Does it have to be 2 feet away? Will 18” do? Etc?
During my lesson, yes. As I’m holding a bass and need to backup more. During general computer use, it is probably more like 18", but even then I found it too quiet.
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I use my webcam mic for sax lessons and I’m at least 2’ away and my voice is fine. So what makes a cheapo camera mic better than a “studio” mic.
Asking because I simply don’t know but know it works.
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If I was happy to play through an amp and trusted the webcam mic to treat the bass sound well, then that would work. Problem is that I’m using the DAI for bass and webcam for mic at the minute and have to keep switching the inputs if I want to share voice or bass. Can’t do both at the same time. Can if mic is XLR as both go into DAI then.
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It’s not “better”, it’s just louder, from a combination of the type of mic itself and the circuits amplifying it. All of its other properties, especially frequency response, sensitivity, and noise are also different than the studio mic. And not “better” 
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If that doesn’t work, maybe try playing with the gain balance. Turn the bass input down some and turn the master for both up more, assuming that master knob for both exists in your signal chain. It could work if the noise floor doesn’t get brought up too much.
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If a mic (dynamic) cable has an open circuit failure on pin 2 or pin 3, the level will be low by 6 dB.
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I’ve had the mic and master all the way up and it was still too quiet. So even if I turned the bass down to go with it, that wouldn’t work. Good idea though.
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Shotgun mic maybe?
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Had a quick look at these. Will consider them if the Fethead doesn’t work well enough. I think it will though.
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I have found the solution in using a mixer…
My mic is a simple Behringer XM8500 which is as you described super silent if I am not in the kissing distance…
So I bought Behringer Xenyx 502 which has a preamp on one channel specially for the mic.
I connect my bass amp DI out to one of the line in channels and output of the mixer to my DAI in both channels (which also boosts the sound)
Pros of the setup:
-I can put as much as gain I want on the mic (it can easily get the voice of my wife talking to our daughter in the other room)
-I can register several other devices to the DAI simultaneously if needed
-All those devices get their extra volume and pan control
-Over all its cheap
Cons:
-it is hard to move around all the cables so this is not a very mobile setup
-you gotta pay attention to both mixer and DAI signal levels for not clipping.
-my setup removes the possibility of registering separate tracks (I could connect the mixer mono to DAI and use the other channel for bass of course)
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If I’m reading the specs right, that can add up to 60db of gain. The Fethead adds 27db. If the Fethead isn’t loud enough then the 502 is definitely one to consider. I do like the simplicity of the Fethead though. My desk is already getting more cluttered than I like.
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Just an update on this. Received the Fethead and new XLR cable. Cable didn’t make a difference, but the Fethead was exactly what I needed. I now have the gain at about 75% and works fine a couple feet away from me. Thanks @wellbi and others.
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Cool! How much worse are the noise levels with it?
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What do you mean? They aren’t any worse. In fact, I’d say they are less. I think the Fethead cleans up the signal some. With the gain high, I heard a fly buzzing around on the other side of the room and it was still a clean signal. If I go over 90% gain then I start getting a bit of “hum” but I think that’s normal for any setup right? Anyway, 75% gain is more than enough.
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What you’re basically doing with it is chaining mic preamps. Each of them amplifies the signal, but also amplify the mic noise, so the noise floor of both preamps should combine and increase the noise a bit. It’s one reason why people don’t just do stuff like this all the time, and only do when they need to.
If the noise of your DAI mic preamp is worse than the noise of the FETHead (definitely possible), though, you will essentially get cleaner boost from the FEThead than from turning the DAI preamp up higher, so that might be why it sounds better to you than really cranking the DAI. Which would be cool.
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I’d say it sounds better at lower gain on the DAI with the Fethead than higher gain on the DAI without the Fethead. e.g. At the same volume output levels, it sounds better with the Fethead because the DAI can be set lower. So to me it is an improvement. I’m just using it for talking though. A vocalist might feel differently, but then again, they probably wouldn’t be singing into it two feet away.
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Yeah it definitely sounds like a win.
I just checked the specs on the iD4 and it is actually pretty decent for noise, so the FETHead must be really pretty good. Good to know.
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Here’s the Fethead specs:
- For ribbon and dynamic microphones
- Low noise Class A FET amplifier
- 27 dB amplification (@ 3000 Ω Load)
- Balanced XLR input/output
- Frequency response 10hz-100khz (+/- 1dB)
- Z-in 22 kΩ
- Circuit is powered with 24-48V phantom power
It says it is “ultra low noise” but I’m no expert on these things. Sounds good to me.
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It sounds really good based on this guy’s test:
so he was seeing 4db less noise at equivalent levels using a preamp rated at -128dB EIN. Yours is -129dB, which means it should have cut your noise by 3dB, or roughly in half, at equivalent levels. That’s totally awesome.
You’re boosting way more than equivalent levels to get the better volume at ~2 feet, but I bet it’s still a wash or slightly better.
The SSL2’s preamps are rated -130.5 so I would likely see 1.5dB improvement on the noise, which is pretty significant but probably not enough to make me buy one (yet).
Still, cool product. Sounds very clean.
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