Phantom Power problem?
I own an Audiobox Studio, I mainly record vocals on it. Yesterday I was recording some vocals and everything worked great, but today when I was going to add a couple more takes, when I turned the phantom power on (48V button) it started making all types of weird noises, kind of as if wind was "hitting" the mic. Note: NO there is no wind in my room to make such noise, I have NOT moved my setup at all since 6 months ago. Can anybody help me out with this? Thanks
Comments
You didn't say what kind of mic you have have...sort of important here. So, I'll have to speculate.
Phantom power is designed to be used with balanced mics and cables. Balanced mics have a transformer in them. If they're condenser mics that need phantom voltage, there's a path wired in the mic to use them. If they're dynamic mics, they basically ignore it.
Now, if you have an unbalanced mic and cable plugged into a balanced jack and turn on the phantom power, then you're essentially applying up to 48 volts across the element in the mic. The "wind" noise you heard was likely a combination of the element getting charged (and thus moving the diaphram in the mic), and then the phantom power detecting a short and disconnecting itself.
Whether you damaged the mic or not, that remains to be seen. But, that's the most plausible explaination for what you heard given the details in your posting.
Greetings from Austin, Tx
Ken