Putting XLR jack on a corded microphone.

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samth3mancgp

samth3mancgp

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I have several microphones that are cheap and have permanently attached cables that are either 1/4" unbalanced, or 1/8" unbalanced mono. Some are old Realistik Highball 2 omni dynamic mics, and the others are old Sony F-98 cardioid dynamic mics. They are cheap and are definitely not the typical mics that people talk about around here but they just sound good in front of a guitar amp and several other applications for me.

What I want to do is get rid of that terrible permanently attached cord and put an XLR jack on them. Is it absolutely necessary that I put other electronics in the mic to make it a balanced output before the jack? I'm not really sure where to start but I'm tired of using stereo headphone extension cables as a means of getting the signal from these mics to my preamps. It's just not professional and is extra work than just using an XLR.

any help would be appreciated. thanks. :)
 
I may use 1 or 2 at once on occasion. They are definitely not a go to mic for me. I only use them in certain situations.. I definitely wouldn't be going for the Realistik for things like vocals! ;) So I'm not really looking to save up for a better mic because I already have some better mics, I have a few Shure SM57s, MXLs, Rode NT1, a Shure Drum mic kit and an AKG C414 just to name a few of the better/more common ones.

I find myself using these other cheap mics often enough that It would be nice If I could make them as universal and simple to hook up as all of my other balanced microphones. because an 1/8" mono jack is not exactly the most common plug for a mic preamp and it requires many converters haha
 
Hi,

Some mics are balanced even if they have jack plugs on them, you can tell when you cut/take off the old plugs and look at the cable. If it's a shield and 1 core the mic is unbalanced, if it's a shield and 2 cores then there is a good chance the mic is balanced.

If you have 2 cores and shield, solder the shield to pin 1 on the XLR, if you have white and black cores white to pin 2 and black to pin 3, if you have a red and black cores, red to pin 2 and black to pin 3.

If you have 2 cores, shield to pin 1, core to pin 2 and link pin 3 to the shield with a short piece of cable.

Cheers
Alan.
 
Well converting the 1/8"rs to 1/4 would be a start. Then a few of the converters?
 
Thanks For The Help Everybody!





witzendoz said:
If you have 2 cores, shield to pin 1, core to pin 2 and link pin 3 to the shield with a short piece of cable.

Cheers
Alan.
Click to expand...

So this is how I would go about soldering XLR to the mic if there is no shield and the mic really is unbalanced correct? If I rig the mic up this way is the unbalanced signal on the XLR cable going to be treated the same way by the mic preamp? because the balanced signal is a different impedance and there are in phase/out of phase signals running though the cable?
 
samth3mancgp said:
Thanks For The Help Everybody!

So this is how I would go about soldering XLR to the mic if there is no shield and the mic really is unbalanced correct? If I rig the mic up this way is the unbalanced signal on the XLR cable going to be treated the same way by the mic preamp? because the balanced signal is a different impedance and there are in phase/out of phase signals running though the cable?
Click to expand...

No, all mic cables have a shield, some have a shield and 1 core (unbalanced cable) some have a shield and 2 cores (balanced cable). If the impedance is OK, i.e a low impedance mic (not a high impedance mic) then yes the mic pre should treat the unbalanced mic with the XLR the same way, DON'T SWITCH ON PHANTOM IF YOU HAVE AN UNBALANCED MIC AND PINS 1 AND 3 ARE LINKED.

Think of the phase/out of phase more like AC power (push/pull) than phase when using balanced equipment as to not get confused without of phase issues that are a different thing altogether. A single mic can be wired out of phase but is in phase with its self, it's only when using it with another mic that is in-phase that issues occur.

Cheers
Alan.
 
Ok how do I find out if my mic is a low or high impedance mic? I thought that all unbalanced connections were high impedance? or is that just Guitar signals? Hopefully I'll get this figured out
 
Ok I just took a look at both mics.. the Sony F-98 with the 1/8" plug says "Low Imp." on the bottom of the mic.



The Realistik Highball 2 mic says "600ohms" along the side of it. the box that I have for it says "low impedance" haha I thought 150ohms was low impedance?



If the impedance is not an issue I think for both mics I will replace the cabling coming out of it with mic cable that I have on a spool and attach an XLR male to the permanently attached cable. From there I will just attach other XLR cables to that XLR male connector that go to the mixer, pres interface whatever. The back end of these Sony Mics is too small to fit an XLR jack inside. this all makes sense in my mind do you agree?
 
