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Post by Martin John Butler on Jul 14, 2023 14:35:15 GMT -6
I think it might be fun to hear of the strange anomalies, unusual happenings and generally weird and frustrating things that happen to us while using our pro-audio gear. I'll start.
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Post by Martin John Butler on Jul 14, 2023 14:49:13 GMT -6
I was setting up a track to record with my SA67 using my Dizengoff D4 Preamp. The 67 track was way too loud, even though I hadn't changed settings since the last time I used it 7 months ago. So I tried lowering the input level in the Apollo Console. It was still too loud and distorted.
Troubleshooting, I tried the SA67 through the Apollo's pre, and it sounds normal. So I figured something was wrong with my D4, like it was maxing out, even though I had it set to the lowest gain level. I switched back the 67 to the D4 one more time and went to check the gain knob, and it was set to 3 clicks of gain, even though it was positioned like it was in the lowest gain position.
Somehow the knob itself had moved, even though it hadn't been touched for months. I had to loosen the little screw that holds the knob in place and put the first click of the stepped knob back to the proper 1st position.
Did ghosts get a screwdriver and move my gain knob? Was it an April Fools joke. I don't know, but somehow that knob had moved, even though it wasn't especially loose when I checked on it.
Weird shit happens I guess.
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Post by chessparov on Jul 14, 2023 18:50:33 GMT -6
I'll try to keep the Phantom Power jokes, to a respectable minimum.  Most all of my otherworldly experiences, have been non-audio BTW. Chris |
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Post by notneeson on Jul 14, 2023 19:18:11 GMT -6
I could not get a decent vocal sound in my new space and it was driving me insane. I was worried it was the acoustics or maybe the internet was right about converters, or my mic was damaged, or… who knows what.
Turns out the PSU on my Quad Eight was slowly failing. At first it was subtle, kinda— it took until it got to be pretty bad distortion for me to realize it was across both channels of my go to pre. I had not even bothered to plug in my other preamps in yet.
Should have been more thorough in my troubleshooting as soon as I started to think something was wrong.
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Post by ninworks on Jul 14, 2023 19:36:25 GMT -6
I am having latency problems with my Focusrite Clarett OctoPre that I use for additional analog I/O to get hardware in and out of my old RME interface via the ADAT connections. I decided it was time to get to the bottom of it and input the appropriate delay compensation times into the I/O settings in pro Tools. I went through the recording the click track and then recording that track out to, and back from, the OctoPre. To my amazement the delay time wasn't after the original click track but actually a milliesecond before it. WTF??? I did it again and got the same results. Is there such a thing as negative latency? I've certainly never heard of it. That's not what I was hearing when I made my original latency determinations. Something is off here but I haven't had a chance to go through everything to nail it down. It's really strange.
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Post by Martin John Butler on Jul 14, 2023 20:19:42 GMT -6
That is weird ninworks!
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Post by andersmv on Jul 14, 2023 23:17:51 GMT -6
A week or so ago, I moved all my rack stuff into a new rack case. Had to unplug and repatch everything back in. Tested everything after, miraculously everything worked and was in the right place. That never happens when you move the whole studio around, something always gets messed up. Had my first session on Tuesday since redoing everything. Did a rough setup the night before, checked I/O and headphone cue before bed (easy session with one person doing vocals, guitar and piano).
Started on guitar, everything was fine. Moved her to the second cue system that was set up at the vocal mic. Ask her how the level was on her vocals in the headphones, “I don’t hear any vocals”. Ok, weird… Check everything in control room, check connection on headphones. Go back in control room, still no vocal in the cans… “I can hear my acoustic guitar”. What in the hell is happening… I walk in there and ask to see the headphones, put them on, vocal mic is loud and clear in there. She thought I was asking if she could hear a vocal track being played back, not her vocal mic. We had a really good laugh over that one.
Good times…
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Post by niklas1073 on Jul 15, 2023 3:44:26 GMT -6
I suppose my first post on this forum was one of those “turned out to be weird and funny”. I had a strange distortion in my chain, random one. Pretty much stripped down my studio to molecules trying to find it. Long story short…. Turned out to be my pipes. At a very specific frequency range my throat seem to nowadays have a tone that resemblance gear distortion. Well… rather that than broken gear 🤣🤣🤣
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Post by chessparov on Jul 15, 2023 9:41:28 GMT -6
That's why I always tune my bagpipes first.
