R-09 Mic Question
 

I just had a weird experience with the R-09 and was wondering if anyone can explain it.

The R-09 performed and sounded great by itself using its internal microphone.
I took it's audio file into I-Tunes and it sounded good there. I took it FCP and it sounded good there both as ain aif and a wav.

The problem occurred when I used an external mic (AT3031) with a pre-amp.
The audio file sounded fine on the R-09 with headphones. It sounded fine when played in I-Tunes. BUT the file DID NOT PLAY when put in FCP. I heard nothing at all. However, FCP's audio meter was jumping up and down and I could see the wave patterns in FCP. Kind of baffled about this.
-Scott

Answer: FCP played the files this time. The difference was that I set the R-09 to Mono instead of Stereo. And I also set the R-09 to "No Power" for Mic. Not sure which one made the difference yet.

Funny thing though. So far the audio sounds better using the R-09 internal mic rather than an external mic.

FCP won't play R-09 files if the R-09 is set to Stereo. Has to be Mono. That's strange, especially since I see the audio meters running.

I could see it getting confused by mono. but confused by stereo? thats really odd.

Acually, it's very common. If you apply a balanced mono signal to the two channels of a stereo input, then the two channels are identical with opposite polarity and cancel each other out. You won't notice that in headphones.

Scott, I don't know what you can and can't do in FCP, but if you listen to one channel at a time it will be fine, and if you can "invert" one of the channels then the two will sound fine together.

As to why the R-09 sounds so good with its own mic, well that's what the manufacturer claims. Maybe they weren't exaggerating.

That's really neat Fred. Thanks! I'll give it a shot and report the results.
-Scott

You can find a lot of information of R-09 users here at that site http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=68518.0 where I remember having read that the internal mics of the R-09 are considered O.K. but not up to the job these more serious tapers there want. They certainly would prefer other mics, an ext. preamp only if it is better than the already good one inside the R-09.
To view one has to become a member though.