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Low-cost microphone solutions - Wildlife Sound Recording Society. Panasonic WM61 homebrew microphone design This is all about saving money, particularly for enterprising but cash-strapped budding recordists.

Low-cost microphone solutions - Wildlife Sound Recording Society

These days you can get a decent recorder for a reasonable price - scour ebay for used minidisc recorders and you may pick up a bargain for about £50 (take a look at the recorder section of our newcomer's guide for what you are looking for). Good microphones are harder to pick up at knockdown prices. To get a microphone of the performance needed for wildlife sound use is expensive - of the order of about £100 (US$150), and decent wind protection can easily double that. Fortunately you can save a lot of money if you are prepared to homebrew your microphones, but you have to be prepared to do some fairly elementary soldering and mechanical construction work.

The reason for this is that the basic element of a entry level microphone, the electret capsule, is very widely used item in consumer electronics. WM61A to unbalanced minidisc jack schematic 1.

Pre-amplifiers

USB Microphone, Stereo Microphone, Preamplifier, Digital Recorder, Custom Cables and more at Rock Bottom Prices from The Sound Professionals - Great deals on Microphone, Preamplifier, Digital Recorder, Cable and more! Using ECM's. Article : Andy CollinsonEmail : Overview This tutorial describes how to use 2 and 3 terminal electret condenser microphones (ECM's).

Using ECM's

The actual microphone (mic) insert is the small round metal body, which would fit inside a plastic or metal microphone case. A complete microphone would include a windsheild made from foam rubber. The last section shows how to convert a circuit from a dynamic mic input to use an ECM input. Mic Inserts Viewed from above all mic inserts look similar to the left image. The amplifier stage buffers the high output impedance of the mic and boosts an average speech signal to around 1 to 2mV when spoken about one metre away from the mic insert.An ECM operates on battery voltage typically 6V to 15Vdc and draws about 1mA current.

Two Terminal Type ECM The ground or common connection of a two terminal ECM insert can be identified as the solder connection that is touching the case or body of the mic, see right. Connections. How to build a laser microphone. DIY Parabolic Reflector Microphone. Homemade Parabolic Mics. Here is the mic (minus the microphone), reflector is a Telinga, others can be used, stay above 20" diameter.

Homemade Parabolic Mics

The nosepiece built to a level of cut away that can be done fairly easily with a number of different tools. The two disks clamping the reflector are rug castors with a hole drilled through them. Remaining construction is simple pipe cutting. Glue the joint between handle and T. The joints on the nosepiece should not be glued so you can mount the mic. A recording with the setup as shown, Sony ECM-T140 Tie Tac Mic, Sony MZ-R30 MD. Southern Leopard Frogs (50 & 100'), insects, at night. If you have access to a milling machine or are otherwise adept, this is about as much as you can cut the pipe away. A recording with this light nosepiece, Sony ECM-T140 Tie Tac Mic, Sony MZ-R30 MD Insects 50+ feet, Jay (400-600'), Crows (800-1000'). A design using a reflector that used to be available from www.amazing.com. A recording with this setup, Sony ECM-T145 Tie Tac Mic, Sony MZ-R30 MD 1. 2.