From: META000 <META@UNB.CA>
Subject: RE: Help for Home Studio musician
Organization: The University of New Brunswick
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 18:47:20 GMT

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    
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>Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 03:00:30 GMT
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>>SITUATION
>>Ok, here's the deal... I need to record some songs(Acoustic) for someone I
>>know.. I have a SONY dual cassette recorder with a jack for a mic. What I
>>have done is record the guitar part(since its an acoustic-electric, I simply
>>plug it into my sony. Once I have the guitar part on tape I put that tape
>>on the play side and put a blank on the record side. I have this cheap
>>5-10$ microphone from radio shack which I plug into the the jack. I wear a set
>>of headphones to listen to my guitar part and I sing on my cues and record
>>using the tape-to-tape dubbing switch which all dual-decks have... What I get
>>is a quality recording of my guitar and my voice on the blank.
>>
>>THE PROBLEM:
>>The guitar part is crisp and clear. But I have to almost yell in
>>the microphone to raise my voice over the guitar. This doesn't sound too good
>>because I'm not no heavy metal singer or anything and with the acoustic I want
>>to sing more lightly and to be heard. You think buying a better microphone
>>($50-$75) would inrease the amplitude of the vocals?? Any other suggestions??
>>Need help....

I've encountered similar problems in other situations.  I teach, and
frequently get requests from students who are ill or otherwise
indisposed to tape my lectures for them.  Since I tend to pace, most
built-in condenser mics on handheld tape units pick upmore of the
room resonance than my voice.  I've also done some videotaping for
research purposes with a camcorder, also with built-in mic, that
just didn't provide the selectivity PLUS signal level that I needed.
What I did was build a little box with one ofthose condenser mic
capsulesfrom Radio Shack, and a little pre-amp in the box, and run a
cable from that to the mic input of the relevant device.  Not only
is the sound loud enough, but since the hand-held tape-units have
compressors built in, the higher signal level from the mic pre-amp
minimized the noise that often results from cheap compressors (aka
automatic gain control) pumping upthe gain when there is little or
no signal present.  I also stuck a kind of "bright" switch circuit
at the output of the pre-amp to giveme a littl more sibilance.  This
may not be what you want, but in my case, it makes speech more
comprehensible when it is recorded from across the room.

As for recommendations, in my case I used a single op-amp set for a
gain of around 20, and run off a single 9V battery.  If you don't
have the savvy to rig one up, I might suggest gettingone of the
various "micro-amp" floor boxes that are simply intended to provide
gain withoutany noticeable or unwanted tonal change.  Another thing
to consider is one of those cheap Radio Shack mixers.  As far as I
know, they don't produce much gain, so even though the mic will be
louder, it won't be that much louder.  A simple solution is to stick
the mic in one channel,take the output of that channel and feed it
to the input of another channel, and take THAT feed out to the tape
deck.  You might also consider plugging the guitar into another
input of the final output channel, so you get a more balanced mix
(assuming you don'tmind mono).

Mark Hammer

Newsgroups: rec.music.makers.guitar