

Regards,

Ty Ford
Cow Audio Forum Leader

PS: Michael; thanks for trying to help.

An Authorized TRAM® Distributor

Toll-Free Phone: (800) 447-1179
Phone: (312) 867-1400

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[Ty Ford]

Mads,

Laws in the US and UK may be different. Over here, that situation sounds like he doesn’t own the work or copyright for the Foley unless previously agreed upon. So no harm, no foul concerning putting the piece out.

Again, British law may be different. I wouldn’t want to comment on that, but Peter Groom may have an answer.

Regards,

Ty Ford
Cow Audio Forum Leader

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[Ty Ford]

Mads,

So, you did the work, the project is done and they haven’t paid you yet?

Please let us know the details.

Regards,

Ty Ford
Cow Audio Forum Leader

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[Ty Ford]

Hello Mads and welcome to the Cow Audio Forum.

Copyright laws vary by country, but the employment aspects may hold a clue. Was there a contract? Did it cover who owns the work? Here in the US, we have something called “work for hire.” When you are doing work under a “work for hire” situation, you don’t own the work. The person/entity who pays you does. If you were hired as an employee, with no other mitigations, I don’t think you own the work.

My step-father was a civilian mechanical engineer for the US Navy. He created a number of devices. All of the patents were owned by the US Navy.

Next time, as you are entering a new project, if you want to retain the ownership of the work you do, consider putting it in writing that you retain the copyright, but license the work for use. You might want to say the license covers only use within the film. That would prevent them from publishing your work as part of a Foley library and selling it separately.

Regards,

Ty Ford
Cow Audio Forum Leader

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[Ty Ford]

Lovely demo reel Roger!

Regards,

Ty Ford
Cow Audio Forum Leader

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