Good and Cheap solution for microphone preamp?

sfbay_jon

I'm helping on an indy shoot here in SF and the sound guy has all the gear including Sennheiser mics and wireless, and a pre-amp, mixer and multi-track recorder, so now I'm inspired to do my cheap version of an audio setup.

All of the mics that I'm interested in are self-powered 3.5mm (LAV: ATR3350 and SHOTGUN: Sanhe or AT), I am looking for some cheap way to combine two mono mics into one stereo input for my digital recorder (Tascam DR07mkii) that has a single TRS 3.5mm input. @Stonebat mentioned (in another thread) the ART USB Dual Pre, so I looked at that and the Beachtek.

Thanks to Vitaly:-) I also bought a pair of the Superlux headphones! In reading and reading the reviews, I learned about a cMoy: cool "DIY" headphone amps that are built into small tins, like Altoid mints come in. (http://tangentsoft.net/audio/cmoy-tutorial/). Lots of people, like me, know better than to pick up a soldering iron, so hobbyists sell these pocket amps on eBay as kits or assembled for about $35! Sometimes we do get good and cheap!

All of which leads to what I'd like to see--a cMoy version of a mic preamp. I've googled and seen other people asking the question, but haven't found a good answer. Who knows if this exists? Or, is even possible? OR, perhaps more important, would like to have one, if it existed?

Vitaliy_Kiselev

May be simple passive cable will do?

>Thanks to Vitaly:-) I also bought a pair of the Superlux headphones!

Do you like them?

stoney

@sfbay_jon USB Dual Pre has been a nice little device at home and at work. I plugged iPhone into it and listened over big headphones. Sounded a way better. And few more good uses. But I suggest you get what many other people are getting. H4n or DR100.

sfbay_jon

@Vitaliy the 'cans' are en route.

@stonebat. I don't want to spend $400 on a recorder since I just dropped $150 on the Tascam

stoney

If I were you, I would sell it and buy DR100 or H4n.

Setting up a lavalier mic, a shotgun mic, a preamp/mixer, and DR07mkii... are you sure?

sfbay_jon

Great point. Nothing like injecting a little reality!

stoney

I'd say... get DR100 or H4n first. Play with it for a while. Then get lavalier or shotgun mic WHEN you need them. Usually it's good to buy one at a time over a longer timespan like a kid collecting baseball cards.

DouglasHorn

I decided to spend a little extra up front and get a good recorder, rather than spending extra on recorders that wouldn't fit my needs along the way. I landed on the Tascam DR680. It has 6 discreet tracks, phantom power, and very good preamps. It's not quite a SoundDevices recorder, but it's pretty darn good and the only feature I'd like is timecode generation. (But with the extra tracks I'm experimenting with either jamming TC from a slate or using an MP3 of linear TC on one of the tracks...but I digress)

A good recorder with lots of headroom means I can essentially set the levels and let them roll. The little recorder doesn't weigh much either. These things really add up on those shoots where you're handling sound and picture by yourself.

DrDave

You can get a Mackie Blackjack with Onyx preamps for $150. Onyx preamps will drive a wide variety of mics. The DR 680 as mentioned above is an excellent, full featured recorder/mixer. a cmoy type box sounds good--I use a cmoy D/Aconverter for my optical out, all discrete, separate high power Headphone circuit--but in the field you want something that has some series RF protection built in.

sfbay_jon

@Vitaliy
Superlux opinion posted on that thread

Hazna

If you can afford sound devices mixpreD you can not go wrong.It has mic out put to your camera.
If you use a good LAV like DPA 6021 with a cheap sennheiser G3 you do not need a mic pre or a boom.

Mark_the_Harp

@DouglasHorn There's a little audio trick people used to do on old analogue recorders when they had a spare input channel, and maybe you can do this to ensure you always get good s/n ratios without risking distortion if you just want to roll the audio without constantly checking it:

Assuming you have one spare channel for each mic you want to record (ie its normal channel plus one other unused one), parallel those two inputs (you usually have to make up a lead to do this unless the recorder has switches that allw you to do it - unlikely) so you are sending each mic to a pair of channels rather than just one. Record each mic on it's pair of channels - the audio will be identical on each - but have one set about 15dB or so less sensitive than the other. Do this with the pad switches if there are any. Do the same "doubling channels" thing for any other mics. The point being you will have a fallback channel if the first one gets distorted, without having to use limiters, which can do horrible things to location audio. It can be really useful if anticipating loud sounds of unknown level, or where you have spare tracks and just want absolute assurance that you can cope with a wide range of levels without running into noise or distortion.

As I say, an unusual trick but one I remembered from a news crew who used it as a fallback whenever they had spare inputs available.

stoney

Nice trick. But can it be used on a mic using phantom power over XLR?

