[Joshszman09]

I found this post on a different thread and figured I would share it in case it helped. It is obviously about the Rhodium sound problem.

"Something just occured to me... I'm a sound engineer... so i know all about feedback, sends/returns etc in a live environment, which is basically the same wherever you have a live microphone near a speaker....

In my industry there are 2 devices you can insert into the "sound chain"...

1. If an artist screams into a microphone, you insert a compressor, which essentially brings the input gain down, preventing the microphone from distorting....
This is practically achieved by "routing" the microphone VIA a compressor 1st, the compressor does it's processing, which you set manually, consisting of:
- Threshold (Input Gain)
- Ratio (How much of the threshold to process)
- Output Gain (How loud the output is)

2. If your microphone environment is too noisy, in otherwords if you are scared of feedback occuring, you can insert a GATE into the sound chain. This basically keeps the microphone "off" (or gated) waiting for input signal to be loud enough, which then switches the microphone on. Practically a simple example would be on a drumkit, where the drum A must not pick up drum B when the drummer hits drum B... the microphone on drum A is "Gated" and only opens when it is hit and the signal is loud enough (or close enough to the microphone)

You also set gates manually, consisting mainly of:
- Threshold (Input Gain)
- Ratio (How much of the threshold to process)
- Attack time (How quickly to process)
- Decay time (How quickly to release)
- Output Gain (How loud the output is)


In our industry, it is a common mistake where new engineers under stress forgets to take the "insert button" out of the chain... so they struggle to get any sound going to the speakers until they take out the insert button.

So with example a (compressors) and example b (gates), either of those 2 components may cause the speaker to stop working, if the device is inserted.

If you say that everything is being routed to the 3.5mm jack, what are the chances the designers have some sort of gating/compressor system in the sound chain, to prevent feedback/echo from happening... and the default settings are simply set to "off" or "maximum"... and its inserted by default.

...like i said - these devices are found everywhere... just in my industry it's something inserted physically as a separate device. So maybe everything works... it's just something in the chain which doesn't....

...hope it makes sense to someone"


Now, this makes me think that the problem has to do with the dual microphones the rhodium uses for noise cancellation. I hope this isn't old news and maybe it is helpful to someone...