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anonymous 16 October 2008

I'd love any insight or thoughts anyone could drum up here on this subject.

My band just grabbed a Behringer PMP3000 (1200W peak powered mixer - I know most Behringer gear is weak, just needed something to get by) for a little more vocal punch and the ability to play some medium sized venues that don't have a house PA.

Sounded decent until after about 30 minutes the condenser mic our vocalist uses stops working - it just pops and clicks when you sing into it and may put out a little signal if you're really up in the mic.

You can plugin another mic immediately and that one will work, however if you put the original mic back on it will still do the same thing.

Once this happens the mic stays that way for about 45-60 minutes and then is good as new again. But any condenser that that you use for more than 30 minutes will do this over and over and over.

We're using a mix of AudioTechnica AT2020s and RODE NT1As. Any thoughts? What would make a mic do that? Is it being overpowered and then draining a capacitor? That's the only thing I could think of.

We've only been running 1 phantom powered mic at a time since this was really just a break in on the board.

Help!

Thanks,

Isaac

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Comments

anonymous Thu, 10/16/2008 - 14:27

That could be possible. I don't know the exact mechanics of condensers to see the path of how it is happening.

Supposedly it's 48v, and two phone calls to Behringer left me with the impression they've never heard of the issue before. All the mics work fine if I switch over to our non-powered Yamaha mixer and Samson power amp.

I suppose the mics are getting enough power to operate initially but over time the substandard preamp/phantom power isn't supplying enough so the mic drains something internally - still not sure why the mic won't work again until it sits for some time.

Then again I could be missing something totally obvious, but Behrigner engineers, band mates, and music store techs couldn't think of anything else either. Behringer recommended I return and replace it, as if I want to do that a 3rd time.

I do wonder though if the power in the house is not sufficient and the entire board is being underpowered. Not my house, but it's an ancient turn of the century immigrant farm house. Certainly not an ideal haven for electronics.

Boswell Thu, 10/16/2008 - 22:08

It's the phantom power in the PMP3000 crapping out after half an hour due to the extreme effort of supplying 3mA to a condenser microphone. Return it for a third time to the dealer and ask them this time to send it back to you in the form of a piece of paper with numbers on it that you can use to buy something else.

Alternatively, keep the PMP3000 and use an SM58.

anonymous Fri, 10/17/2008 - 00:04

Kapt.Krunch wrote:
You ARE turning off the phantom power, or the amp, while connecting or disconnecting condenser mics...aren't you?

Kapt.Krunch

Of course, it would be silly to leave it on.

Boswell wrote:
It's the phantom power in the PMP3000 crapping out after half an hour due to the extreme effort of supplying 3mA to a condenser microphone. Return it for a third time to the dealer and ask them this time to send it back to you in the form of a piece of paper with numbers on it that you can use to buy something else.

Alternatively, keep the PMP3000 and use an SM58.

I love the Rode though, don't want a PA where I have to use an SM58 - not that it's a bad mic, they're great, but the NT1A just sounds so great.

But the thing is it doesn't seem to just stop working after a half hour, as that mic will be out of commission for an hour after that but any other mic you put on will work ok for the next 30 minutes or so. If you had a fresh supply of mics and could rotate them out I suppose it would work fine! :?

Codemonkey Fri, 10/17/2008 - 01:12

"Of course, it would be silly to leave it on."

Wow, sense. Not seen that in a while...

+1 to Boswell, getting something else is probably a wise idea.
Someone on here once told a story about how their shiny new MG24-fx (?) ran for 20 mins, had the right channel crap out, and the power supply went totally, within the hour.

Kapt.Krunch Fri, 10/17/2008 - 10:23

Scrotorr wrote:
Of course, it would be silly to leave it on.

Just checking. When you wrote "You can plug in another mic immediately and that one will work, however if you put the original mic back on it will still do the same thing"....just had to make sure.

Not implying anything about you, but sometimes people don't know about those kinds of things.

Especially if you would happen to be a drummer. :lol:

Kapt.Krunch

sheet Sat, 11/01/2008 - 07:58

Boswell wrote: It's the phantom power in the PMP3000 crapping out after half an hour due to the extreme effort of supplying 3mA to a condenser microphone. Return it for a third time to the dealer and ask them this time to send it back to you in the form of a piece of paper with numbers on it that you can use to buy something else.

Alternatively, keep the PMP3000 and use an SM58.

Shoot. The dealer will put it in the compactor and they will give him a new one if it is under warranty.

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