getting worse ??

I think we need just a little more to go on.

worse , in what way ?

well the vocals get harsher and harsher, they arent smooth anymore. they distort more and more. :shock:

Cash wrote: well the vocals get harsher and harsher, they arent smooth anymore. they distort more and more. :shock:

Have you been smoking a lot lately?

Seriously - WHAT vocals are getting "harsher" and WHEN? Are you recording new ones? Are you listening to things you recorded a few months ago? Have you blown your speakers?

Have you been smoking a lot lately?

Sounds like he's been smoking a lot of something.... :roll:

there is only three pieces of equipment so if I skip the smoking idea and try to find a tech problem ...

the only think I can suggest is that you are edging up the gain or just singing louder and so squaring off the signal on peaks.

yes a long shot
but
do you know the sound of clipping and does this explain the harshness ?

One of the units could be faulty ? :roll:

If you have another mic or mic-pre then make a swap and see if this harshness is still there ...

errr

If you have access to a tone generator ... or Synth then use this directly into the Emu1212m
(for me a 1212 is a korg sound card of the past)

If the tone is still clean once it gets into the DAW then the sound card is probably ok.

Trouble shooting this sort of problem can be very hard across the net.
good luck
let us know how things are going

AndreasBygdell wrote: [quote=Cash]well the vocals get harsher and harsher, they arent smooth anymore. they distort more and more. :shock:

Have you been smoking a lot lately?

Seriously - WHAT vocals are getting "harsher" and WHEN? Are you recording new ones? Are you listening to things you recorded a few months ago? Have you blown your speakers?

first off, no, i aint been smoking anything lately.

2nd off, are you too stupid to understand and combine what i'm saying? is your brain too small by chance?

Of FUCKING course i'm recording new ones. otherwise i woulda said my speakers quality decreases :roll:
anything i'm recording NOW isnt as smooth as what i'VE BEEN recording 2 weeks ago.

Reggie wrote:

Have you been smoking a lot lately?

Sounds like he's been smoking a lot of something.... :roll:

ok mr simpson, if you dont know how to solve my problem, DONT open your mouth, alright, asshat?

Kev wrote: there is only three pieces of equipment so if I skip the smoking idea and try to find a tech problem ...

the only think I can suggest is that you are edging up the gain or just singing louder and so squaring off the signal on peaks.

yes a long shot
but
do you know the sound of clipping and does this explain the harshness ?

One of the units could be faulty ? :roll:

If you have another mic or mic-pre then make a swap and see if this harshness is still there ...

errr

If you have access to a tone generator ... or Synth then use this directly into the Emu1212m
(for me a 1212 is a korg sound card of the past)

If the tone is still clean once it gets into the DAW then the sound card is probably ok.

Trouble shooting this sort of problem can be very hard across the net.
good luck
let us know how things are going

ok, now to give a lil bit more of information.

i AINT clipping, i DONT peak.

but the QUALITY decreases. I do EXACTLY the same i've done always, and somehow the vocals get harsh as f*ck NOW.

and yeah and no... i have a dynamic mic that i can compare to the condenser i got...but i doubt it will help me in any way as the quality would be crappy in the first place... but i'll try it 2moro... so thanks for your reply.

Cash,
it is not very easy to diagnose this on distance without examples of the sound, but I´ll try some ideas from experience.

From the equipment list I would guess that the microphone is the first thing to check. Condensor mics are are very delicate precision made things, and they could be changing over time. It might be due to errors in production, it might be due to changes in moisture level in the air (condensors are very sensitive to moisture) and I´ve even seen mics full of spit or other stuff coming from the mouth of the singer. Dropping the mic even once real hard on the floor might loosen some cable or what-do-I-know inside the mic.

Next step might be to check cables carefully. In an earlier life I used to work for ABB and the field technicians came home with these horror stories about mice eating the isolation of the cables. Seems they had some favourites that they loved to eat. Anyway, I´m alway suspicious of cables, especially the ones i solder myself. And the ones I buy ready made I´m even more suspicious about.

In my mind, the acoustics of a room are very important for the sound. It might be that you have moved the mic stand a few feet in some direction and ended up in the one really bad spot in the room.

It pays to be methodical about things, trying to change one thing at a time til you find a possible suspect. It could really be anyone of a lot of things.

Good luck

Cash, for a person asking for help I think you need some better attitude.
Do as kev and ghellquist said: swap every piece of the audio chain for another one you can trust in. If necessary look for a place were you can test the mic. That would be the only way to know why isn't it working OK.

ghellquist wrote: Cash,
it is not very easy to diagnose this on distance without examples of the sound, but I´ll try some ideas from experience.

From the equipment list I would guess that the microphone is the first thing to check. Condensor mics are are very delicate precision made things, and they could be changing over time. It might be due to errors in production, it might be due to changes in moisture level in the air (condensors are very sensitive to moisture) and I´ve even seen mics full of spit or other stuff coming from the mouth of the singer. Dropping the mic even once real hard on the floor might loosen some cable or what-do-I-know inside the mic.

