Sennheiser 166 USB headset not recording narration in stereo

[rolawren]

Hi,

I bought a new headset Sennheiser 166 USB sound card headset last week. I tried recording my narration directly in PE 4.0, using the Add narration track. The preferences > Audio Hardware knew that I had the input as Sennheiser 166 USB. I have included an image of the settings shown below. I tried all the combinations of altering Sync Reference (direct sound input), Full Duplex, Start Input first (not really knowing what they do), but whatever I did my narration track, when it played back only came out of my left stereo desktop speaker. When I changed the output to headset, the same thing happened only the left ear played.

John (two-sheds) McD, had sent me an email last week about the microphones and about a DVD, and he said he uses Audacity. I tried this and did my narration in Audacity - chose add stereo track - and it recorded fine. Then I imported the wav file into PE 4.0, and had my playback coming out of both speakers (or both earcups if I switched to head-phones).

The question is, does anyone know what could be going wrong in PE 4.0, narration to only get the left speaker playing a mono track? When I look at the hardware settings for the audio it does say Audio Channel = 1. Is this is what the problem is, can I change it somehow.

Once I finish my current Brown Snakes video (did my hopefully second to last version yesterday), and get it loaded online, then I think I will upgrade to PE 7.0 (if that works alright with Windows XP Pentium 4), 3.2 GHz CPU, 3 GB RAM oldish Dell PC.

BTW: I am very happy otherwise with the Sennheiser 166 USB sound card headset, it is a little quieter than speaking direct to the Canon XL camera, but I don't have the option as I had to give the camera back. My little panasonic without an external mic, sounds awfully tinny. When I get back to working again, I hope to buy a new Canon or maybe Sony, with an external mic jack.

Thanks all, and hope some-one can shed some light (or sound - preferably stereo) on this problem.

Robyn Lawrence

[Steve Grisetti]

I'm sure it's related to it being a USB audio device, which Premiere Elements can be rather iffy with.

I don't know exactly why it's happening -- especially since it does work and it does show up in your ASIO list -- but, unfortunately, since it's USB it's also hard to diagnose.

[rolawren]

Hi Steve,

I know from reading Chuck's recommendations the other week, he said the direct Sennheiser to microphone jack seemed to be the way to go. I think I might have also read a posting from yourself as well, on this issue.

I went with the USB sound card adaptor, as the guy from the shop that I bought it from said with just having an original Dell sound-card that is probably 5 years old or so, the sound quality may not be very good. I know when I tried a cheaper stick microphone it was atrocious. I ended up using my Panasonic video with in-built mic, as my tinny microphone.

The headset does have a microphone and headphone plugs, that plug into a separate USB card adaptor. I might try removing the USB adaptor and pluging into the back of the PC direct, using just the standard microphone and headphone plugs, and of course my old Dell sound-card. To see if it records in stereo then.

Might give this a little test now.

Otherwise as mentioned audacity worked fine, and was easy to remove takes that I did not like and start again. It was very easy to use.

Regards,

Robyn

[rolawren]

Plugging the microphone jack into the mic port and the headset into the speaker port seemed to work. It recorded and played back in stereo. I tried it on a test project, so did not compare the quality from what I got from audacity.

I did see on Google somewhere before I bought the headset that some-one said that the USB did not work Dell's, or this person's Dell. Can't find it now, but saw some people with Dell desktop's having problems, but their Dell laptop was fine.

So maybe old Dell's can be problematic. Anyway happy with Audacity, and maybe removing the USB adaptor might also be a work-around, if my original sound-card is not too bad.

Thanks for getting back to me.

Robyn

[rusty]

If you are wondering about experience with the reliability of USB ports on older Dell desktops generally, I bought my kids P4 Dell's about 4 years ago and have found that the USB ports are quite unreliable so maybe that is your problem with the headset. My son's iPod is often not recognized when plugged in, but then shows up when I try a different port. I'll also mention (mainly because it makes me feel better to vent - not because it is all that relevant to this thread!) that both machines have had a variety of other problems including a bad fan, wierd beeping noises that require me to re-seat the RAM cards every couple of months, constant "spooling" (or whatever you call it) of the hard drives and chronic slow performance, despite doing Windows reinstalls, adding more RAM, reformatting the hard drive and reinstalling everything and using numerous spyware removers, registry cleaner and other performance utilities. I wouldn't buy another one - too many other low priced options out there.

Russ (from North Vancouver)

[rolawren]

Hi Rusty,

Unfortunately being an old Dell it only has one USB port at the front, and is the old style USB 1.0, which I suppose can be slow. So yes, it is more likely the USB port or the software than the headset itself. Funny how it works OK in stereo in Audacity, suppose I can count myself lucky here.

I think next time I will go for a laptop and just a separate large monitor. Makes one more flexible, rather than being stuck in the spare room all the time.

Regards,
Robyn

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

Once I finish my current Brown Snakes video (did my hopefully second to last version yesterday), and get it loaded online, then I think I will upgrade to PE 7.0

Don't be too hasty. If past history of PrEl is anything to go by then version 8 is just around the corner.

[sidd finch]

I think there might be some confusion regarding the term stereo. Since the mic is a single source it would not be capable of producing a stereo sound. The connector would feed the same single source into the right channel and the left channel but the signal would still be monaural. To achieve a pseudo stereo sound the sound card might be applying some form of delay between the two monaural signals.

Sidd

[Bobby]

I agree with Sidd, unless you can talk out of the side of your mouth

I don't use the PE narration feature - too much trouble to make it right, and it saves WAV files which can be large. I use Audacity and export to MP3 instead.

The question, of course, is synchronization with the video. I have to confess that I have a hard time doing this - pure nervousness I guess. I have found it much more effective to write a script, print it in big letters, and then read and record the script using Audacity. Everything is in a single file.

When I bring it into PE, I then use track split on the single audio file to split it up and position the segments where they belong. The works fine if your narration is ahead of the video. If your narration is too slow, then you might have to go back and re-record that segment. Works for me...

[rolawren]

Thanks Sid and Bobby, for explanation of mono. Thinking about it, the sound is exactly the same in both speakers or ear-cups.

Will just use Audacity when I re-do the narration - probably sometime next week.

Regards,
Robyn

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

When I bring it into PE, I then use track split on the single audio file to split it up and position the segments where they belong. The works fine if your narration is ahead of the video. If your narration is too slow, then you might have to go back and re-record that segment. Works for me...

Exactly the way I do it. Great minds.....?

[Bobby]

...Exactly the way I do it. Great minds...