Daking Audio Mic Pre 4T User manual

1
Daking Audio
Daking Audio Mic Pre 4T
Manual
VERSION 2
10/5/21

Safety
Considerations
1. Read, follow and keep these instructions.
2. Heed all warnings.
3. Do not use this equipment in or near water. Do not place liquids on or near
the device because the device might be damaged during a spill.
4. Clean only with a soft dry cloth.
5. Do not block any ventilation openings. Install in accordance with the
manufacturer’s instructions.
6. Use only Daking power supplies to prevent damage to your device or create
safety hazards.
7. Do not install near any heat sources such as radiators, heat registers, stoves,
or other apparatus (including amplifiers) that produce heat.
8. Do not defeat the safety purpose of the polarized or grounding-type plug. A
polarized plug has two blades with one wider than the other. A grounding-type
plug has two blades and a third grounding prong. The wide blade or the third
prong are provided for your safety. If the provided plug does not fit into your
outlet, consult an electrician for replacement of the obsolete outlet.
9. Protect the power cord and all connecting cables from being walked on or
pinched, particularly at plugs, receptacles, and the point where they exit from the
device.
10.Only use attachments/accessories specified by the manufacturer.
11.Unplug this device when unused for long periods of time.
12. Refer all servicing to qualified service personnel. Servicing is required when the
apparatus has been damaged in any way, such as when a power-supply cord or
plug is damaged, liquid has been spilled or objects have fallen into the
apparatus, the apparatus has been exposed to rain or moisture, does not
operate normally, or has been dropped.
13.Do not overload wall outlets and extension cords as this can result in a risk of
fire or electric shock.

Contents
1 Daking Audio Mic Pre 4T 4
1.1 About Daking Audio 4
1.2 Quick Start Guide 4
1.2.1 Don’t read the manual! 4
1.2.2 Basic Set Up 5
1.3 The Power Supply 5
1.4 Back Panel 5
1.4.1 In General: XLR Connectors and ¼” TRS Connectors 6
1.4.2 Microphone Input (XLR) 7
1.4.3 Line Output (XLR or ¼” TRS) 7
1.4.4 Power supply Connection 7
1.5 Front Panel 8
1.5.1 LED VU and Peak Meter 8
1.5.2 Gain Knob 9
1.5.3 HPF (High-Pass Filter) Knob………………………………...9
1.5.4 ¼” Instrument Input Jack 10
1.5.5 ¼” Button 11
1.5.6 Pad Button 11
1.5.7 +48 Button 11
1.5.8 Ø Button 11
1.6 Signal Flow: Patching Into and Out of Your Mic Pre 4T 12
1.6.1 Microphone to Mic Pre 4T to Audio Interface or Mixer 12
1.6.2 Via a Patch Bay 12
1.7 Specifications 14
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1Daking Audio Mic Pre IV
1.1 About Daking Audio
Congratulations! You’ve purchased a Mic Pre 4T, a very high
end piece of gear! The Mic Pre 4T uses all-discrete
transistor Class A circuits, Jensen input and output
transformers, and printed circuit board mounted switches.
Signal capacitors are precision polypropylene or ultra low-
leakage electrolytic types. Our boards are assembled on a
mil-spec assembly line. The chassis are stainless steel for
maximum RF and hum rejection and a long lasting finish.
Every unit is hand-finished, tested, burned in, and tested
again in a second facility.
Also, we just couldn’t stand to use plastic knobs, so we
designed our own anodized, engraved aluminum knobs
that give a much more precise and quality feel. We
designed our gear to be gear you’d own for life, not some
passing fancy you’d leave in the dust once you figured
what the good stuff sounds like. This IS the good stuff.
-Geoff Daking
1.2 Quick Start Guide
1.2.1 Don’t read the manual!
Most of you will already know how to use mic preamps
perfectly well and might be even a little offended at the
idea of reading the instruction manual. So don’t read it.
This manual is not for you.
This manual is for someone that knows enough to buy
the very best (Daking of course!), but doesn’t have a lot
of experience using recording gear.
You might be a bass player who just got a DAW and
wants a cleaner, more accurate sound from your mics in
your home studio. You might be a student that just got a
check from Mom and Dad who wants to go buy
something nice for yourself.

