🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1993Jul19.214816.11699@news.columbia.edu> gmw1@konichiwa.cc.columbia.edu (Gabe M Wiener) writes:
>In article <CAFD5v.8t3@xstor.com> tompelli@xstor.com (Tom Pellicer) writes:
>>Help...

>>I have a friend who has let me borrow his Neuman U87 microphone so that
>>I could record some vocal tracks.  My board does not supply phantom 
>>power, so I borrowed (from another friend) an AKG phantom power unit
>>which plugs directly into 120 AC.

>>My problem is occasionally the mike level will just drop out for
>>a few seconds and then come right back up - almost like someone pulled
>>the vocal fader down and up real quick.

>Sounds like something is intermittent.  Could be the connector in the
>mic, could be the power supply itself (before the voltage is split out
>to the teo connectors), or it could be a microphone cable.  Whatever
>it is, you likely have a loose connection somewhere.
....
>I can't tell you that.  But microphone cables are more inclined to fail
>than microphones.  The easy, unscientific test is to start wiggling
>things until you find the connector that's bad.

When I used to work in the studio we found that cables were the worst
offender.

And we found a solution that cured virtually all of our problems.

When we got some new Neumann's from Gotham Audio (they were the old
Neumann distributor) we got some cables from them.

They were thinner than the average, and much more flexible.  They were
also 3 conductor + shield vs the standard 2 conductor + shield.

We wound up buying spools of the cable from them - I do NOT remember
the brand of cable if it did have a brand - and replaced all of our
cables with this eventually.  It was just about the same price as
regular cable.

I don't know if having a true conductor instead of shield made that
much difference in the phantom powering, but we discovered the
differences when substituting these cables almost always cured any
problems, be it intermittent, low level, or noise.

These cables were so much easier to use too.  As I mentioned above,
thinner and more flexible.   Never had a coiling problem, kinks, etc.

Bill
-- 
Bill Vermillion - bill@bilver.uucp  OR  bill@bilver.oau.org