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Old 04-06-2020, 06:57 PM
Captain Jim Captain Jim is offline
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Join Date: Nov 2012
Location: Arizona (from island boy to desert dweller)
Posts: 6,970
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I recorded some tracks with my Spire on Saturday, and sent them off to my music partner. Took Sunday off. Today, I went into my music room, turned everything on, and the large diaphram condenser mic I had plugged into the top preamp of the Spire wasn't disconnecting the onboard mic. (???) I tried a dynamic mic into that same preamp - no go. I tried a different XLR cable. Then another. I put a 1/4" cable into it, and it worked fine. I tried the first mic again... nothing.

I sent an e-mail off to iZotope and got a response in about an hour... pretty impressive, considering what is going on in the world these days. The guy at the other end of the e-mail told me there has been some issues with XLR cables that have "slightly smaller diameter pins in the male part of the XLR, not activating the cut-out for the onboard mic."

That sounded like a bit of a reach to me, but there was another track I wanted to get recorded and sent off today. I tried a third XLR cable - same results. I tried a fourth cable and... it worked! I marked that cable.

Now for full disclosure, the first XLR cable was fine on Saturday, and it was the same cable in the same preamp on the Spire. No idea why it was fine on Saturday, but wouldn't work today. Testing all the cables into my mixer - they're all fine.

The upside of this: iZotope Support on the Spire was right on my inquiry. I think my issue is solved, and I'm ordering a couple new XLR cables (not easy to find quality cables in short lengths). I have used the Spire a lot in the last couple months. I wondered if I might be wearing the internal female XLR connections in the Spire, but my new best friend from iZotope said that was very unlikely.

We'll see if it all works tomorrow.
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