You might be the guy standing ankle-deep in a pool of
salt water, trying to yank the grounding pin off your
mixer’s power cord so you can plug it into your 2-prong
ungrounded outdoor outlet. This manual is especially for
you!
1.2.2 Basic Set Up
The job of a microphone amplifier is to make a mic level
signal into a line level signal so that it can be recorded,
mixed or processed.
Plug a microphone into the Mic Input Jack on one of the
four preamps onthe Mic Pre 4T using a microphone (XLR
Female to XLR Male) cable. If the mic you are using is a
condenser microphone that requires phantom power,
push in the +48 Button to engage phantom power. Patch
out of the Output Jack of the same preamp to the line
level input of your recording device using either a
microphone (XLR Female to XLR Male) cable or balanced
line (XLR Female to a ¼” TRS Male) cable if your
recording device has TRS inputs.
1.3 The Power Supply
Your Mic Pre 4T ships with an external 48V DC power
supply. External power supplies offer many advantages
over internal power supplies, like reducing hum from 50 or
60 cycle power sources and improving the safetyof the
equipment you are using.
1.4 Back Panel

1.4.1 In General: XLR Connectors and ¼” TRS Connectors
XLR connectors are more expensive, more reliable and
offer a stronger connection than ¼” TRS connectors.
They also have the option of a locking latch that helps
to keep the cable from being pulled out accidentally. If
worst comes to worst, you can connect two XLR
cables together to make a longer run. The XLR
connection is strong enough that you can swing a
hand-held microphone around your head like a cowboy
for quite a long time before the mic flies off and knocks
someone’s teeth out. XLR males are used for Outputs
and XLR female are used for Inputs. Makes sense,
right? Many people confuse the male and female XLR
parts because the female plug fits into the male plug to
join together. The male XLR has 3 pins (male pins…)
inside the plug and the female XLR has three holes
inside the plug (female holes…).Check out the
diagrams below:
¼” TRS (Tip, Ring, Sleeve) cables have male 3
conductor, ¼” diameter connectors on both ends. These
connectors are cheaper, less reliable and offer less
contact area for the electrical connection and are more
often the site of intermittent connections. ¼” TRS cables
are easier to use because you don’t have to worry about
which end is which, because both plug ends are the
same. The TRS plug looks like a stereo ¼” headphone
plug but carries balanced line level, not speaker level like
headphone cables. A mono TS ¼” cable (a guitar cable)
is not a TRS plug as it has only 2 conductors - it won’t
work correctly in any TRS application as it is missing one
of the three conductors.

1.4.2 Microphone Input (XLR)
The microphone input accepts a mic-level signal. Mic
level signals are generally very low in voltage: around a
couple of millivolts, or thousandths of a volt. The job of
the mic preamp is to increase the mic output signal by as
much as 75 dB to line level, which is between 1 and 2
volts.
1.4.3 Line Output (XLR)
The output signal from your preamp comes from here. If
you are connecting your preamp to a patch bay on a
console instead of a line XLR input on another piece of
gear, you will want to purchase (or make) a female XLR
to male ¼” TRS adaptor cable if your patch bay has TRS
inputs. The output signal is line level, not mic level, so
patching it into a mic pre-amp afterwards is unnecessary
and may cause problems.
1.4.4 Power supply Connection
The jack is where you connect your external 48V DC power
supply.

