Bub

Crg

There's no way it's a real situation.

It sure is a real situation.

Mic - cord - mic pre - comp - fast track ultra - usb - DAW.

That's my chain.

I have full volume on the mic whether I have the little +48V light lit on my mic pre or not.

I was wondering if maybe the mic would still work, but have a limited frequency range, or something like that. I have all my cables tucked away and hidden and it's a real pain to get to stuff, or I would have just plugged it in to my FTU. Don't have another mic cable.

The only thing I can think of is, the mic pre unit is wired wrong and it's supplying +48V with the switch on or off. IIRC on my FTU, before I got the mic pre, I would forget to hit the +48V switch on the back and my mic would be dead.

have you tried checking the voltage on the mic inputs of the PRO MPA yet?  I'm curious what you find there.

Okay, I looked at the other posts. One of the blue models. I guarantee you a phantom powered mic will not work without +48 applied to it.

he did say above that the FTU USB doesn't provide phantom power unless you plug in the wall wart, and that he doesn't have that plugged in, so the FTU shouldn't be providing PP.

I assume that's true for that unit, because that's what he said, but I've not checked the manual on that or anything.

codamedia

Bub,

I have a similar setup. The Pro MPAII (not the ref series) and a Blue Spark (not the Bluebird).

1: The mic is dead when I turn on the pre-amp without phantom (best to try this at the start of a session - read on).
2: When I turn on phantom, it comes to life as expected.
3: When I turn off phantom, it still has life, and lots of it.
4: However - give it 10 minutes without phantom and it becomes unusable once again.

It appears the Blue mics (at least the bluebird and spark) hold the charge for a while, and continue to work. I suspect the sound degrades during the drop of power, so I certainly would not record with it not turned on.

(I tested this with my PVM480 pencil condensers and they do the same thing - but they lose power much quicker (seconds, not minutes)

Thanks for the replies everyone.

codamedia was right. The mic still puts out sound a good 3 minutes after I turn off Phantom Power, then it starts to slowly fade out to silence. There must be a capacitor in it holding a charge.

So it turns out there is nothing wrong and it's just the way it works.

Thanks for all the input.

Bub

codamedia

Bub,

I have a similar setup. The Pro MPAII (not the ref series) and a Blue Spark (not the Bluebird).

1: The mic is dead when I turn on the pre-amp without phantom (best to try this at the start of a session - read on).
2: When I turn on phantom, it comes to life as expected.
3: When I turn off phantom, it still has life, and lots of it.
4: However - give it 10 minutes without phantom and it becomes unusable once again.

It appears the Blue mics (at least the bluebird and spark) hold the charge for a while, and continue to work. I suspect the sound degrades during the drop of power, so I certainly would not record with it not turned on.

(I tested this with my PVM480 pencil condensers and they do the same thing - but they lose power much quicker (seconds, not minutes)

Thanks for the replies everyone.

codamedia was right. The mic still puts out sound a good 3 minutes after I turn off Phantom Power, then it starts to slowly fade out to silence. There must be a capacitor in it holding a charge.

So it turns out there is nothing wrong and it's just the way it works.

Thanks for all the input.

Ah, that makes sense!  glad you sussed it.