external pre-amp into mackie onyx board

[persist24]

Hello,
I hope this is the right section to post this in. I recently bought a heil usbq to use as a pre for my dynamic mics. I need a boost for some quiter recordings. I'm recording through a mackie onyx board with pt M-powered. For some reason I can't get any audio out of the usbq headphone jack. I'm plugging it into my macbook with the usb cable just to power it, but what i really need is a signal coming out of the headphone jack and into my board. when i pull up the audio settings on the macbooks control panel I can see the signal coming from the mic through the usbq into my computer, but can't get anything at all out of the other jack. has anyone had any experience with these (or anything similar)? I'm starting to think it may be defective.

I also have an unrelated question about metering: sometimes i get some clipping through my monitors when mixing, but my master meter is not into the red. sometimes when i get the clipping through my monitors I don't get the problem when I switch to headphones. in other words the monitors are clipping but the phones aren't. is this because the levels on my monitors are too high? i keep the "control room" knob on the onyx cranked all the way up and just put the fader kind of low. should i be turning down the level on the control room and monitors and turn up the master fader? is it possible to get clipping without the pt meter showing a hot level, or will I always be able to "see" clipping in the pt meter?

thanks for any advice/help anyone may have.

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by persist24

Hello,
I hope this is the right section to post this in. I recently bought a heil usbq to use as a pre for my dynamic mics. I need a boost for some quiter recordings. I'm recording through a mackie onyx board with pt M-powered. For some reason I can't get any audio out of the usbq headphone jack. I'm plugging it into my macbook with the usb cable just to power it, but what i really need is a signal coming out of the headphone jack and into my board. when i pull up the audio settings on the macbooks control panel I can see the signal coming from the mic through the usbq into my computer, but can't get anything at all out of the other jack. has anyone had any experience with these (or anything similar)? I'm starting to think it may be defective.

/snip/.

Huh, this company and its resellers are actually seriously advertising this as a preamp? I notice at least some of the online stores literately talk about using it as a preamp into a board. What a crock.

This is likely not the device you want to use. Its really a stand-alone USB audio interface with a built in USB ADC/interface and a headphone monitoring port. Presumably that headphone port is just connected to the analog preamp, but these things also seem to show up as a DAC, so maybe they have that internally as well.

There is no line-level output which you really want to go to a mixing board. That's just not what this thing was ever designed for. The headphone output will be wired for stereo headphones (even if its a mono signal) and you'll need an adapter properly wired from that to go to an un-balanced line input. Which is very likely why you are hearing nothing since there is no differential signal on the stereo headphone outputs. You also could go into the stereo RCA inputs on the Onyx with an appropriate adapter. And anyhow the impedance/levels will be wrong.

And anyhow this is a low-gain (40dB) amp, the onyx preamps will be around 60dB and reviews report problems the USBQ being noisy. So unclear why you want this over the using the preamp in the board to start with. If somebody sold you/recommended this as a preamp to solve level problems they are clueless and you should return it.

If your levels are too low what Mic are you using and exactly what are you Micing? Presumably an acoustic guitar, where is the Mic in relation to the guitar/sound hole, how far away, what exact cable are you using (what connectors on each end) and what input into the board are you connected to. What is that channel's mic gain knob set at. Post a photo of the board and connections may help. First think to exclude is you are doing something wrong (e.g. people do things like plug guitar mics into the DI input because it has a guitar icon...), long before worrying about an external pre-amp. And if you do need an external preamp this won't be the gizmo to help.

Darryl

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by persist24

Hello,

I also have an unrelated question about metering: sometimes i get some clipping through my monitors when mixing, but my master meter is not into the red. sometimes when i get the clipping through my monitors I don't get the problem when I switch to headphones. in other words the monitors are clipping but the phones aren't. is this because the levels on my monitors are too high? i keep the "control room" knob on the onyx cranked all the way up and just put the fader kind of low. should i be turning down the level on the control room and monitors and turn up the master fader? is it possible to get clipping without the pt meter showing a hot level, or will I always be able to "see" clipping in the pt meter?

You are driving your monitors too hot. The meter inside Pro Tools cannot magically 'hear' the sound output from what you have connected downstream and hear if it is distorting or not. You need to carefully gain-stage your entire setup. (Google gain-staging). Which will involve finding the sweet spot of the mixer output levels and powered monitor internal power-amp volume levels (its unlikely to be having one turned all the way up). Play with all this while playing back you favorite professionally recorded music through Pro Tools (drag and drop the mp3 etc. into a stereo track). Ideally use a similar style of music as you are recording. Set it to be comfortably/appropraitely loud but not sounding distorted/clipped when the output master fader is just punching into the amber.

[persist24]

thanks for the feedback. No, the usbq is not being advertized as a pre (to my knowledge). I bought it primarily to have a small device I can use for spoken word recording at work but did intend to use it like this as well. I'm using a handful of different dynamic mics, sm57's and similar pieces from other companies. I'm using a standard xlr cable and plugging it into the xlr input of the appropriate channel on the mackie board. The low-levels are only an issue when I'm recording from quieter sources. i think you're right about the stereo-wired output though.

in terms of the metering, I figured that the monitors were just turned up too high. My main question is this: if a mix is in fact too loud, will it be visually obvious by looking at the master meter? I realize clipping can occur in the monitors if they're turned up too high, i'm just wondering if the master meter in pt is what I need to be watching to monitor the peaks and valleys.

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by persist24

thanks for the feedback. No, the usbq is not being advertized as a pre (to my knowledge). I bought it primarily to have a small device I can use for spoken word recording at work but did intend to use it like this as well. I'm using a handful of different dynamic mics, sm57's and similar pieces from other companies. I'm using a standard xlr cable and plugging it into the xlr input of the appropriate channel on the mackie board. The low-levels are only an issue when I'm recording from quieter sources. i think you're right about the stereo-wired output though.

in terms of the metering, I figured that the monitors were just turned up too high. My main question is this: if a mix is in fact too loud, will it be visually obvious by looking at the master meter? I realize clipping can occur in the monitors if they're turned up too high, i'm just wondering if the master meter in pt is what I need to be watching to monitor the peaks and valleys.

If the SM57 etc. are not giving you enough level then I would look at a different mic before looking at other preamps. Lots of choices out there for higher output condenser mics. Another option is to use an in-line booster like this http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/CL1Cloud/. But you may be better off putting that money towards a nice condenser mic. You've not described what you are doing exactly so its unlikely anybody can give you specific advice.

Yes you can/should watch the meter, but I'm concerned what you are trying to do. You have to avoid clipping on input, that happens at recording and you need to watch your preamp gain (but you seem under-gained for you mics, so unlikely an issue). At mix time you can watch your meters but mostly you need to get you volumes and gain-staging set up so you can trust you ears. If you intend this to be used professionally then there is a much longer discussion on mastering for different output media etc.