Azden FMX-DSLR This mixer has lots of static sound

Felipe Henao

Felipe Henao

Well-known member
This mixer has lots of static sound , whenever a cell phone, a tv or anything gets close gives static sound, if you want to get better sound , don't buy this
 
Where did you buy it? If it came from B&H or some place that allows customers to review products, you should do so.
 
Terry_Lasater said:
Where did you buy it? If it came from B&H or some place that allows customers to review products, you should do so.
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Yes I bought it at B&H, and retuturned it because of that problem, but decided that I wanted another unit in good condition and the second unit has the same problem,
At this time a lost the chance to get a refund, Sure I made I review there , This Azden products are in general low quality. Any way, every cheap gear gets expensive
once has to be trashed.
 
Can you post a clip of the audio?.. it may actually be something else in the signal chain.
 
Rick R said:
Can you post a clip of the audio?.. it may actually be something else in the signal chain.
Click to expand...
Thank you for your help, is not in the signal chain because, I went to that point by just monitoring the mixer with head phones , withount nothing pluged, just
moving around close to pc, and when cel phones sounded, and there is the static the unit gives static noise just monitoring.
Do you know a way to isolate the unit to avoid this ?
 
Felipe Henao said:
Thank you for your help, is not in the signal chain because, I went to that point by just monitoring the mixer with head phones , without nothing pluged, just moving around close to pc, and when cel phones sounded, and there is the static the unit gives static noise just monitoring.
Do you know a way to isolate the unit to avoid this ?
Click to expand...

Running on batteries? If not, try that. One of the ways RFI can get into a mixer is through a power cord.

Running balanced XLR cables from mic to mixer? If not, can you? What mics are you using?
 
Is the FMX DSLR, it runs on batteries only the device produce static with or without mics on , is portable mixer mini portable mixer, I'll say simply is not a pro products is a low quality product despite it looks and is
priced like a pro, will be nice to isolate it, some how
 
Azden does not have a very good reputation for the quality of their gear.

HOWEVER, you can hardly blame Azden for cell-phone noise. There is very little gear of any calibre that is really immune to cell phone RFI (radio-frequency interference). The kind of digital RF signals that GSM phones put out is very similar to the jamming stations used by the Communist countries back during the Cold War.

There is a legend of a famous Hollywood director who carries hammer and nails on the set with him. If anyone is found with an interfering device (cell phone, tablet, whatever), the director confiscates the offending gadget and nails it to the nearest door-frame or fence-post.

Until you perform the same experiment with some other piece of gear which you think is "better", this smells strongly like a red herring.
 
I have portable recorders from Tascam and Zoom that do not produce RFI, So yes I have to blame Azden for poor isolation, Sure I know what signal chain is , and is not in the xlr cable, is not in the mic , after
extensive testing is in the mixer, I mean it, HOWEVER I JUST FOUND a way to solve the problem , at least not to loose my money, since returns from overseas actually cost more than the product itself.
Is to hang the mixer to my belt, and whenever a RFI comes in just move the mixer to the front or back of my bellt not ideal but seems like the only way so far.
Again mics recorders I own do not present this problem, as you said : Azden does not have a very good reputation for the quality of their gear.
If people do not tell this problems manufacturers fall into mediocrecy, not nice to trust a product that do not answer to the spectations.
 
As far as I can tell, Azden did not "fall into mediocrity". They started there as a business plan (to make low-end pro-sumer gear that looks "professional").
I have encountered several pieces of high-end professional gear that are not able to withstand cell-phone GSM RFI hits like that. So Azden is not alone there.
 
So how come you can find Portable recorders from Zoom and Tascam with lower prices that do not catch RFI, seems like it is lack of respect for the consumer, or low quality policies.
In the actual world brands have to be good quality and provide good prices, just check around
 
Felipe Henao said:
Thank you for your help, is not in the signal chain because, I went to that point by just monitoring the mixer with head phones , withount nothing pluged, just
moving around close to pc, and when cel phones sounded, and there is the static the unit gives static noise just monitoring.
Do you know a way to isolate the unit to avoid this ?
Click to expand...

A couple of things.

First This is not great gear so there may be no solution, but...

You say static, but you keep mentioning cel phones.

Cel phones call home periodically and they will inject them selves into almost anything, that is not an equipment flaw, you just have to NOT have cel phones on around audio equipment. Now a sound person wouldn't call the cel phone tones static but a non sound person might.

Second point is that you are not doing a fair test.

Headphone amps are notorious for being noisey (on some gear) so monitoring the headphone sound doesn't actually tell you a lot about what the output will sound like. Record some and see what the out put sounds like.

Also you don't have anything plugged in. Some devices will handle this better than others. Ones that don't handle it well will be noisy or act like antennas.

So you NEED to stick a mic on the inputs or you don't know if what you are hearing is a design weakness or a real problem.

And while you are at it if any knob is over 75% you are probably going to have problems. If a knob HAS to be over 75% to get a decent signal... well that is probably a problem. And "design weakness" will generally be a lot more of a problem if you have any gain stage over 75%.

So, I don't have high hopes for this particular piece of gear but at least give it a fair chance.
It might be "OK".
 
