A couple months ago I was working with Erik Sheppard on a voice over project. When Erik was doing the post-production, he heard some line noise in my original voice track that I didn’t immediately detect in the unprocessed dry recording. I traced it back to what I believed was a battery backup that got zapped during a bad thunderstorm a couple weeks earlier.

I changed out the battery. The line noise was still there, though slightly less noticeable. Since I use an oversized laptop for processing (my 19″ Alienware Aurora mALX), I only get an hour of battery life, but I was able to disconnect all the electric cables for at least a while and lift the ground on the entire signal chain. There was still some line noise, and now I was a woman on a mission.

Erik suggested I switch to Mogami for all my mic cabling. What a simple and effective improvement! Immediately, my signal was cleaner and truer. I bought a 6′ Mogami XLR cable, the Gold Neglex Quad Microphone Cable for Studio Neutrik XLR to start.

I can now also detect defects in my room treatment and plan on adding a better recording space, possibly an isolation booth. That will require longer cables and cable management. Since the Mogami cables are well constructed and amazingly flexible, cabling won’t be an issue.

Switching to Mogami cables is easily the most cost-effective thing I’ve done to improve my signal chain.

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