pepsi_max2k

I would have done that, though I was testing the stuff out with a support band before the main one went on and I seemed to get a bit of distortion at higher levels. Not sure how much though, they were a little louder than the main band and I had to take up residence in the venue toilets to actually hear anything through my headphones, then deleted all the stuff to make room for the main band. I'll see what happenes at the next gig i go to though

here's some samples of the recording i made with greenmachine's battery box, an archos gmini400 mp3 player/line in recorder (records to 44 KHz 16bit wavs) and a cheapo stereo mic (think this thing from maplin). it was recorded at a moderately loud indie rock gig, a smallish stage with not the biggest of speaker setups there but it did dull my hearing for a while afterwards. all came out pretty good with the exception of quite a bit of noise during the quiet stuff, though i dare say some decent components, better soldering skills and an all round better recording setup would get rid of most of that. http://www.inaudible.co.uk/temp2/sheffieldtests/ pretty self explanatory - orig is the original recording, amp is the original increased by 18db in audacity, and ampnoise is the amp'd stuff with audacity's built in default noise reduction. orig_dx_lesshighend is a friend's go at using winamp filters on the original to see if he can come up with anything better. i prefer my attempt though any comments / reccomendations on it? the whole recording (after amping and noise reduction) is at http://www.inaudible.co.uk/crimea/mp3s/Sheffield07/ should you care for more

woohoo i have a working battery box not entirely sure what it was cos i changed the capacitor before checking the output wire. needless to say the capacitor had no affect on the missing left channel to start with, so i figured the only thing left was the 3.5mm output wire / plug, so replaced that with another one and it works great now i recon the right channel wire on the output wire must have been shorting out somewhere or something like that... anyway, it works now bring on the gigs...

okaayy... had another look at what might be wrong by feeding a speaker's mic out into the battery box circuit's mic in, then held the end of some headphones on the battery negative spot and poked the rest about and came up with the following... which makes me think one of the capacitors may be bad, as it's the only thing between the high sound level on one side and low sound level on the other side, so low i can barely hear it and probably why it looks like i'm getting no output from the right channel of a mic when i try to record stuff. could a bad capacitor cause the sound level to drop?

as i found out yesterday when testing mine, you can connect the socket end of the battery box in to a speaker's mic out, then some headphones into the socket and you should be able to hear the output fine. you can also try to touch the headphone's socket to various points on the left or right of the socket to see where the fault may be, though you also need to have the ground of the headphone socket connected to the battery's negative connection, which could be tricky depending on the physical layout of the circuit... anyway. i still have no sound output from the right of my circuit

errr... no idea. but there's a pic of the 3.5mm socket here. there's only 3 tabs and it's pretty obvious what each is for.

does anyone see where i may have gone wrong with my battery box attempt? no matter what i do i don't seem to be able to get any sound out of the right hand channel, even touching the right hand wire i don't here any feedback like i do on the left). i've tried replacing almost every component on the thing, and also tried multiple stereo cables for the 3.5mm plug. i was thinking it might be the stereo cable but i've just tried with another cable and just placed the neg bit on the neg battery wire, then held the left wire on to the correct solder spot, and i get sound recorded on the left channel, but if i stick the right wire on the right solder spot i get no sound (though i know the cable's ok, just touching it with my fingers i get sound on the right channel). so i don't know if it's the cable or something else, but like i say i've tried a few times resouldering stuff and always get the same problem, so maybe it's my layout. anyone see anything wrong in the following pics (the circles bits are all soldered together)? thanks.

as you're only connecting a 9v battery to them i don't suppose it matters, not that i really know how this stuff works either... i think i got the 63v ones.

yeah. if you just ask in the shop they should find what you need anyway, maplins staff seem pretty helpful like that.