Next step might be to check cables carefully. In an earlier life I used to work for ABB and the field technicians came home with these horror stories about mice eating the isolation of the cables. Seems they had some favourites that they loved to eat. Anyway, I´m alway suspicious of cables, especially the ones i solder myself. And the ones I buy ready made I´m even more suspicious about.

In my mind, the acoustics of a room are very important for the sound. It might be that you have moved the mic stand a few feet in some direction and ended up in the one really bad spot in the room.

It pays to be methodical about things, trying to change one thing at a time til you find a possible suspect. It could really be anyone of a lot of things.

Good luck

thanks for your reply - yeah i know they're pretty sensitive to moisture, thats also a reason i'm using a pop filter. so i think it aint got any wet. and it never fell on the ground either .. cables seem to be hooking up all, properly. And I don't have any mice in my room (ha ha, j/k). so I don't know .. is air moisture really that important to the sound of the mic? if yes, i dont know if the moisture level changed in the past 2 weeks, but i know that i had a bit of problems with the heating lately, so, could coldness cause a change of quality of the mic?

eFe wrote: Cash, for a person asking for help I think you need some better attitude.
Do as kev and ghellquist said: swap every piece of the audio chain for another one you can trust in. If necessary look for a place were you can test the mic. That would be the only way to know why isn't it working OK.

It only gets on my baws when people that dont intent to help are stating stupid comments.

--

Ok, I might be able to try out my old mixer, and my dynamic mic. I'll get back at yall. Thanks.

I once had a similar problem way back. This was back in the days when tape was still the thing to use. Essentially I had to first check if the line inputs on the reel-to-reel multitrack were OK ( in your case that will pretty much be the EMU card I guess ), and then check out every part of the signal path. The damned inconvinient side of this is that you will have to get your hands on subsitute gear that is known to work OK. You have to check if the microphone really is OK using gear that you know is 100% functional.. etc etc. And if you don´t have a closet with spares then this way to work out what the problem is will involve borrowing gear from friends.

^ Yeah, I checked all, and its all hooked up properly and every thing is set up right. Also because absolutely nothing changed in the past 2 weeks.

Now, I've been hooking up my old dynamic mic and my old mixer, but as I said, I cant compare them to the condenser and the mmp-2 in the first place because the quality is just a pile of crap. And I have no friends that also are in the recording scene so I cant borrow any equipment either .. but I might be able to "borrow" a mic from a local store if I say I wanna test one to know if I'm gonna buy it (ha ha :| ). I'll get back at ya all when I did so.

Just and idea.

Take your mic along to the shop, and say that you want to compare something you really know with some better stuff. You might just be thinking about upgrading. This would allow you to test with a different chain and possibly either point to the mic beeing bad or eliminating that as a suspect.

Gunnar.

If the noise-floor has risen, and especially if you hear rustling sounds in the background, I'd leave the mic in the warmest part of the room for a few hours. If the mic is cooler than the room, it can suffer from condensation -the moisture in the air is enough to cause a problem. I had a major problem with my AT4047 when I got it first and it just needed to dry out. I left it near a heater for about three hours, and then it sounded great. Be careful though, it's easy to destroy the diaphragm if it gets too warm! Just a few degrees above room temperature is as much as I would advise.

John Stafford

BTW if there is a problem with the mic, AT have great customer support, and they might just send you out a new mic.

John Stafford wrote: If the noise-floor has risen, and especially if you hear rustling sounds in the background, I'd leave the mic in the warmest part of the room for a few hours. If the mic is cooler than the room, it can suffer from condensation -the moisture in the air is enough to cause a problem. I had a major problem with my AT4047 when I got it first and it just needed to dry out. I left it near a heater for about three hours, and then it sounded great. Be careful though, it's easy to destroy the diaphragm if it gets too warm! Just a few degrees above room temperature is as much as I would advise.

John Stafford

BTW if there is a problem with the mic, AT have great customer support, and they might just send you out a new mic.

Thank you very much for that advice, I'll leave it near the heater, bcuz sometimes when I touch it, it feels like its ice cold .. I'll see if it changes in any way. What would be the best, the room colder than the mic, or the mic colder than the room?

I have a Rode K2. being that it is a tube mic should i let the mic warm up before use?

Cash
This is a problem that I imagine is repsonsible for lots of equipment failures, especially computers. Luckily for microphones it doesn't cause any irreparable damage.

It's a good idea to have the mic slightly warmer than the room. You should be careful though, as the case of the mic will always feel colder than the room, so air that is very warm will heat the diaphragm up a lot more than is obvious by feeling the temperature of the case, so you should exercise caution. Studio Projects recommend putting a mic in an airing cupboard if condensation is a problem, but I'd be afraid that this might be a little too much.

RedDawnRecords
While it's allright to use the mic immediately, I think the sound of tube mics improves for up to an hour after you turn it on. I only use one valve mic regularly (AT4060). I think the sound even improves after that amount of time, but a lot of this could have to do with performers getting into the swing of things as well.

John Stafford

I tried warming it up, but it sounds the exact same :cry:

i just cant get it as smooth as before... im bout to throw my whole setup out my window :evil: :!:

Ok, I have another idea, I might just be insane and just think it gets worse and worse. (y)

I think i'm gonna up 2 samples, one before and one after. So I can be sure about it. :?