echo gina

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Rednroll wrote on 12/5/2004, 5:18 PM
"could i have fried my mic by using the phantom power on the gina and plugging the mic into an outlet?"

Sorry, but your posts are getting more confusing by the minute. Phantom power should not damage a microphone as long as you're using the correct cords.....which I'm not sure you're doing, because you haven't really described your whole setup and how you connect it from mic to the sound card inputs. Even if you use a dynamic mic with phantom power, this should not damage the mic. Tell us what mic you're using, what is the cable type connecting it to the Gina. You mention phantom power on the Gina, so I will take a guess that this is a Gina3G, because that is the only Gina that has phantom power on it. If it's a condenser mic, then this requires phantom power, but you should be using a standard XLR cable in this setup, connected from the microphone to one of the Gina XLR inputs. If your cable is an XLR female on one end and goes to a 1/4" mono male connector, then this could be a problem, especially if you're using phantom power. I'm not sure what you mean by plugging into an "outlet". Hopefully this is not an electrical AC outlet, if it is, then I'm not sure how you did that in the first place, and second if you somehow did manage to do that, then yes your mic is probably fubar, right about now.
Reign wrote on 12/8/2004, 8:59 AM
lol

I am using the echo Gina 3g....i posted a link to the mic earlier....and i figured the problem out yesterday....

what i meant to ask was , is it bad to use the preamp pwr on the gina, AND use a phantom power source at the same time?

why would an xlr to 1/4" cable be a bad choice ?
tmrpro wrote on 12/8/2004, 9:14 AM
Don't use phantom power with vintage ribbon mics, though .... it'll smoke 'em.

Some new ribbon mics are designed to work with (or not be damaged by) phantom power, but all of your RCA ribbon mics (44s, 77s, etc.) can not ever have phantom power sent down the line or .... ouch....

:)
Rednroll wrote on 12/9/2004, 8:54 PM
"why would an xlr to 1/4" cable be a bad choice ?"

Actually, what I said was an XLR to 1/4" 'mono' cord would be a bad choice. An XLR to 1/4" 'stereo' end would be ok.

Here's why. An XLR cable contains 3 connections for 3 seperate wires. Each connection is labeled Pin1, Pin2, and Pin3 on the XLR, look at the connector and you will see small numbers for each of the pins. On a 1/4" mono connector there are 2 connections, thus you are going from 3 connections to 2 connections, and in that process 2 of the wires get shorted together. So for phantom power, +48 volts get's connected to Pins 2 and Pins 3 on the XLR connection side. Pin 1 is Ground, or more appropriately labeled "Shield". Also on Pins 2 and Pins 3 are your audio signal. Pin 2 is your audio signal and then Pin 3 is your audio signal 180 degrees out of phase. The Gina has "Balanced" inputs. Balanced inputs work in this way. Signals that are the same on pins 2 and 3 get canceled out going into the sound cards input (ie the +48 volt phantom power). Signals that aren't the same...don't....ie your audio signals. So when you go from XLR 3 connections to a 1/4" 2 connections, your signals do this. Pin2 of your audio signal goes to the tip of the 1/4" connector, which is ok. Pins 1 and 3 get shorted together, thus your +48 volts that use to be on Pin 3 is now shorted to ground. So now you have 0 Volts on Pin 3 and +48volts on pin 2. Now these signals are not the same and therefore don't cancel out when fed to the input of your Gina. Also on the other side of the cable you have +48 volts DC being fed to your microphone.....this may be ok, because your mic may have a transformer across those 2 pins, therefore able to block the DC voltage......but then again.....it may not...and may damage the microphone.

Anyways, there's a lot I would have to go into on how balanced circuits work and common mode rejection, and how phantom power works as well as which signal is on each wire, the differences between AC and DC voltages in these circuits...I could go on for days. Rather than going into all that detail, just don't use an XLR to 1/4" mono cable and save yourself the trouble. An XLR to 1/4" stereo is fine, because now you have 3 wires connecting to individual connection points on each connector. The XLR Pin 1 connects to the Sleave of the 1/4" stereo, Pin2 connects to the tip, and Pin 3 connects to the ring, therefore nothing get's shorted together and everything works properly. A standard XLR male to XLR female mic cable also would work properly.

Here's a pretty good reference on how a lot of this stuff works that I outlined above.
http://www.tangible-technology.com/power/Phantom_Power_connect.html
boomhower wrote on 12/10/2004, 10:40 AM
I've been looking at the Gina3g as well.....almost bought it yesterday until the salesperson confused me by saying I didn't need to "fool around with PCI"

I've also looked at the MAudio Delta 1010LT 24-Bit 96kHz PCI Card. I don't like that it doesn't have a breakout box but other than that it looks to be a solid pci interface.

Can anyone give me the nutshell on the pros or cons of using the PCI type interface instead of a USB or Firewire option? I know the latter are more portable but from a quality standpoint and function over form view what is the deal? It would appear I have a few more options withthe PCI (add mixer board etc) but I want to be as informed as possible before making the jump.

Don't want to hijack this thread but as I read along it seemed appropriate to ask this question.
Reign wrote on 12/10/2004, 1:00 PM
I'm really happy with the Gina so far...I've finally got things working well. It just took some poking around and I had do ask a lot of questions because I was using my old card wrong.

Personally, I'd work with PCI over USB or Firewire...just seems more reliable in my experience. The Emu 1024 is a nice card too. I almost bought that one.