I am having major problems with my setup. Components:
Behringer Xenyx 1002b
AT2020 XLR Mic
XP / Generic Soundcard.
I am really new to the whole world of mixers and professional audio. I am attempting to launch a live ustream radio talk show that takes skype calls and plays music. I bought all the equipment and thought I would be able to read up on a few tutorials and get the hang of things but it’s proven pretty difficult.
At the moment I have given up on trying to get skype calls and music to play through my mixer and am just focusing on getting the microphone to work. My problem is that I have the microphone connected into input 1 and I simply can not get any sound to get picked up by the mixer. I see no green lights on the little “clip” area. I have the “Main Mix Out” connected to my sound cards line in and I can’t get any recordings to work either (I have the recording mixer selected on line in).
Probably the worst part of all that is integrating Skype. Skype takes over both of the sound channels in your computer leaving nothing for recording or playing back segments of your show. You certainly can’t stream while Skype is running. They both use the same network channels.
Where did you get the equipment list for this project? Did they suggest a way to wire all this up? This would only be bad if you were producing the show in post production – later. I don’t think there is any way to do it at all live with one computer. Two computers would be awkward, but I think I could force that to work if I had to.
I need to leave and do weekend stuff, but that microphone is a very nice condenser type. Does it take Phantom Power? You can look that up in the instructions. Does the mixer supply Phantom power? If it does, did you turn it on?
This is my mixer…
See it has a switch to turn Phantom Power on?
Yes it does take phantom powe and I do have the phantom power button depressed. Am I correct in assuming that even if the mixer is not connected to anything the “clip” section should still pick up my voice going into the microphone and light up accordingly? Or is it a case of first having to have the mixer connected to something like a pc before it will register my voice on the green lights.
The word “clip” near to the phantom power button refers just to the top two red LEDs and indicates when the level is too high.
The green and yellow LED below the two red ones indicate the normal operating range.
When the signal level is in the correct range you should see the green LEDs light up and perhaps the yellow LED occasionally flash. If the red LEDs light up, then the level is too high.
The initial microphone amplification is controlled with the “Gain” control. The gain will probably need to be set quite high, but the red “clip” light should not light up - if they light up then the gain is set too high.
The output level from the mixer channel is then adjusted by the channel fader, and the overall level is controlled by the “Main” fader.
During normal operation you would expect to have the channel fader and the Main (Master) fader set at around 0.
Your microphone lead must have XLR connectors at both ends (1 male into the desk and 1 female to the mic)
There is one desperation method test. Plug the microphone in and turn the phantom power on. Turn the top knob Mic Gain all the way up. Slide the channel fader all the way up. Now bellow into the microphone. HA!!! It should be possible to get the little microphone channel red Clip light to come on – ignore the meters and faders on the right of the mixer. If you can’t get it that far, then there is a serious problem.
I wasn’t able to get good microphone information. My microphone has a tiny green light that tells me when the Phantom Power is working.
I need to be very clear that there needs to be a real XLR microphone cable between the mixer and the microphone.
Female three pins on one end and male three pins on the other. No adapters, attenuators, splitters, etc. etc. etc. You are allowed to have two or more XLR microphone cables one after the other to get extra length. That’s valid. But nothing past that. This microphone requires this type of cable to work.
Ummmm. The instructions say the mixer sends 23v phantom power to the microphone. My microphone takes 48v. I think 12 is the other common one. Does the microphone take 23v? Does it say so explicitly?
Thank you for all your replies. I tried turning the Trim all the way up and setting the master volumes to 0. The first two sets of green lights came on. Does this mean that it is working? There was also a static sound when i touched the mic and it stopped when i pulled my hand away.
edit: ok at this point i would simply settle for hearing audio from my pc through my mixer (headphones in mixer). How do I go about doing this?
double edit: oh holy jesus i just got the sound to go from the pc through the mixer by accident you guys have no idea how happy i am this thing has consumed my life for the past few days. i was just messing around with the knobs and I could hear the faintest sound music (Thom Yorke - Hearing Damage) and i played iwth it a bit more and turned it up full volume and nearly blew my own head off.
***: ok I got my music channel and skype channels both working now but the microphone still eludes me. My mic (at2020) takes 48v phantom power and according to this site: http://www.htfr.com/more-info/MR299543 my mixer has 48v phantom power so i don’t know what the problem could be.
****: I turned up all the levels had mad static in my ears and recorded something. I heard my voice but it was so feint its not even worth mentioning. the static was 100x louder then my voice. Everything else is going great but the mic is just refusing to cooperate.
<<<My mic (at2020) takes 48v phantom power and according to this site: http://www.htfr.com/more-info/MR299543 my mixer has 48v phantom power so i don’t know what the problem could be.>>>
According to the User Manual I got from the Behringer web site, it doesn’t.
If you have a voltmeter or know someone who does, I can tell you how to measure it. If it’s wrong, that will drive the microphone nuts. Have you tried more than one mixer microphone connection? Do you have more than one microphone cable? Do you know anybody in a band? You may be able to borrow one from them.
By the way, when you get all this working, you will be the expert on webcasting. You’ll be back later to answer questions, right? The Audacity forum is all volunteer…
I don’t know about expert, I mean I bought a mixer that apparently doesn’t work with my mixer. The brochure says its a 18v phantom power switch -_- I can’t believe I wasted all this money on the mic. I am going to have to sell the mic on ebay and cut my losses. Still happy I got my mixer finally “working”.
Is there anything I can buy that will convert 18v to 48v or is selling and replacing the mic my only option. Just checked online and basically all the good mics take +48v phantom power. What the fuck is the use of a 18v phantom power switch seriously?
Turn mixer phantom power off if you go this route.
Did you call Behringer? I think it’s suspicious we got several different numbers depending on who reads the instructions. It’s possible there’s a typo, the mixer is in good working order, and you have a dead microphone.
I’ve never heard of 18 and 23 volt power systems. That would damage the two most common types of microphone. Nobody would design a mixer to do that.
Got everything working now. I had two major problems with the microphone.
It took 48v phantom power and my piece of shit behringer mixer (1002b) only had 18v phantom power (only god knows why they put 18v phantom power on a mixer)
The xlr cable was a dud and didn’t work properly.
Fixed by buying a phantom power supply like kozikowsi suggested above ($50 aus) and two new xlr cables ($10 each).
