When recording with your E-series audio interface, you might find that you have a low microphone signal even with the gain turned up. Then, when you push the gain higher, you hear a noticeable noise floor. Here's what to do.
First, check your physical connections. Ensure the microphone cable is fully and securely plugged in. For weak signals, we strongly recommend using a male-to-female XLR cable to connect your microphone to the audio interface, rather than a TRS-to-XLR cable. Remember that dynamic microphones do not require 48V phantom power, but condenser microphones do.
Your E-series audio interface offers 58dB of analog gain and an additional 20dB of digital gain, which is more than enough to properly drive most microphones on the market. Due to the analog potentiometer design, the analog preamp gain changes more rapidly in the second half of the knob's range.
When using a condenser microphone, we recommend setting the gain knob to around the 1 o'clock position.
For a dynamic microphone, a good starting point is the 3 o'clock position.
From there, you can use the digital gain knob within the control center software for fine-tuning. This approach should give you a clean, loud signal.