[RNLD] r-n-l-d at lists.unimelb.edu.au

[David Nathan]

Hi Anna

Adding to Frank's suggestions:

If possible reduce the variables - most of these things should be easy to do:

1. try recording with a different mic (also cable if possible), or
even the inbuilt ones, and see what difference that makes
2. try recording on battery only - sometimes the power supply will
pick up or induce noise
3. check levels and impedance setting (if any) - if input level is
(too) high, there is likely to be a significant level of hiss,
especially made palpable when listening through headphones. Note that
you would not expect a recording from this model to be totally
hiss-free even under quite good circumstances.
4. is hiss the same when simply monitoring (ie not listening back to a
recording)?
5. check battery in mic (if applicable) is full
6. I think that using a condenser mic or otherwise probably isn't
correlated with less vulnerability to hiss as you might be assuming
(I'm not very experienced with dynamic mics but my instinct would be
that condenser mics might be more susceptible than dynamic all other
things being equal)

best wishes

David

At 19:42 20/07/2012, Frank Seidel wrote:

Dear Ann,

I am by no means an expert. But these are the things that I would
check and consider. Unfortunately, you are very vague about your
situation, so it might be the case that you already excluded these:

1) Does the Marantz' 670 use sd-cards? I do not know that generation
of Marantz very well but, maybe it has issue with certain SD cards.
Check if the hiss is there even, if you use the SD card that came with
the device.
2) You might have Phantom power on and are running the mic from a
battery at the same time (which would be a bad thing anyways).
3) The mic is damaged or incompatible for some reason with the
Marantz. Check if the hiss is there, if you use other microphones. See
this webpage by Bartek Plichta on more of this issue:
http://bartus.org/akustyk/noise_testing.php.
4) You are recording with a mono-mic, but still record on both
channels owing to the settings you chose on the Marantz.

These are but some possibilities, but you might check these until
somebody who knows more about these things answers.

All the best of luck with this.

Frank


On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 7:53 PM, Anna Ash <MRALC at westnet.com.au> wrote:

Dear list members, and recording experts in particular,

We are having difficulty in recording with a Marantz PMD670 in WAV
format. We are using a condensor mic, but are still getting
unacceptable hiss levels. We can rule out interference from
fluorescent lights and a nearby laptop.

Thanks in advance

Anna

-- 

Anna Ash

Coordinator-linguist

Many Rivers Aboriginal Language Centre

C/- Muurrbay

14 Bellwood Road

Nambucca Heads NSW 2448

Ph. (02) 6568 5695 Mob: 0404 456 992

Fax. (02) 6569 4295

web: www.muurrbay.org.au

email: MRALC at westnet.com.au (I don’t check my google address)




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David Nathan
Endangered Languages Archive
SOAS
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