1.5 Front Panel
1.5.1 LED VU and Peak Meter
The VU Meter for the Mic Pre 4T is a true VU Meter with
300ms averaging ballistics. The main difference between
this meter and a mechanical VU meter is that this meter
extends to +25dB, while a mechanical meter only goes
up to +3dB. This feature allows the engineer to see level
with much greater accuracy and detail above +3dB.
The highest point on the meter is labeled with an
asterisk (*) which is the peak indicator. When this LED is
lit, the signal has reached or exceeded 26dBu. Most
audio interfaces will clip at +18dBu, while most
professional mixing consoles will clip between +24dBu to
+30dBu. VU Meters measure the RMS (Root Mean
Square) of an audio signal. Often the RMS is considered
to be the “continuous” level of the signal. A PPM (Peak
Program Meter) measures the signal much more quickly
and keeps track of the absolute value of the greatest
voltage in the audio signal. This is why the Peak
Indicator (*) can be lit when the VU meter is showing a
much lower signal. The peaks of an audio signal are
much higher than the RMS of the audio signal.
NOTE: While most VU meters are calibrated to 0dB VU
= +4dBu, this meter is in fact a true dBu meter where
0dB on the meter is in fact 0dBu. This means that when
the Mic Pre 4T VU meter is reading 0dB and you patch
into another standard VU meter directly from the mic pre,
you will show a reading of -4dB.

1.5.2 Gain Knob
The Gain Knob allows you to control the amount of gain
added to the input signal. The gain should be set as high
as possible without either seeing the peak indicator (*)
flash on the VU meter, hearing audible clipping or
distortion, or overloading the following stage in the signal
chain. For instance, your Mic Pre 4T can support outputs
up to +26dB, but most audio interfaces clip at +18dB.
The gain control would have to be set so as to not
overload the audio interface. Professional consoles are
capable of handling levels as high as +30dB in some
cases.
One common procedure for setting gain is to set the level
while the channel is muted. Turn up the gain until the
peak indicator (*) flashes during the loudest parts of the
performance. Then reduce the gain by 5 – 10dB.
Disengage the mute of the console or DAW and listen to
the signal. Note that many performers will sing or play
significantly harder and more energetically when they
believe they are recording compared to when they
believe that levels are being set.
If you are still showing peaking on the VU meter, but
the gain switch is turned down all the way, engage the
Pad button to reduce gain by 20dB. This will not affect
the timbre of the audio, just the level.
1.5.3 Variable HPF (High-Pass Filter) Knob
Why do we need it?
In the old days (or even now if you can afford it!) we
recorded audio on magnetic tape, which isn’t good at
reproducing very low frequencies. When tracking at 30
IPS (Inches Per Second) frequencies below 40 Hz were
severely attenuated and, even at 15 IPS, frequencies
below 20 Hz were attenuated. Digital equipment, on the
other hand, happily records frequencies from 40 Hz all the
way down to DC.

There are a number of problems with tracking these very
low and often unwanted frequencies. Low frequency
problems can come from traffic or subway noise hundreds
of feet away. A concrete or wood-joisted floor is
essentially an enormous drum head and every footstep
creates low frequency energy which can easily travel into
microphones.
In a major studio that has been acoustically isolated and
has wonderful full-range monitors, these low frequencies
don’t often make it into microphones, but if they do you
can hear them with monitors that are capable of producing
the bottom octave (20Hz – 40 Hz). In home studios that
don’t have a perfect monitoring situation, the engineer
can’t hear that this low rumble is on the tracks. The other
problem with recording unwanted low frequency sounds is
wasting the available bandwidth on non-artistically
essential frequencies. If you are recording a female vocal,
for instance, you can be pretty sure that any frequencies
below 80 Hz are not part of the vocal performance. There
might be plosives from popped P’s and rumble from the A
Train or the HVAC system that will not only make your
bass muddy sounding in the mix, but will diminish the
intensity of low frequency transients.
How to use it:
After you have set your gain level appropriately, start to
turn the HPF knob clockwise until you can hear the low
frequencies start to thin out in the audio. Now back the
knob off counter-clockwise until you can’t hear the HPF
working. Now you have removed the unwanted and
unnecessary frequencies, but the filter isn’t affecting the
timbre of the audible frequencies of your source material.
1.5.4 ¼” Instrument Input Jack
The ¼” Instrument Input Jack is specifically designed
to allow users to plug a guitar, bass or keyboard into
the front of the preamp. The signal from this jack does
not pass though the input transformer, but rather is
unbalanced. You must engage the ¼” Button in order