Read about mic impedance here.

If the mic is high impedance the signal will be low level at the mic pre.
If the mic is low impedance the levels will be good.
Did it work OK when you used it with your adaptor cables?

Usually unbalanced microphones are high impedance, but not always. Some microphones are balanced but are supplied with a jack plug and are wired unbalanced (see my explanation on my first post about 1 or 2 cores).

Cheers
Alan.
 
Ok my microphones are both in the 600 ohms range which are in the higher low impedance and the lower medium impedance ranges shown on that site. would 600ohm be suitable to be plugged directly into the mic pres using XLR with a cable run of 15-30ft or would it be better to get the converters?

Edit: I may have just answered my own question haha. I looked up the impedance of several preamps (some of the ones that I use) Balanced inputs and they are somewhere between 500 ohms and 1500 ohms. I guess this would make these mics @ 600ohms ok to plug directly into the preamps and also faithfully carry the signal over a 15-30 foot distance? The impedance would be going from lower to higher which is is desired over higher going to lower.
 
Last edited:
samth3mancgp said:
Ok my microphones are both in the 600 ohms range which are in the higher low impedance and the lower medium impedance ranges shown on that site. would 600ohm be suitable to be plugged directly into the mic pres using XLR with a cable run of 15-30ft or would it be better to get the converters?
Click to expand...

Should be fine.

Cheers
Alan.
 
Thanks for all of the help. This will make my setup less stressful without having to find converters and lower quality rigged up cables just to get these mics plugged in. Time to start soldering! :D
 
Hello

The advice given to hook up an unbalanced mic to XLR did not seem to work for me. I had a single core and a shield on my unbalanced Sony mic that I have tried this on. I put the shield on pin 1 put the insulated conductor on pin 2 and linked pin 3 to pin 1 using a short piece of wire. I get an incredibly faint signal from the mic when i crank the gain on the pre all the way up.

Is this the correct way to wire an unbalanced mic to an XLR jack?
 
It's late and I'm ah.. foggy. (Yeah that's it..:):drunk:
2 and 3 are expecting opposite polarity, you wouldn't jump them together they'd cancel. Leave 3 lifted I believe.
See combo 3 perhaps.
http://www.rane.com/note110.html

oops, you said 3 to 1..
 
mixsit said:
It's late and I'm ah.. foggy. (Yeah that's it..:):drunk:
2 and 3 are expecting opposite polarity, you wouldn't jump them together they'd cancel. Leave 3 lifted I believe.
See combo 3 perhaps.
http://www.rane.com/note110.html

oops, you said 3 to 1..
Click to expand...

You probably should ground the other pin if you're not using it. A floating input pin is just another potential place for noise to be introduced. So yeah, 3 to 1 would work.
 
If I'm not sure about something I mock it up with jumper cables like these from Radio Shack (Model: 278-1157):

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062660

Mock it up right at your console. Faster than soldering it and figuring out you did it wrong.

That way you can tell if something works in your exact situation. There's often more than one "correct" way of wiring things, what matters is what works the best for you.
 
i am still having trouble with this :confused: Has anybody done this before? do all 3 pins on the XLR need to be hooked up to a cable? i have tried several combinations now with still no good signal coming through
 
Hmm.. the mic I am working on does not seem to be passing any signal at all. it's not the cord that is attached being faulty either. I held leads up right where the cables attached to the capsule for the mic and NO SIGNAL is coming through.. maybe this mic was dead when it showed up a few days ago? It's just a cardioid dynamic mic, how can the capsule be so messed up on it that it cannot pass ANY signal through?

I dont think the heat from the soldering iron could have damaged it? because there was about 3 feet of cable between where i was soldering and the capsule itself. It was still in the packaging (the mic is 20+ years old however) when it showed up from eBay. Can somebody clear this up for me? Tests I can do to test/fix this capsule.

Anyway.. I have been able to take the capsule off of the 3rd of my 3 Sony F-98s and put it on the one that is messed up. The 3rd one has a chassis or body or whatever that doesn't look as good cosmetically The instructions I was given several days ago with pin 2 getting the insulated hot wire and pins 1 and 3 being wired together for the ground worked fine with the other 2 mics.
 
throw that crap away and get a mic, although the education you are getting is worth something, those mics are not.
 
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