>> i too saw a battery case and was thinking whether that could be used instead - seems so right?. would that mean i don't need to fanny about with putting >> together a battery box with the capacitors/resistors etc?. im looking at this one here: >> http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?Module...ox&doy=10m5 that ain't gonna help you much, you still need to attach the battery to the rest of the circuit and then put the whole lot in a suitable box. >> angled stereo plug: http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?TabID=...84&doy=10m5 looks good. when yo uget to maplins they'll have a row of different plugs and you may or may not find that exact one, but as long as it's stereo and 3.5mm you're good to go. >> 2.2uF capacitors: Axial Electrolytic Capacitors, GenElect 2.2uF 100V http://www.maplin.co.uk/search.aspx?pctitl...amp;classtype=M i think any 2.2uF's will do, just get whatever they have / whatever's cheapest. >> resistors: im having trouble figuring out which ones i need - can anyone help please: i think i got these ones, though again i think any 10 kOhm one's will do. http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?Module...rs&doy=10m5 >> stereo connectors: when i type this in it takes me to 'stereo jacks' - are they the same? i think the connector would be something like this: http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?Module...et&doy=10m5 also, a box like this or something similar (about the size of half your hand) should be good. http://www.maplin.co.uk/Search.aspx?criter...rce=15&SD=Y

hi, i came here last year looking for preamp / battery box advice, found greenmachines thread, tried to make one but it all went horribly wrong so... now i'm trying to get hold of a pre-made preamp or battery box. basically i wanna use my little stereo lapel mic > line-in of an archos gmini400 to record live gigs ranging from quiter acoustic stuff to loud rock concerts. obviously on it's own it barely works due to no power, but i'm still not sure whether i should be going for pre-amp or battery box. i also don't wanna spend very much at all (no more than around £20, $50) otherwise i may as well just get a 2nd hand minidisc (which i did have, until it broke ). most people here seem to suggest a battery box would be better for loud stuff, but it would still be nice to have some kinda volume for whenever i'm recording quiter stuff. so, i'm wondering how much worse a pre-amp could be. when recording with minidisc i always stuck the mic straight in to the mic-in (so in to the md's preamp), adjusted sound levels on the md and everything was fine. the only suitable preamp i've found on ebay is this: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...p;rd=1&rd=1 though i've no idea what kinda quality it is (anyone care to enlighten me?). but it has an inbuilt gain control which i'd assume would help to quiten down any really loud recordings along with the gmini's inbuild recording volume leveler. another thing is i've heard the battery voltage has an effect on the mic's quality, and this thing comes with a 12v one which seems pretty good. if someone could let me know if that preamp looks suitable for middling noise level pub and club gigs, or if there's a really good reason to not be using a pre-amp at all, or even if you have one you wanna sell for around £20 or less, then that'd be great. thanks. ps. is green machine still around / selling battery boxes? his site doesn't seem to list any and can't find anything on ebay.

there's some info in this thread: http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=11254 relating to maplin code numbers i think... at least, i managed to get the stuff somehow after reading it. see http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?s=&am...ost&p=98819

gee, what is with people this week? i'm seeing nothing but angryness on message boards... just think, if people didn't try to improve on other's products, we'd still be listening to vinyl. fwiw, i've read a lot of this thread and didn't notice anyone criticizing any particular brand of mics/amps. so it can't be that bad.

it's not like you *really* need the glue, you can always stick it in a little box or cover it in tape or something...

sorry, i would've added them to the previous post but it's currently 30 miles away i'm sure it's soldered together exactly how it should be, and there's little i can see that could be wrong with it other than maybe a connection on the stereo socket. i forgot to mention i even changed the stereo lead and it didn't affect anything. i'll try post some pics when i can

just replaced both capacitors and both resitors on the thing and it still insists on only outputting sound from the left ear i give up, at least the old one i bought with a mic works ok

hmm well. just made it. only getting sound through the right ear, which appears to be coming from both the left and right sides of the mic. and a high pitched sqeak through the left ear, changing from the left to right ear when i wiggle one of the capacitors. but i guess i'm halfway there on the other hand, i just attached a 9v battery connector to my old 1.5v battery box and it works fine, though can't hear too much of an improvement with it.

