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Hiss

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Submitted by anonymous on Wed, 02/11/2009 - 09:07

Hi, I just bought the pro fire 610 M audio, and the sm 57, I just plugged it to the audio interface and when I turn the level up, I start hearing a hiss. Why is this? Is this a problem because the room is not treated acoustically? or is it a problem with the microphone or audio interface?

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anonymous

The interface is amplifying the internal hiss of the electronics within it. It's the electrical interference from within the unit. It's the hall-mark of a cheap preamp/da/ad unit.

If you don't amp the pre so much this hiss will be your noise floor which can be kept below the audible range.

At least this is what I hear when I pump the gain on my Edirol UA-25.

Unless you want to do some sort of nature recording where you need a boat load of gain, don't stress too much.

Wed, 02/11/2009 - 09:13 Permalink
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Codemonkey

Hiss? I got over that a long time ago.

I can still hear it, but it doesn't haunt me.
I laugh in it's face, smile at the musicianship and shout from the hilltops, "SCREW YOU, 16KHZ!"

Buzzing is a little more annoying but I'm getting there.
I have a recording of a ceilidh band playing Highland Cathedral, and I could care less about some interference and buzzing, because the performance was fantastic.

I believe in a scale of quality - at one extreme, you have performances so good, you can still love them in spite of poor quality, terrible acoustics, interference, etc.
At the other extreme, songs so awful you wouldn't listen to them even if they were mastered to precision and played over quality speakers and whatnot.

Wed, 02/11/2009 - 09:30 Permalink
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anonymous

Depends on your setup. Typically the line out of the preamp would go directly into your mixer input or, better yet digital converter interface input. If your mixer has pre amps built in with gain knobs and such that should not matter as long as you keep the knobs at infinity. You should have no problem routing the out of your pre amp (assuming we're talking instruments or vocals here) to your mixer directly.

Wed, 02/11/2009 - 14:45 Permalink