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Will phantom power kill my microphone? Probably not, but...
What is phantom power: A DC electrical current (usually 48v) sent down an XLR line from a mixer or preamplifier to a microphone. Phantom power is "invisible" to the audio signal also traveling on the cable (unless there's a problem with the cable or the mixer/preamp).
Why do we need it: Some micropones require external power in order to work. Almost all of the time it's condenser mics, with a few exceptions. Blue Microphones "Ball" is a dynamic mic that needs phantom power for its internal electronics, Royer makes a ribbon microphone that needs to be phantom powered, and Audio Technica makes a tube microphone that runs on phantom power. Also, some PZMs (pressure zone or boundary microphones) need phantom power (some only take batteries).
What if: you've got a mixer that only sends phantom power "globally" or in multiple channel "banks" at one time and you're running several different kinds of microphones - some that need phantom power and some that don't. "Will I harm my microphones by sending them phantom power if they don't need it?" Probably not. Dynamic microphones usually "ignore" phantom power and most people don't own ribbon mics (but this is changing). Almost always, you DON'T want to send phantom power to a ribbon microphone (unless that specific model requires it). When in doubt, use a seprate preamplifier to "isolate" your microphone from the ones being sent "global" power. The "isolated" preamp will then feed a line input of the mixer.
Be careful: with phantom power on all microphones! You should wait to turn on phantom power until after you've plugged in your microphones. When you're done recording, leave your mics plugged in, turn off the phantom power and wait at least a minute before unplugging your microphones.
Put your microphone where your ear is!
Ever wonder why what you recorded doesn't sound like what you heard? This happens to a lot of people. They hear something, lets say a guitar, and it sounds great. So, they take their microphone and put it in front of the instrument just like they've seen or read, or had their friend tell them to do. But something has changed because it doesn't sound as great through the monitors (or headphones) as it did earlier.
Time to get another microphone or preamp, right? Not so fast. I've got a question for you. Where is the microphone compared to where your ear was when you first heard that "great" guitar sound? Could be that when you heard that "great" guitar, you were standing 4 feet in front of the person playing the instrument. Then, you placed your microphone about a foot in front of the instrument, facing the soundhole, but slightly off-axis, or whatever. Plus, your ear was about 6 feet from the floor and you've set your mic up about 3 feet from the floor. It can make a huge difference in the way your recorded guitar sounds compared to the guitar you were hearing earlier.
So, try this: put your microphone where your ear was when you heard that great sound. You should be getting a similar perspective now. This will work with any sound source, I just used a guitar as an example.
Here's another quick example: you're playing some music through headphones and the headphones are on a table about 4 feet away from you. It sounds cool and might make a good intro to a song. If you try to record that sound by putting a microphone right in front of those headphones, I guarantee that it will sound different than what your ears were picking up from 4 feet away. Again, to get the best representation of what you were hearing that inspired you, put the microphone where your ear was. Then tweak the position of the microphone as needed.
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