Chris
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Post by jeremygillespie on Jul 15, 2023 9:48:26 GMT -6
I spent a good 15 mins trying to patch around a break up noise that was happening while tracking a vocal with Grace Potter. She’s a total pro and kept singing while I was apologizing for taking so long. Finally went to walk into the room and change out the mic and realized ….you dope - that’s what her voice sounds like. Felt like a total fool but she was gracious and we got down to tracking pretty quickly after that.
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Post by niklas1073 on Jul 15, 2023 10:08:13 GMT -6
That's why I always tune my bagpipes first. Chris Yeah, I was probably too concentrated on just tuning the bags…. My bad 🤣🤣🤣 |
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Post by damoongo on Jul 15, 2023 11:42:43 GMT -6
I suppose my first post on this forum was one of those “turned out to be weird and funny”. I had a strange distortion in my chain, random one. Pretty much stripped down my studio to molecules trying to find it. Long story short…. Turned out to be my pipes. At a very specific frequency range my throat seem to nowadays have a tone that resemblance gear distortion. Well… rather that than broken gear 🤣🤣🤣 very common! |
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Post by Ward on Jul 15, 2023 12:36:45 GMT -6
That's why I always tune my bagpipes first. Chris Exercise greater caution when tuning a skin flute. |
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Post by chessparov on Jul 15, 2023 13:33:35 GMT -6
Hey we gotta keep the jokes P(V)C. Chris |
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Post by Martin John Butler on Jul 15, 2023 14:16:56 GMT -6
Really enjoying the comments!
Jeremy, you cracked me up.
Niklas,I know what you mean! After three recent surgeries that required intubation, there's a hollow point in my voice that sounds like the mic is crapping out.
Welcome to the forum andersmv.
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Post by jcoutu1 on Jul 15, 2023 14:18:16 GMT -6
I spent a good 15 mins trying to patch around a break up noise that was happening while tracking a vocal with Grace Potter. She’s a total pro and kept singing while I was apologizing for taking so long. Finally went to walk into the room and change out the mic and realized ….you dope - that’s what her voice sounds like. Felt like a total fool but she was gracious and we got down to tracking pretty quickly after that. Same thing with my gf. She’s just got an odd vocal distortion that sounds like I’m lightly distorting something in the chain. Can’t find a way around it. |
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Post by jeremygillespie on Jul 15, 2023 14:23:49 GMT -6
I spent a good 15 mins trying to patch around a break up noise that was happening while tracking a vocal with Grace Potter. She’s a total pro and kept singing while I was apologizing for taking so long. Finally went to walk into the room and change out the mic and realized ….you dope - that’s what her voice sounds like. Felt like a total fool but she was gracious and we got down to tracking pretty quickly after that. Same thing with my gf. She’s just got an odd vocal distortion that sounds like I’m lightly distorting something in the chain. Can’t find a way around it. Distort it more and do a Soundgarden covers record! |
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Post by drumsound on Jul 15, 2023 14:59:09 GMT -6
I had no hats on a track on Monday. Of course it was a remote session, so I was trying to track down the issues and still be ready to play. I still don't know what happened, but I swapped the cable and that didn't work, I swapped channels, then I went back to the first channel and god signal back.
That reminds me, I need to do a full console knob exercise and maybe pull the vacuum up and use the little brush tool.
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Post by jcoutu1 on Jul 15, 2023 15:10:49 GMT -6
Same thing with my gf. She’s just got an odd vocal distortion that sounds like I’m lightly distorting something in the chain. Can’t find a way around it. Distort it more and do a Soundgarden covers record! I wish!! |
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Post by michaelcleary on Jul 16, 2023 10:53:42 GMT -6
I was using an M149 a few years ago as a room mic for a horn session and plugged it into the wrong side input on a GR500nv. Didnt know until after tracking because apparently they are hot enough to drive a line level without a mic pre. The track ended up great and none the wiser.
