37637598 on 16/9/2008 at 09:24
Quote Posted by Aja
Guys, the microphone he's using WILL NOT work with a regular mic input
I see no reason why it's not possible between noise reduction and a post gain boost. I don't mean to say it will solve the problem, but there are ways to dramatically improve results without having to buy more equipment.
Depending on the 'type' of noise biker is getting.
Unless you mean his mic isn't 1/8th" and literally 'won't fit' in the mic jack.
bikerdude on 16/9/2008 at 09:50
Quote Posted by 37637598
Unless you mean his mic isn't 1/8th" and literally 'won't fit' in the mic jack.
What Aja and me are refering to is that the majority of PC soundcard are designed to work with unpowered Condenser mics, the mic gets its power (5 volts) from the mic socket pn the sound card. I wasnt aware of the above until last night, and now that i do it makes perfect sense.
Coincidentaly the mic I bought from maplins is a condenser mic with its own 1.5v battery, but its still not quite power full enough - so what i am going to do is look into powering the mic using the 5volts from the sound card itself and see if this improves the volume level from the mic.
if that fails then i will have to look at a either building my own pre-amp, or sourcing a good second hand one.
biker
37637598 on 16/9/2008 at 10:00
Oh ok, sorry, I can get confused quite easily. In any case, my only other suggestion would be to lean away from powering a mic through your sound card... I've never done this, but it seems to me that you'de just be asking for a bad power supply soon after. I've went through a few power supplies just powering a few USB devices.
If you decide to buy a pre-amp, keep in mind that you probably want one with 'Phantom Power' (just incase you didn't know that's what it's called, not everyone does)
or you can always buy one of those $10.00 radio-shack power supplies that you can switch from 1.5-3-7-9-12V and wire it up to the mic...
Muzman on 16/9/2008 at 10:06
Actually most of the cheap 5 quid ones are probably dynamics, I would have thought. As for the rest, luckily I haven't had to use the mic-in on my PC in like ever, so I dunno.
Is that m-audio really over 50 in the UK? I would have thought the exchange rates were a bit better than that.
