Radio noise

[DogpitStudios]

So I was recording this 13 year old prodigy this weekend who wrote two songs and played every instrument on them (bass, acoustic and electric guitar, keyboard and drums). While setting up drum mics, me and the other engineer decided to try to get a very nateral type of reverb sound since we have such a large room to work with. We've done room mics in various ways before but for some reason couldn't get anything but nasty dry sounds or problems with direct reflections sounding muddy with the mics in the same room pointed at the drums away and backed up a good 10-15 feet. We decided to throw a mic in the bathroom and see how it sounded. Unfortunately every time we did try that with our trusty KSM 27 and boosted the pre-amp at all we started hearing radio noise. We figured it was a cable problem and switched it about 4 times. When nothing changed we switched the mic to an mxl 603s. This didn't fix anything. The mic sounded incredible in the room but we weren't willing to leave the fuzz or talking in there (obviously). Finally we threw an e609 in there assuming that this problem wouldn't be as loud. And as we expected we could boost the pre a lot more before the radio cut in, but it still did. I am certainly no expert on electronics, and was wondering if anyone would know any reasons why this would be happening so that maybe we could work on screwing with what ever wires are running threw the bathroom. Again this way of micing sounded great and I'd love to try it again with a condenser. I will post files up of the songs once i get my hands on them since they turned out extremely well.

Thanks in advanced for your help.

Ben

[kamistan]

you're getting actual radio signals into your thing?

hehe. Reminds me of the time I was getting Islamic prayers through my subwoofer. (not kidding)

I guess you'll have to uncoil the wires if they're coiled and use materials to deflect such frequencies if possible. I'm speaking from a simple scientific prespective, i.e weak high school knowledge.

I'm intimidated by little prodigies.

Isn't using a bathroom bad? The objective in sound acoustics is to create a balance between reflection and absorption of sound, and the acoustics are meant to absorb ambient sounds. Using a bathroom would be really reflective.

How does that sound?

[Electriclight]

Originally Posted by DogpitStudios

I am certainly no expert on electronics, and was wondering if anyone would know any reasons why this would be happening so that maybe we could work on screwing with what ever wires are running threw the bathroom.
Ben

Well, I'm no Bathroom Engineer either, but my first thought was not wiring, but plumbing. Often, the home wiring is grounded onto the copper plumbing, somewhere near the terminal box. You might want to look for a large copper cable clamped to a pipe in the basement or wherever. Maybe it became disconnected, loose or corroded? If the plunbing isn't grounded well perhaps it's acting as an antenna of sorts?

Just a thought.