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Post by Martin John Butler on Jul 16, 2023 16:25:18 GMT -6
I went to Jamie Tate's The Rukkus Room to compare the Stam SA47 to the Warm WA47. Plugged everything in, but no sound from he SA47. Checked everything, still no sound. So I left and figured I'll have to see what's up with the SA47. Once I was home, I discovered there's a little red dot on the cable that has to be aligned with the other red dot on the female side of the mic. It wasn't like the usual situation where prongs don't match and you can't plug in, the prongs lined up, but just in the wrong position. The shootout session was blown.
It turns out I'm really liking the SA47. It's a very colored sound, but I really like the mic's character. Usually I like things as clean and clear as I can get it.
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Post by svart on Jul 18, 2023 7:01:42 GMT -6
I suppose my first post on this forum was one of those “turned out to be weird and funny”. I had a strange distortion in my chain, random one. Pretty much stripped down my studio to molecules trying to find it. Long story short…. Turned out to be my pipes. At a very specific frequency range my throat seem to nowadays have a tone that resemblance gear distortion. Well… rather that than broken gear 🤣🤣🤣 Recorded a guy a decade ago that had an issue with a very distorted sounding resonance on some notes. He came to me from another studio complaining about how they kept messing up his vocals, etc.. I put up a C12, 1272 and 1176 and tracked him through it. Pretty standard signal chain that is pretty hard to mess up, right? Same weird tone came out on some notes. I sat in the room with him the next take and that's just how he sounded. We were able to get good takes between turning the mic a few degrees and also having him vibrato through some sections, but I think we all learned some very important things that day. |
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Post by svart on Jul 18, 2023 7:13:06 GMT -6
Can't say I've had anything super strange other than the usual:
Not getting signal through the chain from a drum mic. Nothing. Dead. Go about replugging everything.. Still nothing. Swap mic. Nothing. Swap cables. Nothing. Swap patches. Nothing. Swap preamps. Nothing.
Plug everything back the way it was originally. WORKS FINE.
But I have had some pretty funny things happen:
So there was this one time I was setting up for a session and waiting for a person to show up to the studio. I plugged everything in, got some tones set for guitars, etc. I was in the other room and I hear "HELLO?". I thought it was the person I was waiting for and that they had simply walked in without my cameras detecting them and sending me an alert yet.
I walked around and didn't see anyone. No cars outside. No camera detections.
I go back into the other room and I hear "Hello!"..
I walk back out and nobody is there. No cars, no people. NOTHING.
I walked back into the other room and I hear muffled talking.. That's when it dawned on me that every time I walked into the other room, I was creating some kind of perfect condition for the guitar and amp to pick up RADIO and I was hearing people talking on the RADIO.
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Post by Martin John Butler on Jul 18, 2023 9:24:22 GMT -6
It's funny Svart, I've had exactly those same two things happen! The radio signal was from a particular amp I had. The nothing at all thing is so frustrating. It's usually one click on something, like forgetting to turn a power supply on, but sometimes after trying everything you put back all the cabling and it just works.
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Post by yewtreemagic on Jul 18, 2023 9:41:45 GMT -6
Several years ago I started to get a buzzing at certain low frequencies from one of my ATC SCM10 Pro loudspeakers. Assuming I'd managed to push it too hard and slightly fry its voice coil (resulting in the frazzled enamelled wires going crispy and rubbing against the gap), I resigned myself to monitoring less loudly for the time being.
The buzz didn't happen very often, so I didn't get round to looking at it more closely for several months, but eventually I thought I ought to lift the offending woofer out of the cabinet to examine it more closely to see if it needed replacing.
I couldn't see or feel anything wrong (in such cases you can often 'feel' the fried voice coil rubbing as you gently push the cone in and out), so I bolted the woofer back in.
I've never had a single buzz since - somehow the wires between the loudspeaker and the rear panel sockets must have ended up vibrating against something else inside the loudspeaker cabinet during some loud notes, and simply lifting the loudspeaker out and then in moved the wires and let them float freely again. There was never anything wrong with my monitor - doh!
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