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Re: inverting a track on a stereo recording to increase gain....huh?

Subject: Re: inverting a track on a stereo recording to increase gain....huh?
From: "Paul Dickinson" paulcdickinson
Date: Mon May 6, 2013 9:10 am ((PDT))
Chris, 

Inverting the phase on one channel works because the cable you have is designed 
to connect a stereo unbalanced source terminated in an XLR connector (like the 
Audio-Technica AT2022) to a device with stereo mini jack input. So the split 
signal from your Sennheiser is being recorded as an out-of-phase dual mono 
signal. I'm guessing the connections from the XLR to the mini plug are pin 1= 
sleeve, pin 2=ring, pin 3= tip. You can check this pretty easily with a 
continuity tester. The solution this problem is to open up the XLR connector, 
desolder the wire from pin 3 and re-solder it to pin 2. Add a short jumper wire 
from pin 1 to pin 3. What this does is split the hot lead to go to both 
channels and tie off the low lead to ground. Now your microphone signal will be 
dual mono, and both channels will record in phase. If you're not handy with a 
soldering iron and just want to buy a replacement cable, specify a 3 pin XLR 
female to 3.5mm TRS dual mono cable.

Best of luck,

Paul 

> OK,
> 
> I'm a novice at this and all my formal training is in biology, not
> engineering or electronics. I did take physics as an undergrad, but I think
> my professor was Isaac Newton. ;-)
> 
> I have been making some frog recordings with a Sennheiser K6/ME66 shotgun
> into a LS-11 recorder. I recently purchased a 90 elbow microphone plug
> extension for the recorder to stop me from bending plugs.
> 
> Recently a new problem has arisen. When I import the recordings into
> Audacity, I can't get the gain up high enough even though there is plenty of
> gain in the recording as far as I can tell. 
> 
> Doing a little research on the internet, I saw a suggestion to split the
> stereo track, invert one of the two resulting tracks, then recombine the two
> tracks back into a new stereo track. Surprisingly (to me) this works like
> a charm. I now have plenty of gain.
> 
> I have no idea what "inverting" the right channel does, or why this 
> works,
> and might not understand if you explained it to me. But what can I do to
> avoid having to do this?
> 
> If I record directly off the LS-11 built in mics, I have no such problem.
> 
> Any gentle input?
> 
> Chris Harrison 
> 
> San Antonio, TX
> 
> 
> 








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