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So I hooked up my Ntg-2 + Boom pole. And put on my headphones. This normal?

Man, I am so impressed by external mics. I have always used the on camera mic ><. Anyway, I hooked up a Rode Ntg-2 to a boom pole and hooked it up to an XH-a1. I plugged in these Sennheiser headphones, and turned on the phantom power.

I dont really hear a hissing sound. I hear... like... I know my microphone is on. I get the same results when I use my on-camera mic aswell; As soon as I turn on my phantom power, and put on my headphones, I am "aware" my microphone is on; if that makes any sense.....I just want to know if this is normal? Should I not hear anything? Should there be no sound, except for my shotgun mic picking up sound?

Thanks in advance
 
I'm not sure, man.

Sounds to me like it might just be you adjusting to a different way of hearing things by virtue of the equipment.

Then again, this is my thought process with less than four hours of sleep in the last day and a half, so I'm probably not making much sense here.
 
I apologize, it is really hard to explain. Let me try and give you guys an example.

I cant think of any real good example to give other then a similiar sound I heard in a film. Im pretty sure you guys saw the "Sixth Sense". Remember the scene when Bruce Willis doesnt believe Cole, so he spends his time listening to old tapes of his old patient. Then he thinks he hears something on the tape, so he turns up his tape recorder, and he hears like a ghost in the background? Remember as he turns up the volume on his tape recorder the sound we hear almost this, shhhhhhhhhhhhhh, and it gets higher, as he turns up the volume. I guess its almost like static?

The sound is similar to that. Only lower. I dont think it is recorded onto my projects because when I shot with my on-camera mic, it had the same thing, and my short "pulp ficiton remake" didnt have the sound in the actual film.

When you guys hook up your mics and put on your headphones. What do you hear?
 
I hear room tone until I turn the volume up, then I hear the "electronic noise ceiling" -- which is the noise generated by the electronics which is normally quiet enough that it won't bother you unless you have to crank your volume up on your mixer/recorder.

There is no way to get "Silence" recorded on a microphone other than to unplug it and turn off all of the electronics leading up to the recorder. The goal is to get a high signal to noise ratio in your recordings, meaning the voice is loud enough that you don't hear all the background stuff.
 
HAUNTED!!!

I cant think of any real good example to give other then a similiar sound I heard in a film. Im pretty sure you guys saw the "Sixth Sense". Remember the scene when Bruce Willis doesnt believe Cole, so he spends his time listening to old tapes of his old patient. Then he thinks he hears something on the tape, so he turns up his tape recorder, and he hears like a ghost in the background? Remember as he turns up the volume on his tape recorder the sound we hear almost this, shhhhhhhhhhhhhh, and it gets higher, as he turns up the volume. I guess its almost like static?

Well, maybe the place your shooting is haunted. :)
 
Are your audio levels set to automatic (AGC) or manual? If you've got your automatic gain control on, it will hike the gain all the way up in a quiet room and you will probably hear some noise. Keep the audio levels set to manual and adjust the microphone according to your loudest audio to insure good levels with no clipping.
 
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