pod: Microphone overload clicks, Magni sudden shutdown

We’ve made about 5 hours of YouTube videos this week and I discovered a few glitches:

Overdriving the Scarlett i2I

The audio is great except for the last one. I was trying to get the levels louder and instead, I got dropouts and clicks. The Scarlett focus was turned very high to 3 o’clock and the light was going red so I think I was overdriving the microphone amplifier. Lesson turn down the microphone so it stays in the green. About 12-1 o’clock for this setup with the rode nt-1a. Tip for you stay in the green and do a test recording if you move it. You want the audio to stay in the yellow on OBS. The two fixes seem to be, making sure that when you are talking, the LED around the microphone input does not go RED and also making sure you have the latest firmware that you can download from the site. I’ve never updated the firmware and it didn’t occur to me that you could, so off to do that or brew install focusrite.

Schitt Magni Shutoff: Overheat maybe?

The new Schitt Magni is great but yesterday suddenly the Audio turned off after a few hours of use. The only way to tell if it is on is by looking into the ventilation holes and seeing the LED. But no matter how I plugged and unplugged or turned it on or off or unplugged the USB C it didn’t work. It required a full reboot of the Mac to get running. There is not much about this on the internet.

The two problems could be a shorting in the headphone jack or overheating. But the headphones worked fine in the Focusrite. So two theories are that the Magni is on top of the Focusrite and it’s warm so I’ll move it to the side for now. Make sure to avoid the TRS plugs which have three connectors for the microphone. If you partially insert them, you can short the amplifier. I’m guessing that this could be because they are relatively high voltage, so be aware.

Another theory is that there’s an interaction with the Caldigit so we need to try to reset that, but that would be pretty strange.

Net, net, I’ve moved the Magni away from the Focusrite and am more careful about shutting it down when it’s not in use. It doesn’t seem to have automatic off, so that’s the best I can do and report back if I get other shutdowns.