Noisy Canon C70?

[Christopher Young]

Originally Posted by Kathy Smith

Hi Christopher,

Thanks for looking into this for me. My channels 3 and 4 are not active at all.

Right, Kathy. Understood.

The levels I'm seeing on the clips you have uploaded sit between -57 and -54. These levels aren't too bad.

All I can suggest is that when you are running mics is to keep your levels between -10 to -6dB to obtain better saturation. Thereby better SNR levels all round. I consistently stick to these figures to achieve good signal-to-noise ratios. Some tips at the link below may help you. Good luck!

Chris Young

https://ohda.matrix.msu.edu/2012/06/...ng-good-audio/

[Rick Reineke]

If there is nothing plugged in, the track will not be used anyway. Or just turn the record level down to 0.and make sure there is no autogain enabled. It is not uncommon for preamps to generate a little noise when there is no load, especially with Phantom Pwr.

[Andrew Smith]

I think I have also seen instances where phantom power going into a non-phantom mic will also cause self-noise / hiss to be generated.

Andrew

[Allan Black]

Phantom power was first used for microphones in 1964 with the introduction of the Schoeps model CMT 20, which was designed to operate with 9–12 volt DC phantom power. The standard 48-volt phantom power was later established in 1966.

So this is not about phantom power problems, but close.

In 1962 the brand new NBN Channel 3 in Newcastle Australia was a complete RCA package, everything from the 2 RCA black and white transmitters, all the cameras, control rooms, to the RCA mics in the studios. In the U.S. because colour tv was now in vogue, RCA had to find RCA engineers who were proficient in B&W installations and still available.

But they did and we met some great older engineers, who enjoyed their time in Newcastle.

But the strange thing was, for the microphone package, it seems RCA never knew what our mics. earth pin was 1-2 or 3, and not wanting to cause trouble and with no advance notice to us, they sent all our mic. cables with the 3 output leads unterminated, no Cannon or Neutrik mic. connectors to plug our mics into the wall input connectors in our studios, which were correct and must have come from another RCA dept., it was a big company.

We needed about 60 and because they were expensive and we’d already paid for them, we sent our RCA contact a cable requesting an urgent delivery, but for some reason that got lost in the system. After about a week with no answer we sent another one, time was running out.

So as the first audio engineer the only thing I could do was to poke the 3 mic leads into pins 1-2 and earth 3 into the wall input connectors , then jam match sticks in to stop the leads from pulling out. And warn no threaten the floor crews not to trip over any of the mics extension cables laid on the studio floors.

And on 4th March 1962, that’s how we did Channel 3s opening show and the first 3 weeks rehearsals and daily live programs. Thankfully I had no trouble, and bliss! The day the RCA carton arrived, 3 of us spent all one Saturday morning with soldering irons, to get ready for the teen rock show, TEENBEAT live at 6pm.

I had a great time in Newcastle, we were just kids 64 years ago, still in touch with a couple of the crew.