Mark_the_Harp

I do this with my Canon XHA1 - I parallel the XLR inputs with 48v supplied on both mic inputs, with one channel padded, and it works fine. If you have an input going spare, you might as well do it because you get a fallback recording if the main one does distort, and distortion is the one thing that's impossible to get rid of once it's recorded. Most pro camcorders can do this technique easily as they have switches to send an input to more than one channel - so you don't even need leads made up.

@stonebat So it works on the XHA1 but I wouldn't guarantee it would work with every phantom-power providing device just because it does on my Canon. If you connect one mic to two parallel input channels, the mic wouldn't ever get more than 48v, but it could cause problems with the input channels. I haven't had that happen and can't see why it would, but if you're not sure, it's better to record conventionally with one channel per mic, controlling levels carefully. Or if you want to give it a go, try it first on someone else's recorder, and if it bricks it, pretend nothing has happened and walk away quickly.

If you're not using phantom power there's definitely no problem using this technique on any recording device.

There are plenty of other interesting things to do with multi-channel audio - for example, recording separate feeds of interviewer and interviewee, even having a separate sync track of mono or stereo "atmos" mic which you can use to drive reverb during mixing / editing, which gets you around all sorts of problems further down the line. Given some loudspeakers on location, you can also play sound effects into the scene so the actors have something to match their voices against, which makes the final result much more realistic than trying to mix effects in afterwards.

Coming from an audio background I'm aware of tons of these techniques, but maybe people don't know so much about them so thought it was worth mentioning. I think if anything, audio for video is more demanding than pure audio / radio recording mainly because wrong audio is more obvious when you have pictures as a reference.

danyyyel

I don't know if anyone has seen the $ 230 Naiant littlebox preamps. On the article below it compares very favorably with a $ 1500 Lunatec V3.

http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=124895.0

allenswrench

Hi,
this is what I use - an Edirol M-10DX mixer. It also works with 6 AA batteries, has 2 preamps, nice EQ, compressor etc and loads of I/O. You have digital optical and tosslink outs and inputs, as well as the balanced analogue. Very good build quality and I got mine for 130 Euros, although the prices went way up after everyone figured out what it can do for the money.

Hazna

Again You need to have a mic output to go in to the camera. A Sennheiser wireless is the cheapest way to accomplish that.

Vitaliy_Kiselev

Small review of ART USB Dual Pre

thesecretof

http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/1089/tascam-ixz-cheap-alternative-to-preampsaudio-recorders/p1

Try the tascam ixz - it can use 3.5mm mics if u use a 1/4 to 3.5mm adapter then plug it in (it's a combo connector xlr with 1/4) - the output can be adapted to 3.5mm with an ipod-to-3.5mm adapter or you can just cut the cable and put in the connector if you're handy with soldering and is not going to use the ipod. If you have an iphone or ipod touch this is a really nice option to record off-camera.

brianluce

I have the older DR100, I like it but I think it's made for recording LOUD music because like everyone else, for dialog I have to dial the gain way up which introduces some noise. Has anyone use the ART Dual Pre with the DR100 or something similar? Did the preamps give you a boost in signal? Thanks.

Btw, I don't have a budget for anything like Sound Devices. It's either something priced like the Dual Pre or nothing.

itimjim

@brianluce I'm in the same boat right now. I've been hankering over a SD Mix Pre D, but just can't get around to justifying the cost unfortunately.

I've been using a H4N with AT897 (borrowed) and the combination is crap, as the levels out of the AT897 are very low, and the sensitivity of the H4N is also low - I'm sure, as you say, these field recorders are more geared up to recording higher amplitude sounds like music or hand held mics close to the mouth.

So I've been on the lookout for a small/portable low voltage (5v USB/9v/1.5v battery) unit that isn't the cost of the Sound Devices. And so enters the ART USB Dual Pre, which is cheap and hopefully I can output it to a smaller, cheaper recorder (a bit box so to speak) like the H1 or Tascam 7mkii...maybe even an iPod Touch! (no BWF though).

I'm thinking that this should allow me to use any combination of hot (AT875R) or cold (AT897) mics regardless of output strength. I suppose the only issue really, is that for live recording, the meters (or almost lack of) might be a bit difficult. One review on BHPhoto suggested that Line-In on the Tascam DR100 disable the metering, which might be something to test for you. The reviewer also mentioned a few other things that maybe meant they didn't know exactly what they were doing though.

@stonebat mentions H4N/DR100 solely, but I'm just having too many issues matching mics with this combination, due to lack of gain control. I've only had success with the R44, but that's too big and cumbersome to shoot as a one man band on a rig.

brianluce

I returned my ART. I didn't seem to do anything it was supposed to do. BIG disappointment. It's true, metering gets disabled -- total deal killler right there. YMMV.

Meierhans

My experience with the Art Dual Pre is that is also more suitable for recording in a studio where you place the mic as close as possible. Headphone output is to low to judge sound when I run our shotgun into it under normal filming conditions. I would not buy it again for this purpose.

jleo

Some people are using FIIO headphone amps as a cheap preamp... starting around $25

http://cheesycam.com/fiio-e11-battery-powered-headphone-amp/

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