cheers tange, basically got it on my second drawing but with the red/white stereo wires the wrong way round

woohoo. got my stuff from maplin, i'll put up the catalogue numbers later for anyone else in the uk, just gotta confirm they work first which brings me to my next problem... for the sake of anyone else who last did anything with circuits 5 years ago in high school, could someone clarify/fix the following for me? i know it's wrong, there's at least the middle part of the jack wire (in this pic) going no where at the moment, and between me not understanding the diagram, not being able to see where the wires are going in the photos, and having a stereo socket with 3 wires instead of 4 like in the original, i've no idea what i solder to what. so err... if anyone would be kind enough to join the dots in the pic, please repost the correct version. thankyou ps. remember, it's a drawing of wires for noobs to understand, not a circuit diagram, so no fancy stuff / laughing at the idiot edit: probably need someone to tell me what's what on the socket too the pin at the front is connected to the round bit at the front, the pin on the right in the first pic has a kinda flat bit lying along the edge, and the left one has a curved bit coming down opposite the flat bit. update: just added what i think is l/r/g after looking at which parts of a jack plug the bits touch. EDIT 2: had another look/think about it, came up with this: which is based on the assumtion of this: (g was for ground, though I've no idea what it actually is...) any better?

weyhey, another gmini 400 owner anyway, i just found out i can attach a 9v battery (after a bit of soldering, just found a cheap soldering gun but i'm still minus a hot glue thingy) to the cheap battery box i already have, so i'm gonna try that first. if it don't work - malcomb, i guess you're from the uk. did you get everything you needed from maplins? i might have to make a stop off there on my way back from uni how much did it all cost you?

from http://www.oldbird.org/mike_home.htm, and check out the last post at http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/a_sho...or_the_kids.htm, most of which i'm sure you know already but i'm bored...

technology wise, no idea, but it's one of these: http://www.altra.net.pl/sklep/product_info...products_id=124 it was cheap (off ebay) and the recordings don't sound too bad, good enough for me anyway. i recorded this with the mic plugged straight into an md's mic socket: http://www.inaudible.co.uk/temp2/The%20Cri...wps%202005).mp3

thanks. i'd have probably emailed you sometime in the future anyway, it's just that i'm not really recording anything at the moment, i just wanted to know where i could get one when I needed to really. i've already got a small battery box that came with a mic that kinda works, but runs off an AA 1.5v battery, and i remember having some problems with it in the past when I used it with my minidisc, but i've not had any real chance to try it out yet (lack of interesting/loud gigs to go to) so for all i know it works fine, and would save me buying another. but i was kinda hoping it wouldn't, and that the mic would break aswell, then i could get a battery box *and* mics off you as they both seem to come highly recommended

gee, greenmachine, update the post already, you could make loads anyways... kindly pointed out in another thread, the author of these guides is actually selling the things himself. check out http://greenmachine-audio.95mb.com/de-order.html (gm standard/pro are the mics, gm-sp is the power thing, click the links at the top (mik, zubsomething) for more info on them. or look for gm-audio on ebay. by the looks of it, the battery module comes in at just under £30 to the UK, only other option i've found close to that is the classic battery module from microphone madness (http://www.microphonemadness.com/products/mmcbmminminc.htm) which is just over £30 to the UK (from the US, which may bring around 20% tax on top of that). no idea which is best, i wish i could just make my own for a few quid and see if it's any use at all. why can't mp3 recorders just power their line in sockets

has anyone in the UK (or elsewhere) made a battery module that I could possibly purchase off them? I don't have access to a soldering iron or glue gun so it'd be a little hard to make myself, but i've got an archos gmini 400 that records via an unpowered line input and a little stereo electret mic and i don't really wanna spend ~£80 on a preamp or ~£40 on a battery module (sound professionals website looks like the only real option, and there's is just under $100 shipped to the UK :oO). my minidisc broke a few weeks ago, only 2 years after i got it didn't feel like getting another after that.