Purchased expensive equipment but get cheap sound

[nyankee]

Hi. I hope you guys can help me with my problem. I recently finished upgrading my equipment for recording for my home made radio show. This is the chain I would use before the completing my upgrade: | Neumann TLM 103 Mic --> Presonus ADL600 preamp --> Focusrite Pro24 Audio Interface --> Presonus Studio one software. | I would record my voice to studio one and just add just add the music, effects and everything else in the software. Moving everything around would take me 2 hours and it did not feel natural since it was all pre recorded, but the sound quality was good.

My goal is to get into FM radio in the future, but since this is a hobby and passion right now. I want to practice and go live and record myself to get used to doing it like I was in a studio. I ended up buying two more items: The Arrakis Arc-8 Broadcast Console to allow me to connect my turntables, music, and mic to the mixer so I could get the practice. I also bought the Aphex Channel to add color to my voice and compression. I no longer want to edit anything in the software. the music and voice is all hooked up to the console mixer, and the mixer is connect to my pc to record the show only.

Anyway, I was able to connect everything to the Arrakis mixer, including my pc so the music comes out perfect. The one thing that I cannot get work properly in the Mic. The signal comes in too loud into the mixer. I had used the -20 pad on both the presonus preamp and Aphex channel. It turns down the signal, but the distorted quality is still there. You can hear the background noise create a hiss sound and the voice quality is horrible. Keep in mind I have a studio room, so it is picking up the computer fan, which is not that loud & did not happen with my original chain.

This is the chain for my mic: Neumann TLM 103 Mic --> Presonus ADL600 preamp --> Aphex Channel Processor --> Arrakis Arc-8 Broadcast Console.

I did read in the Aphex channel manual that they recommend that connect the mic output to a mixer's regular line input. They said not to connect it to the mixer's mic input, which makes no sense to me since I would lose the features that the mic line has in the mixer. In that case I would had just purchased a regular cheap mixer. I ended up removing the aphex from the chain, and the loudness is still there and distortion, less but still there. Not sure what else to do. Do radio stations use something else to control this? any help?

 

[frankberry]

Remove the preamp and feed the mic directly into one of the mixer's microphone inputs.
See if that clears up your distortion problem.

 

[nyankee]

Remove the preamp and feed the mic directly into one of the mixer's microphone inputs.
See if that clears up your distortion problem.

cant. the mic needs phantom power, which the mixer doesn't provide

 

[frankberry]

The only thing that you can do in insert an attenuator (about 50dB) between the output of the microphone preamp (or the processor) and the microphone input of the mixer.
You are feeding a line output into the console's microphone input.
It's too bad that your mixer doesn't have "channel insert" points on the microphone inputs. That's where you would normally insert the processor.

 

[amos1001]

it's a shame that the Presonus doesn't have a MICROPHONE LEVEL output. But I suppose as a mic preamp, even with all the bells and whistles it offers, its job is to pre-amplify the microphone to line level.

I'd get a cheap phantom power supply. I got one from ART for around $50 i think. All it does is supply the 48v, and your mic will be perfect into the console.

We use an older Valley 400 mic compressor to add the color and warmth to our EV RE20. But with that $1100 Neumann you have, I'd like to see how it sounds straight in.