This idea may sound crazy...

P

Ptownkid

New member
but it makes perfect sense to me and after asking around a bit I've been told that is has been done.

I'd like to take a small 4" speaker and wire on an XLR connector to make it a mic. My idea was that it'd be ideal as a second mic for a kick drum, due to the large surface area for air to hit it. After talking to some people they assured me that they'd seen it done in several studios and it added a whole lot of punch to the kick drum sound.

My question is how do I do this? Which way do I wire it? Meaning what pin should hook to what terminal of the speaker and what do I do with the ground pin on the xlr connector? I'm assuming that I'd just hook that to the steel part of the speaker. Next, what ohm rating and amount of watts would the appropriate speaker be?

I'm hoping maybe someone knows what I'm talking about or at least has a firm enough grip on speakers and microphones to make an educated guess.

Cheers
 
Ptownkid said:
but it makes perfect sense to me nad after asking around a bit I've been told that is has been done.

I'd like to take a small 4" speaker and wire on an XLR connector to make it a mic. My idea was that it'd be ideal as a second mic for a kick drum, due to the large surface area for air to hit it. After talking to some people they assured me that they'd seen it done in several studios and it added a whole lot of punch to the kick drum sound.

My question is how do I do this? Which way do I wire it? Meaning what pin should hook to what terminal of the speaker and what do I do with the ground pin on the xlr connector? I'm assuming that I'd just hook that to the steel part of the speaker. Next, what ohm rating and amount of watts would the appropriate speaker be?

I'm hoping maybe someone knows what I'm talking about or at least has a firm enough grip on speakers and microphones to make an educated guess.

Cheers
Click to expand...



It's been talked about here before. I think you'll want a larger speaker to start with (maybe a 12")
 
Ptownkid said:
My question is how do I do this? Which way do I wire it? Meaning what pin should hook to what terminal of the speaker and what do I do with the ground pin on the xlr connector? I'm assuming that I'd just hook that to the steel part of the speaker. Next, what ohm rating and amount of watts would the appropriate speaker be?
Click to expand...

You need a transformer to make a balanced connection. Find an old dynamic mic you don't like and salvage the transformer out of that, noting how it was wired to the mic. Wire the speaker the same way.
 
awesome, thank you very much!!!

Looks like people have had this idea for a hell of long time, probably even before I was born, and I'm thankful for that, because there's info out there.

Still curious though, what should I do with the ground wire?

Cheers
 
mshilarious said:
You need a transformer to make a balanced connection. Find an old dynamic mic you don't like and salvage the transformer out of that, noting how it was wired to the mic. Wire the speaker the same way.
Click to expand...

Just curious as to why you say it has to be a balanced connection? I'm pretty sure it doesn't have to be.
 
HangDawg said:
Just curious as to why you say it has to be a balanced connection? I'm pretty sure it doesn't have to be.
Click to expand...
It doesn't have to be balanced. Transformerless example... cut the female end off of an old XLR mic cable and connect the (-) negative side of the speaker to pin 3... connect the (+) positive side of the speaker to pin 2... and connect the shield to pin 1 on the XLR end only. Transformer example... just wire the speaker to a 1/4" connector (1/4" tip to + positive side of speaker) and plug the 1/4" connector into a DI box. :)
 
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It depends on the speaker impedance, and preamp/mixer you're using and etc... try both and see. I recommand using a 6" to 8" bass woofer/speaker instead of a 4" speaker. Oh, and remember when using more than one mic on a kick to watchout for phase problems.
 
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Just FYI-

Every session I have been in that has a hip hop related producer uses some sort of this setup. There are a couple that are being made professionally out there now. Most that I have seen are speakers from studio monitors that are put in some kind of frame and suspended by some kind of elastic stretchy stuff.

It always makes for an awesome kick sound in the end. ha ha, kick in the end.

H2H
 
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