Mic with 1/4" input?

[saads]

If i get a cable thats XLR on one side, and a 1/4" on the other, will the mic work if i plug the it into a line input?

 

[kcearl]

yes as long as its a dynamic mic and not a condenser

 

[NYMorningstar]

No, you'll need to use a preamp and you don't want it to be very long.

 

[Ronan]

yes as long as its a dynamic mic and not a condenser

actually a condenser would work if it was a tube mic with its own power supply or a solid state mic that ran off of batteries.

But the big problems are that the line input does usually not provide enough gain for a mic level signal and I think the impedance will not be ideally matched. So in short I think you could do it but your probably do not want to.

 

[NinthHour]

i agree with the earlier post that it'll work with dynamics but you'll get such a weak signal you'll find your self processing the heck out of it to get any use and by the time you do that you'll hear alot of line noise in the signal it can work if you run it into a mixers preamp and gain it out and i've actually went that route using 57's on drumkits and stuff where i was trackin like 15 tracks of audio and simply didnt have the lo-z's available to me and had some luck but if youre not running into a preamp i dont see you being too happy with your results best of luck!

 

[saads]

i've actually went that route using 57's on drumkits

Actually thats exactly what i was planning on doing, a friend needs to record his drums but doesn't want to spend a lot of money on mic input mixers. I was thinking if i get him something with just 2 mic inputs for the overheads, and connect the bass mic and snare mic into the line inputs, that might do the trick. Will it work? Did you have luck with your go at it?

 

[NinthHour]

i did actually get some good tracks off of it my studio pc is down right now or i would put up the drumtracks by themselves to give you an idea have you already got your mixer? see my mixer (yamaha O1x0 has 7 preamps and a hi impedance input (basses guitars) but only 2 pres have xlr jacks and phantom power, the others are all on 1/4" jacks but have variable gain so i can crank the gain to get a useable signal if you dont have that option i will say that plugging that mic into a line in will give you some signal but it will have to be normalized 100% a couple times to get it anywhere in the useable realm and then some clever noise gating and filtering will have to be used because your signal to noise ratio will be exaggerated and you will have a nasty hiss behind your tracks if you can find a mixer with 4 pres in it you'll be in there but if not its gonna be a lot of extra work also, remember make the room dead as possible and and a lil reverb afterwards because if your like me, you didnt spend your lifes savings on a properly treated and tuned drum room hope this helps!

 

[NYMorningstar]

and connect the bass mic and snare mic into the line inputs, that might do the trick. Will it work? Did you have luck with your go at it?

You need a pre amps to bring the signal from the mics up to line level. You will not be able to do it without them without introducing noise that will be unacceptable.