Of course I did some recording, and noise was there, as I said just clip it to the belt, and move it back and front when Interference is around.
Say my Zoom H5 dos not pick eny interference even if the cell phone is in my customer's pocket.
What ? no cell phone calls mabe not me , but customer's do phone calls, or probably other videographer with a better device will take the job, this is business.
 
Felipe Henao said:
So how come you can find Portable recorders from Zoom and Tascam with lower prices that do not catch RFI, seems like it is lack of respect for the consumer, or low quality policies.
In the actual world brands have to be good quality and provide good prices, just check around
Click to expand...

is a low quality product despite it looks and is
priced like a pro,
Click to expand...

I'll deal in revers order. "Priced like a pro"??? at $250 (B&H) that is about 1/5th of what a "pro" field preamp would cost you. Just a FYI.

The first, and your earlier related comments, are not really correct. All devices are susceptible to RFI. How much you are going to hear it has a lot to do with shielding and how much gain is applied. So a recorder is not going to have as much noticeable problems as a mic preamp, a mic you would have to do a bunch of AB tests to isolate from the preamp since it's not generally doing much in the way of gaining the signal.

You certainly could be right that there is a design flaw, but I have a stereo mic that is many times the price of your mixer that has other peculiar RFI susceptibility issues so and almost everything with a mic gain stage will pick up cel phones calling home so that on it's own is not a unique flaw.
 
Consider a Zoom H5 , not only is a preamp for camera with XLR, ALSO RECORDS 96 KHZ 24 BITS, HAS NOT AT ALL RFI, COST $ 260,
For $ 250 should not have that, non of my mics pick up RFI. even more a ZOOM H1 $ 100 either. Tascam DR07 $ 120 EITHER, WANT MORE ?
I'm not complaining about the sound quality or design of this device, is about the poor shielding .
In fact I wanted people to be aware of this product, I don't love brands I love results.
If this is useful for any one great if not that was my intention.
 
Statements like "non of my mics pick up RFI" is just silly. YES they do, you just are not having a problem with them at the moment. You get the right RFI and your cable will pick it up.

So if you want people to be able to take something useful away from your reviews, stay away from sweeping generalizations.

I'm not saying your wrong. Certainly lack of good shielding pops up on cheap equipment, but I don't have a lot of confidence that you have done enough controlled tests that you can fairly come to that conclusion. Certainly your description of your testing had a lot of opportunity for error.

Comparing mics and recorders to a mic preamp also makes one question your results since you are comparing apples to oranges.

And you need to drop the price comparisons. How many zooms do you think they sell? A few million? How many folks are buying azden preamps? A LOT less. Price of just about anything has a LOT less to do with cost of materials than demand on the consumer end.

That and those recorders are closed systems. With the preamp now everything comes into play.
You could have a mic with a weird ground, a bad mic cable, abad cable to the recorder, and bad set of headphones, a bad connection at any of the connectors in the chain. Or maybe you just have two pieces of gear that don't like each other.

Until you have known good devices that you can swap out or a test bench it's generally almost impossible to narrow it down.

So to put it in perspective you bought bottom of the line gear and you are having a problem when you are using it. May be the gear, may be the way you are using it, maybe something you are connecting to it.

If I had to bet I would put my money on something other than the mic pre. The reason is not that I don't think azden stuff is mostly junk but because in my many years of experience 99% of the time it's not the box but something you connected to it. Especially a new box. #1 on my list is always going to be cables. #2 is anything else that gets a lot of use and strain, like connectors.
 
"If I had to bet I would put my money on something other than the mic pre. The reason is not that I don't think azden stuff is mostly junk but because in my many years of experience 99% of the time it's not the box but something you connected to it."
-- I concur with Scott.
I'm not a fan of Azden gear either, but I doubt that's the source if the "static".
As I stated, post a clip. Most audio pros here can ID problems by the sound.
 
In a few words this product , is the champ of non adopting RFI regulations :
Radiated RFI is usually contolled by providing proper shielding in the enclosure of the
equipment. Conducted RFI can be attenuated to satisfactory levels by including a power
line filter in the system. The filter suppresses conducted noise leaving the unit, reducing
RFI to aceptable levels. It also helps to lower the susceptibility of the equipment to
incoming power line noise that can affect its performance.
 
At some point, you must decide if the time you spend tirelessly defending your accusations are worth your time, our time, or the cost of this piece of equipment. And really, making this the focus of two threads here simultaneously?

Sell it and move on.
 
Terry_Lasater said:
At some point, you must decide if the time you spend tirelessly defending your accusations are worth your time, our time, or the cost of this piece of equipment. And really, making this the focus of two threads here simultaneously?

Sell it and move on.
Click to expand...
Does not sound fare , is that your way? to sell a defective equipment ? Azden do it, and what look at their reputation , all around the world people talks about their low quality products.
As well if you do that your customers will hate you. Sure I will move on, what really bothers me is that at the begining they didn't accept the fact, of the problem, instead made me exchange the product 3 times at very high prices.
and looking for not disturbing more this thread, I'm out, Bye, Bye
 
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