+1 to all the above.  I'm not familiar w/ the interface, but impedence will have a marked effect on the volume of a headphone.  And a lot of budget oriented interfaces will, to put it politely, skimp on the power amp for headphones.  Combine that with headphones that don't match the power requirements and/or impedence and you get low volume.  That shouldn't be a problem if you aren't recording the noise, just hearing it.  Bothersome, but shouldn't overly effect your recording quality.

Many ribbon mics are passive, and need a lot of gain from the preamp.  Again, many lower cost interfaces don't have a lot of gain in their preamps, and the high side on the gain knob is often almost on/off instead of evenly adjusting the gain level.  This makes it doubley hard to get a solid signal.  Not much to do about that but get something like a Fethead to use or buy an external preamp.

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I have all kinds of outputs on my interface (and a nice headphone jack in the front, and I use a good set of phones), but couldn't he also setup a monitor mix to a couple of outs on his interface, sending a bus to that, and just use a Radio Shack adapter to combine two mono outputs to a stereo jack for his phones? I don't know if that would help with any volume issues or not, just a thought.

Or upgrade the phones?

Bob Bone

The outs on the interface are line level outputs, you would need to buy a headphone amp to make that work. It isn't that the headphones are good or bad, just not the right set for the OPs interface headphone output.

Thanks - I am NOT any sort of audio guy at all - just a keyboard player trying to make sense of it all.  My headphones work well through the phones jack on my interface, I was just taking a stab at it - thought it a bit shaky - which you confirmed.

Bob Bone

John

Jimbo 88


Ribbon mics are noisey by nature....

DO NOT add Power (phantom Power) to a ribbon mic.   John,  that is a sure way to destroy the ribbon. 

Well it wont be noisy anymore.  I just checked you are right! I'm glad you caught that. 

OK I'm suppose to write "LOL!"  But I really did laugh...anyways yea, go ahead, ask me how I know about destroying ribbon Mics.   Been there, done that...

You can buy multi headphone amps for about $50.  Maybe more than the OP needs, but it is likely to solve the situation.  And yea, you just run 2 line outs into it, setting up a sub mix.  The unit outputs through headphone jacks.

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