Wireless mic buzzing loudly. Any ideas?

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mfox32322
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Wireless mic buzzing loudly. Any ideas?

Post by mfox32322 » Sun May 29, 2011 1:03 am

Hi everyone,

I recently encountered a bizarre problem with my wireless mic. When I record, My voice and/or instruments are overwhelmed by an intense buzz; not a little staticky hum, but a full-out nasty level of pure noise. So I did some research and found out that with wireless mics there can apparently be some kind of "interference" from other electronic equipment; however, the only other such equipment (at least the only one turned on) is the computer. And I know that's not right, because this buzzing glitchuation (lol) is recent, and the mic worked fine before that. I also tried changing the batteries, playing with various volumes, switching between stereo/mono recording, and noise removal; nothing helped. Now, when I hook up the cord from the USB interface to the keyboard or the guitar directly, the buzzing is gone; but when I use the mic it's always the same old thing. And when I turned the mic power off, I found that instead of a flat line (no sound) I get a series of staticky "ridges" that look something like this:

--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--

Now, my knowledge of teh technical elements of the process of audio recording and "interferences" like these are limited if not nonexistent, so unfortunately this is all I can think of to help you describe this. Beyond that, all I can really offer is a million questions I have that would be counter-productive for you in solving this mysterious puzzle of a problem. Just for kicks, some of these include, "WHY is this happening?", "WHAT can I do (if anything) to fix it?", and the classic, "Is the dumb thing just broke?" lol. All joking aside I truly hope that it is not. It's a very nice semi-professional mic that hasn't been abused and it used to be simply awesome with Audacity. So I'd appreciate any suggestions, comments, ideas, etc.

Thanks in advance :)

steve
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Re: Wireless mic buzzing loudly. Any ideas?

Post by steve » Sun May 29, 2011 10:04 am

The first thing that comes to mind is to check that the microphone and receiver are tuned in to the same radio channel.
9/10 questions are answered in the FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQ)

kozikowski
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Re: Wireless mic buzzing loudly. Any ideas?

Post by kozikowski » Sun May 29, 2011 3:23 pm

Who made the microphone and what's the model number?

We went through, and are still going through painful adaptations with our radio microphones. When the TV channels went digital, they shifted their frequencies around and "stepped on" some of the channels we used to use. There are web sites now that tell you which channels and bands are no longer useful because of cross-interference. One of the older microphone bands vanished altogether.

Are you in a city or way out in the country? That could have a big impact on how this stuff works. LA is always a juggling act for who gets to use which channel and when.

Then there's sophistication. Grown-up microphones use auto frequency hopping and spread spectrum to try and get rid of interference. It's suspicious that the receiver is picking up trash even with the microphone off. It should not do that. The Auto Squench should turn it off.

Is the system portable (are you getting the hint that we need to know a lot more about your system)? Pack up the whole this and go visit your mom in the next city and try it there.

Koz

mfox32322
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Audacity can pick up radio channels?

Post by mfox32322 » Sun May 29, 2011 8:54 pm

Hi all,

To answer a few of your questiosn, I have a Dell desktop running Windows XP, and I think the mic is audio-technica or something like that. I live in a rural area (but it's interesting you mention LA because I'll be moving to California this week for a new job, lol). I'm sorry, my technical/mechanical/electronic knowledge is limited at best, and I'm really not sure how else I can help in the way of more information.

And actually, some of what you have said honestly just brings me back to questions. What is "auto squench"? If my version of Audacity has it, why is it no longer working? Is there a way within Audacity to "tune in" my device to some other frequency? My mic system itself has no such thing. It would be nice if I could just "change the channel" but I'm afraid it's one of those in-depth complex issues that only audio professionals know what to do :P

Anyway, today I plugged in a cheap headset mic (or rather a mic that hangs off one ear) and the buzz was gone; however, there was still an increased level of static and a decreased volume of my voice (I was testing it for Skype, and even with my mic volume set all the way up, the problem persists). So, perhaps the problem(s) could be better described as excessive static which is unaffected by simply changing the volume (and on a wireless mic it goes from static to a steady buzz). Could it be a codec/driver/whatever? As I may have mentioned before I'm absolutely clueless when you get beyond how to use Audacity itself. It's like we're in the middle of Static Season or something :)

So again, thanks in advance for the help.

kozikowski
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Re: Wireless mic buzzing loudly. Any ideas?

Post by kozikowski » Mon May 30, 2011 4:27 am

audio-technica or something like that.
I need to download the instructions. I'll need a model number. Take the battery out and look inside.
You can also go a long way by telling us how much you paid for it. We got one radio microphone as "prize" for buying a much larger product -- and it's worth every cent.
What is "auto squench"?
It a communications radio term, but is a big deal in radio microphones. If the receiver fails to get enough music signal to be useful, it turns off instead of delivering a noisy performance, or worse full volume crashing from a temporarily dead radio channel.

"How do you solve a problem like Maria.. [BUZZZZ-Crash-Crash-BUZZZZ] ...and pin it down?"

You almost can't design a radio microphone system without "Auto Mute" or somethinig like that. We may be able to assume the receiver thinks there is a microphone out there when there really isn't, since it delivers noise even with the microphone turned off.

This is a check mark next to the idea that you're suffering from interference.

Audacity doesn't have anything to do with any of this. You can run Windows Sound Recorder and get the same problem. It's all between the microphone and the computer.
just "change the channel"
If there isn't a small switch on the case with channel numbers on it, then you may be stuck with a single channel device. Every time we move a little, we keep coming back to knowing the model number.

Koz

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