Electret mic amp?

[shlemielo]

Hey guys,

I have an Olympus ME51s mic that I would like to use with my PC. Plugging it in directly to the mic jack gives some sound, but I have to crank the volume and boost up and it sounds pretty terrible if I do that. My laptop mic jack (Thinkpad X61), however, doesn't give any sound at all.

I've been looking at maybe getting a preamp to improve volume. Would something like this be what I'm looking for? Hopefully someone can help me out, I know this isn't the typical audio/HT topic.

 

[bobdole369]

Looks like that already has a mic on it.

Found this while googling this up. Have to figure this out myself - Wifey has a mac mini, but it doesn't have an electret mic port, only a line in.

http://www.shure.com/ProAudio/..._pro_ea_connectingmics


A little more than your looking for I'm afraid:

http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/FastTrackPro.html

 

[shlemielo]

Thanks for the reply. Seems like my mic needs plug-in power, which I'm guessing my sound card doesn't provide (or doesn't provide enough). I have a similar audio interface to the M-Audio Fast Track Pro -- it's the E-MU 0404 USB. Unfortunately it doesn't power the mic. Is there anything out there that can provide my mic with plug-in power and feed it into my line-in jack?

 

[Rubycon]

Electret mics need power. In the field this is called phantom power and is injected by a mixer, etc. An electret mic with a sound card will need its polarizing power source from the card and if plugged into an input without this source will not work at all. Powered electrets using a small power cell are needed with these inputs (or a preamp like the one pictured minus the element).

 

[herm0016]

the emu has phantom power on it, just use that.

 

[bobdole369]

http://www.minidisc.org/part_M...phone_Accessories.html

 

[shlemielo]

Originally posted by: herm0016
the emu has phantom power on it, just use that.

Phantom power doesn't work for the electret mic.

Originally posted by: bobdole369
http://www.minidisc.org/part_M...phone_Accessories.html

That looks like what I need, though expensive for what I'm getting. I might ask my electrical engineering friend to help me make a circuit.

 

[Rubycon]

Phantom power is 30-48V designed for electret mics however the one you're using is connected with a mini jack 1/8" TRS, correct? It's definitely not designed for that kind of use.

 

[shlemielo]

Yeah, it's a 1/8" TRS jack.