¿are There Different Type Xlr Microphone Cables?

[nautama]

Hello there, this is my situation: I bought an M-audio Nova condenser microphone, I have a Fast Track Ultra by m-audio also, the thing is that when I plug my Nova through the bundled XLR cable (a very short one by the way, about 1.5 m) it runs nice and everything seems to be okay, but whenever I plug it through my other XLR cables (Switchcraft, 6m long, which I believe is a pretty decent manufacturer), then everything collapses: first of all my microphone will send a signal extremely low, sufficient to see that something is going on, but not enough to record it, that's for what the microphone does, but also my FTU starts to work in a very unpredictible way, I start to hear clicks and pops often, then from out of nowhere the input leds will all light at once and turn off immediately (even If there's nothing plugged in those inputs), even the FTU will disconnect from my pc without reason.

So I think it must be the cable that's messing my interface, but as far as I know XLR is XLR everywhere doesn't it?. One thing I also noticed but that happened without the mic plugged is that when I run my FTU through Bus power (USB powered only) it throws a really awful noise into my speakers, when I plug the power this is gone.

Any ideas?

[robertruetz]

So, it's the same kind of cable in both instances (XLR to XLR)? Everything else is the same? You're using the same input and everything? That is baffling. I'd say try a different cable, just to be sure. This is very odd indeed. I would avoid bus power whenever possible.

Rob
:cool:

[nautama]

Yes, they are XLR male to XLR female in both cases. Ill try a different cable, but I can't foresee what's wrong because now that I remember, I've tried the switchcraft cables with my shures sm57 and 58 and they work great on those... maybe there's something wrong with the conductor that carries the voltage to the nova.. I don't know, it seems that something is really going bad inside my Fast Track, like short circuits or something due to phantom power, whenever I don't use it it's great...

I was thinking that maybe because I bought my FTU as soon as it got to the market it might have been a not very well tested device and maybe they had to do some corrections on the internal design.. that's what I believe, and for the cable I have no idea, it has to be faulty, but as I say, it works great on the dynamic microphones.