to use the front ¼” jack.
1.5.5 ¼” Button
This button switches the input of the mic pre to the
front ¼” input and disengages the rear mic input.
1.5.6 Pad Button
The Pad button is a 20dB attenuator useful when the gain
knob is in its lowest position and the peak indicator (*) is
still being lit. Most commonly the Pad button will be
required for extremely dynamic sources like drums and
percussion, or extremely loud sources like electric guitar
through a large amplifier.
1.5.7 +48 Button
This button controls the 48 volt phantom power which
is used to power the onboard electronics in condenser
microphones or active direct injection (DI) boxes.
1.5.8 Ø Button
The Ø button flips the phase of the audio signal by
swapping pin 2 and pin 3 of the XLR jack of the
microphone input. Often it is used when two microphones
are being used on the same source, like the top and
bottom microphones for a snare drum. Often the phase is
flipped on the bottom microphone so that the two
microphone signals will be in phase. When two
microphones are out of phase and mixed together the
sound often is hollow, with some frequencies boosted and
some frequencies cut. Phase flip is also commonly used
when two microphones are used ona single guitar
speaker cabinet.

1.6 Signal Flow: Patching In and Out of Your Mic Pre 4T
1.6.1 Microphone to Mic Pre 4T to Audio Interface or Mixer
Basic Cables Needed:
(1) Microphone Type Cable (Female XLR to Male XLR)
(1) Female XLR to Male ¼” TRS Balanced Cable
Patch from the microphone to the mic input on the MP 4T
using the female XLR to male XLR microphone cable.
Patch out of the line output to a line input on your audio
interface or console.
1.6.2 Via a Patch Bay
In most professional setups, processors are racked and
then installed as part of a patch bay system. This
makes connections easier, as you don’t need to go
behind your rack to plug and unplug cables.
Patch bays are usually made up of modules with 2 jacks
in the front, one over the other, and two jacks (or solder
terminals, or DB25, etc) on the back. For the sake of
this manual, we’ll assume you’re using a ¼” TRS patch
bay with jacks on the front and back.
You do not want to normal the inputs and outputs from
the preamp to each other. This will create a feedback
loop. Converting a half-normalled module to a non-
normalled module is sometimes as simple as rotating the
module in the patch bay. See the manual for your patch
bay.

Cables Needed:
(2)XLR Male to ¼” TRS Male
(3)XLR Female to ¼” TRS Male
Steps:
1. Patch from the bottom back jack on the patch bay
module to an input on the MP 4T using the ¼” TRS to
XLR Male cable.
2. Patch to top jack of the patch bay module from an
output of the MP 4T using the XLR Female to ¼” TRS
cable.
3. Now you can patch into a mic pre from the front of
the patch bay. Simply run a patch cable from your
source microphone into the bottom jack on the
module and then run from the top jack on the
module to wherever the signal needs to go.

1.7 Specifications
• Transformer balanced inputs and output
• Highest quality American-made Jensen Transformers
• All-discrete transistor circuitry
• Class "A" amplifiers
• Continuously Variable Gain Control
• 20 Segment VU Meter (-20 to +25)
• +26dB Peak indicator
• All relay switching w/gold bifurcated contacts
• Switched +48v Phantom power
• 20dB pad on mic input
• Stainless steel construction for noise immunity
• Custom aluminum knobs
• Power supply included
• 75dB gain
• Unit Weight: 7.75 lbs
• Unit Dimensions: 1.75"x19"x10"
• Boxed Weight: 11.1 lbs
• Boxed Dimensions: 29"x14"x6"