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Talent Services Help

• Frequently Asked Questions from Voice Talent
• Tips on Acoustics for Your Home Studio
• Tips on ISDN, 2 3
• Tips on Wiring Your Home Studio, 2 3 4
• Tips on Selecting and Using a Microphone

ProNounce - Tips on Wiring Your Home Studio

• As audio passes from one device to another (or even one stage within a device to another stage) it must be kept at an optimum level for that stage. Stages where the signal is too low will introduce noise; stages where the level is too high will introduce clipping distortion. If you have your mic preamp set to deliver a wildly loud output and then turn the input to your codec down to compensate, you have just introduced a gain stage error. You have "corrected" the gain issue in the wrong place and distortion with noise will probably result.
• It helps to keep the flow of the signal from its source onto its destination in mind as you set the gain of each stage. In simple setups this might be only two stages with three controls: your mic preamp input and output and the codec input. Meters are invaluable for setting the proper gain as your audio moves through each device. If you are adjusting the mic preamp input, look at the preamp's input meter and adjust it for the optimum meter range with the appropriate read into your mic. Some preamps have an output level control especially if the preamp has a compressor or limiter circuit. Preamp output levels are a little trickier because they are usually used to accommodate the sensitivity of the following input and you might need to know the sensitivity of that input. To adjust the mic preamp output level, set its input level with its meter as described above, set the codec input control to an optimum (mid range) setting and then adjust the preamp output to feed the proper level as indicated on the codec input meter. The good thing about setting the output is that you probably only have to do it once. Leave it alone once set and use the preamp's input control to adjust your levels for different deliveries. For this reason, you might want to mark where you finally set your preamp output level.
• If you insist on using the mic preamp inside your mixer, most mixers provide quick means of preamp gain setting by assigning the signal to the solo bus. When assigned, one of your meters will switch from monitoring the main bus to the channel soloed. Make sure you have nothing else soloed, perform a test read and adjust the channel gain for optimum meter reading. Then, once you unsolo that channel, assign it to your main bus with the fader at zero gain, you should have the same optimum reading (provided your bus mixers are at zero.)
• When connecting equipment, make sure you have interconnected the proper level outputs to inputs. Consumer or IHF equipment should be avoided in these applications because they usually have inputs and outputs that are unbalanced and operate at different audio levels. (See Page 4 regarding mixing balanced and unbalanced equipment.) Consumer equipment operates at -10dBu while most pro gear operates at +4dBm. When interconnecting your equipment, look for switches that might be present on your pro gear which accommodate the -10dB equipment you use. Set them to -10dB for any consumer gear you use. Likewise, remember that some devices have mic and line input levels and accompanying settings. If you feed a line output to a mic input, severe distortion will result; the opposite will render hardly any any audio signal at all.