Mic Preamp Help
I'm thinking of buying a mic preamp to plug a standard mic into garageband on my 15" AlBook. I know that the line input needs a mic preamp to convert a standard mic input into line level but I've been a bit confused about specs whilst looking around.
I want to buy the cheapest option I can find and I've seen several very basic preamps that look to be what I need. Most are phono/mic preamps with a switch to changes between mic and phono.
What's confusing me is that looking at the specs, the input and output levels seem to vary quite a lot. I don't know much about this kind of thing but I was expecting that kind of thing to be pretty consistent from product to product.
My question is, for those of you with music technology knowledge is, what's the output level from a standard mic and what kind of output would I be looking for to get a decent level through the line in on my Albook?
For your information, the preamps I've been looking at are standard hi-fi preamps, ranging from £25-£30 ($35-£50)
The ones I've looked at are these:
http://www.maplin.co.uk/products/mod...moduleno=21300
http://www.maplin.co.uk/products/mod...moduleno=29908
Would something like this work ok or am I looking at completely the wrong kind of thing? I was assuming anything that adjusted the level would work.
I'd really appreciate any help
cheers
I want to buy the cheapest option I can find and I've seen several very basic preamps that look to be what I need. Most are phono/mic preamps with a switch to changes between mic and phono.
What's confusing me is that looking at the specs, the input and output levels seem to vary quite a lot. I don't know much about this kind of thing but I was expecting that kind of thing to be pretty consistent from product to product.
My question is, for those of you with music technology knowledge is, what's the output level from a standard mic and what kind of output would I be looking for to get a decent level through the line in on my Albook?
For your information, the preamps I've been looking at are standard hi-fi preamps, ranging from £25-£30 ($35-£50)
The ones I've looked at are these:
http://www.maplin.co.uk/products/mod...moduleno=21300
http://www.maplin.co.uk/products/mod...moduleno=29908
Would something like this work ok or am I looking at completely the wrong kind of thing? I was assuming anything that adjusted the level would work.
I'd really appreciate any help
cheers
Comments
Not sure what phantom power is?
OK, well it certainly isn't a high quality mic - I'm talking about £9 ($15). Could you give me any advice on what you'd consider a 'decent' mic that I'd be able to plug straight into the line in port? What kind of price range are we talking?
To be honest, I'm finding the built in mic *ok* for my purposes, the only real problem I'm having is when the fan kicks in it's creating quite a lot of background noise. Even if I wait for the fan to turn off and then start recording, due to the intensive nature of garaeband it inevitably kicks in again before recording is finished.
I've heard people talk about certain mics having a swicth on them to switch between mic and line level output - is that common? That sounds like it would be good if we're not talking too much money.
thanks
I have not bought a mic for years (I love my sennheiser) so I don't really know what the best deals are. Basically, the more you can afford, the better the quality. When it comes to mics, XLR is the best quality, next is 1/4 inch, and last is miniplug. Even if you have XLR->1/4->miniplug adapters you will probably get better sound.
But unfortunately, it is 2:00 in the morning for me. I need to catch some sleep. I'll check back tomorrow.
Originally posted by Wifty
That looks great but is there any difference between that and the ones I was looking at? (urls above), aside from it having a few more controls and probably a better unit, do they do the same thing?
The M-Audio AudioBuddy looks neat. The main difference from yours is the volume adjustment which I think is a must-have. It also has XLR ports if you still wanted to get a mic or upgrade in the future. 8)
Darnit! Now I want one now for my laptop too. It would fit so nicely in my laptop bag.
I tried to plug my Shure SM57 mic into my monster cable 0.25 to miniplug adapter straight into my Alu and Dual G5 computers. The results was a very low level signal. Yes, I had the input level pegged to 11 in system prefs and I had to up the level in GB to max to hear much at all. What I heard sounded good and clean but very quite. You could hardley mix it with any of the loops because their signals were so much stronger. So my conclusion is that a preamp is needed.
Lucky for me, I have an old Tascam mixer/tape recorder that I could plug my mic into and then send the signal to the computer. That works well to up the signal.
If you're going with a condenser, which it doesn't sound like you'll be doing, you'll need something that can supply phantom power, but I wouldn't worry about that at this point.
EDIT: disabled smilies because it rendered the '58' as the sunglasses dude.
thanks for all the help