XLR Cable Replacement
 

Good evening, I have a xlr cable that I purchased about 4 years ago, which was the last time I used it and its never been damaged. My input/busses appear to be working fine, I don't think that's issue. I noticed that I have to tap on my microphone(hard taps) in order for the meter to move and in order to record. I can just barely heard the recording of the taps. I tried 2 microphones and had the same results. I remember my microphones being very sensitive to sound in the past. I don't mean to sound cheap. If I need to buy another cable then I'll do so. It just seems odd that barely used xlr cable is the issue. I googled and researched on this all day and I couldn't find a solution. I do have a strange feeling that the issue may be something else. I removed both male and female ends of the cable and everything is in tact and no wire damage whatsoever. I used the cable and the microphones when I used pt 10. I just upgraded to pt 11 after doing a clean uninstall to pt 10. I installed the correct and up to date drivers on my interface as well, I don't think its an issue with the interface. What to do you guys think the issue is here?

Mac mini 2012
Yosemite 10.10.5
PT11
M Box pro 3

Re: XLR Cable Replacement
 

Its unclear why you suspect the cable over other possibilities. Does the mic work elsewhere? with a different cable?

Microphones plural or singular? What exact models, have you tried swapping them/the cable on all mic inputs?

You have to tap hard for *what* meters to move... in Pro Tools or the front panel meters?

One thing at a time....

Can you play back prerecorded music OK in a session. In a new test session create an stereo audio track and drag and drop a known good MP3 or similar onto that track.

The most likely reason a microphone will seem to not work is you have the mic preamp gain turned down, or you don't have phantom power enabled on a mic that needs it (like most condenser mics).

Test all mic inputs on the MBox Pro.

Much more detail needed....

What exact mic? What is the preamp gain set to? Is phantom power on? Attenuator off? What are the front panel meters doing.

Since the MBox 3 has hardware monitoring (wee the documentation... set up in the Driver Control Panel) it may be easier to test microphones thought the hardware monitoring instead of Pro Tools, then you don't even need the DAW open.

Re: XLR Cable Replacement
 

Darryl, I figured it out. I disconnected the interface. I untangled several wires and organized them a bit. After that it worked perfectly fine. I'm guessing there were several cross over wires. Thank you for your quick response.

Re: XLR Cable Replacement
 

Untangling cables isn’t going to make them magically work again. Your cables are either damaged or it’s one of the many things Darryl pointed out.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Re: XLR Cable Replacement
 

Not much info to go from... but *if* this was a cable problem and if you have a condenser mic then what was described (including having a very low-level response) may well be symptoms of not having a circuit for the phantom power.... and since phantom power is carried redundantly on both sides of the mic signal wiring the most likely failure there is a open circuit in the shield wiring.

Re: XLR Cable Replacement
 

... or just an XLR cable that was / is not attached correctly and within a day or so it will conk out again displaying the same problem you have now. Make sure ALL connections are seated properly and hopefully that was the problem.

Re: XLR Cable Replacement
 

Or a miswired cable. I've had commercially built cables that were miswired where the negative lead was swapped for the shield lead.

Re: XLR Cable Replacement
 

Thank you guys for the replies. This is a learning experience and I look forward to learning something new everyday. I appreciate all the help.