Phantom Power - How to Avoid Damaging Your Microphones

Phantom power is used to turn on any condenser microphone such as small pencil condenser mics, and large diaphragm vocal microphones. It is important to understand how to properly use these mics, and how to properly apply phantom power to turn on these mics.
For more go to: www.creativesoundlab.tv

[@malcolmpalm]

I never realized that it takes a minute or so to totally drain down. Good to know, thanks.

[@sazarod]

Wow this stuff is NOT common knowledge. Thank you for this lesson.

[@CharlieTheNerd91]

The fact that yyour desk moves thatmuch when you touch it trigers my OCD

[@AyoobElAbed]

This should be titled how to get OCD

[@Zarabozo]

If you look at a microphone that shows it is phantom powered with a LED, like the AKG C414 XLS, you can see the power slowly going away when turning the phantom power off. However, you can see the same thing if you just disconnect the cable without turning it off. That means the remaining power after turning off the phantom power is not in the preamp, but in the microphone's capacitors, which makes the "one minute wait to let it drain" practice a little bit useless. You can turn it off, disconnect the cable immediately, and the microphone will still have power going away slowly.

[@yellowboy258]

When i plug mines it works buy sometimes sooner or later it starts making a noise like clicking and air .. is this my mic , phantom or computer mixer??

[@corosta]

i think i damaged my mic cz of pluging and umpluging when PHp is on, now what ?? is it fixable ???

[@lukesuperflyjones]

Are those wa76s!?

[@footnotedrummer]

What about a tube mic? I have an external power supply and I've accidentally tuned phantom on and recorded with it on. Everything seems fine, and I'm reading that it doesn't harm anything to run phantom, though you really want to try and avoid it. Do you feel the same way, or could I have damaged my tube condenser?

[@Maradnus]

Great points!

[@godofspacetime333]

I used to be really worried about this sort of thing, until I found out that 1) they have essentially dummy-proofed mics nowadays, and 2) the BBC runs their studios with xlr jacks in the walls that ALL have phantom power running to them AT ALL TIMES; you can’t turn it off. So whether they are using dynamic mics, condensers, or ribbons, they are plugging into a connector that has phantom power actively running through it.

[@n.h.moreno]

Thanks for the video!

[@Gretsch0997]

Hi again Ryan,

[@glytch5]

Will it damage the passive mics like sm57s over time though? I have an 8 imput USB interface, and unfortunately four channels get power all at once... and I want to rum more than 4 passive mics... but I also have some active mics too.

[@Colllinnn]

my phantom power supply makes a weird buzzing sound my mic isnt causing it because i plugged in the mic separately and it worked do you know a fix

[@dubKK]

I have an audio interface connected to my PC. Is it ok for me to shutdown my PC without turning phantom power off?

[@OVAGaming]

My condenser mic is connected to my phantom power then to the sound card on my pc, but while recording my audio drops out like a loss of power. Any suggestions?

[@uniquetruth2097]

do i have to turn off the phantompower everytime? what about those mics that have a swich does it damage the mic if one swiches only the mic off but not the phantom power?

[@sierrawest5436]

This is really helpful and a good reminder. Thank you.

[@a.s.kstudio1838]

I have rode nt1a and focusrite 2i2.usb interface. I haven’t tried it on desktop. But when connect interface to laptop and switch on the power supply my mic start work after 1 or 2 mints. And sometimes it doesnot work. Thn I have to reconnect the interface. I am afraid I might demage the mic.