Sound Devices 302 noise floor

P

Parapluie

Member
Hello!

I just bought a Sound Devices 302. Everybody says that you get very clean sound from this, with nice and quite preamps. I have unfortunately not been able to experience this. When i connect a headphone to the mixer and listen to the sound, there is a pretty high noise floor. More gain = more noise. And the noise is not comming from the monitoring, the same noise floor will be on the recording. Is this normal?

I also have a Zoom H4n recorder. If I connect mye shotgun mic directly into this recorder, the noise floor is totally gone. There you have clean and quite sound.

What am I doing wrong? I'm getting better sound with my H4n than my 302... that can't be right?


Any tips?


Thanks.
 
what microphone do you have connected to the 302?
If it's phantom powered make sure you have 48V on and not 12V.

If you are using the same microphone on your H4n and it's clean, I can promise you something isn't set up correctly on your 302.
 
Yes, I'm using the same mic on the 302 and H4n. It's a Sennheiser MKH 416. I also get the same noise floor if I use another mic. And I can here the noise even if i'm not connected with any mic.
And yes, I use 48V phantom power with mic input. Not sure what else I can do to get rid of the noise. Is there anything in the menu I can change?

Don't misunderstand me, the noise floor is not very, very loud. And if I record a strong signal, its not too bad. But its not totally clean, which I get from connecting directly to the H4n.
 
Try This:

1- Switch on the 1 kHz test tone on your 302 mixer and record this signal at -12 dB with your recorder or camera.

2- Continue recording but switch OFF the 1 kHz test tone on your mixer.

3- Bring the recorded audio file in to your audio editor and determine where the -12 dB test tone level display sits, and then see where the level display drops to when the 1 kHz test tone is shut off.

What are your results?
 
The mic is going to have some noise.
I haven't used a 416 in years but I remember the noise varying between different units.

When I say 48v. Make sure the master switch phantom reads 48V and not 12V.
There is also T power but don't switch that on.

This is a hard fix via text. All I can say is if everything is set up correctly the 302 will not be noisier than going directly into into your recorder.

At this point without you right in front of me all I can suggest is you read the manual for how to set it up correctly.

I just don't have enough info from you to help more, there are just too many variables
to what you are doing, how you are monitoring, how you set things up between mixer and recorder..etc.
 
To me, 302 should hear much clearer audio then a H4N, which INCLUDING the noise, if you level your phone monitor at the same level with your h4n, the noise should be gone.
With 302, I intend to hear more than what I hear from H4N, because after you playback from a pair of big speaker, what you actually hear from the H4N, might have a bit noise because of the monitoring and the audio levels I assume.

Try to use your H4N record a output from the tape out on the 302, play back from your computer or H4N , see if the noise is there or gone.
(Hope you understand my lousy English ;)

Good luck
 
I agree with everyone here that you're doing something wrong if you're hearing noise. I recall that out of the box, the 302's output is line level, so if you plug that into an H4N, you're going to hear noise, since the H4N inputs are mic level. As someone else said - turn on the 302's tone and set the recording level on the H4N to -20 (be sure "Rec Level Auto" and the limiter is off on the H4N!) In the 302, you can lower the output to mic level so it will be compatible with the XLR inputs of the Zoom.
 
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I think it also has something to do with listening through the camera or mixer? I am very inexperienced with this mixer, but all i know is when i dump the footage it is clean as a whistle but on set there is some noise :(
 
davidnssbm said:
but all i know is when i dump the footage it is clean as a whistle but on set there is some noise :(
Click to expand...

If you did the test I suggested previously, it should establish that the mixer and recorder/camera combination are fine, and if this is the case then any noise being recorded on set has to be from your mics / wireless system.
 
davideo.net said:
I recall that out of the box, the 302's output is line level, so if you plug that into an H4N, you're going to hear noise, since the H4N inputs are mic level.
Click to expand...

Just FYI, pumping a line-level signal into a mic-level input will not result in a noise floor. Rather, that will create some massive overmodulation (distortion) in the signal, and can potentially damage the mic-level inputs.
 
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