USB Microphone?

[sjaguar13]

I have a microphone that I want to make into a USB microphone. I am not too good with electronics, though, and can't figure out how to do it. I run into a few issues. First, I don't even know how to wire the stupid thing. Next, how do I use it? Are there going to be driver issues or anything? I have seen several USB microphones and they claim to work with any recording software. What I can't tell though, is if they come with some sort of drivers, or if XP knows it is there. Can anyone help me?

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

I have a microphone that I want to make into a USB microphone. I am not too good with electronics, though, and can't figure out how to do it. I run into a few issues. First, I don't even know how to wire the stupid thing. Next, how do I use it? Are there going to be driver issues or anything? I have seen several USB microphones and they claim to work with any recording software. What I can't tell though, is if they come with some sort of drivers, or if XP knows it is there. Can anyone help me?

I suggest you give up on the idea!, it's FAR more complicated than you think!, just buy one - or use your sound card mike input!.

 

[sjaguar13]

...I didn't think it would be easy, but it's $80 to buy one:
**broken link removed**

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

...I didn't think it would be easy, but it's $80 to buy one:
**broken link removed**

That looks a great bargain! - a decent condensor mike will cost about the same, and converting a mike signal to USB is seriously complicated, expect to spend weeks and hundreds of dollars doing it!.

 

[sjaguar13]

Okay, I will give up on that idea. But what makes it so complicated? If the microphone has 2 or 3 pins coming off of it and the USB port has 6 pins going in, I was hoping I could just put the microphone pins to the USB pins.

 

[Papabravo]

This appears to be a common theme. Without understanding the complexity of developing and creating circuits, people assume that because giant corporations can produce products for reasonable prices, that in some 19th century Wright Brothers fashion individuals can duplicate that process. The last time the economics of this proposition were in the individuals favor was the early 1960's when televisions were produced with vacuum tubes and point to point wiring. In those days a color TV kit was half the cost of a purchased televison. If your time was worth nothing then this was a good deal for some.

With modern automated surface mount assembly parts and processes it is exceedingly unlikely that any individual hobbyist can duplicate and lower the cost of any existing product by building only one.

The reason we do this is because we want to make one of something that does not exist. We are interested in advancing our skills and understanding the principals of electronics and circuit design. Certainly there is an exception for taking something apart and attempting to improve it. Any time you are tempted to think about it being cheaper you will invariably be wrong. That is just the way it is and you might as well get used to it.

 

[Papabravo]

....But what makes it so complicated? If the microphone has 2 or 3 pins coming off of it and the USB port has 6 pins going in, I was hoping I could just put the microphone pins to the USB pins.

That you could ask such a question and have such a hope is incredible. Short answer, the microphone pins contain a low level audio signal. The USB pins are a high speed digital data channel with different signal levels, impeadance, and drive requirements. In order to do what you want the low level audio signal needs to be amplified, digitized with an Analog to Digital converter, stored in memory, broken into packets and transmitted over the USB channel.

If you just want to use the physical connector you are free to do that. Just don't plug it into you computer and expect the sound to come out somewhere.

 

[sjaguar13]

This was going to be step 1 in making something better, something that right now can't do very much, but without this step, it looses almost all of the need to make it.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

This was going to be step 1 in making something better, something that right now can't do very much, but without this step, it looses almost all of the need to make it.

As Papabravo says, to do this you need a number of steps:

1: Convert the 5V USB supply to the 48V or so required to power the condensor mike (reasonably difficult).

2: Match the impedance of the mike, and provide amplification to make it a decent signal level (pretty easy).

3: Digitise the signal, probably at 44.1KHz or so, and store in a memory buffer (quite difficult).

4: Read the data from the buffer, package it as USB packets, and send it via the USB interface (very difficult).

5: Write drivers for the PC to receive the USB data stream and connect to the PC audio system (very difficult).

It's a seriously big job, if you have to ask you shouldn't even be considering it! - $80 is a steal for the ready made condensor mike!. If you seriously want to try and make one?, I'm prepared to help you - but would require a $5000 deposit to start with! (and that's probably VERY reasonable!).

 

[sjaguar13]

Thanks for the help, but screw the idea. This was step one and things only get harder from here.

 

[sjaguar13]

I was looking to see if I could find something cheap with a USB microphone, maybe not a condensor mic or anything like that, but a webcam...I found this:
**broken link removed**

I still might give up, but that seems to be what I need.

 

[Dr.EM]

Perfect! Buy an ordinary PC mic to connect to it and your sorted for a very low cost. However, the available quality from a PC mic is much less than that of the condenser you posted earlier, fine for speech, but what is the mic to be used for? I'm not sure what this microphone is that you have. A studio type mic (XLR) can be connected most simply by using a small mixing console into the line in on a soundcard/onboard sound.

 

[Papabravo]

I was looking to see if I could find something cheap with a USB microphone, maybe not a condensor mic or anything like that, but a webcam...I found this:
**broken link removed**

I still might give up, but that seems to be what I need.

If you buy this piece of crap for the advertized price, let us know if it even works. ROFLMAO!

That the shipping is worth more than the device should be a clue. The lousy English should be a second clue. If you buy it and it doesn't work -- who ya gonna call -- Ghostbusters!?!

 

[philba]

Hmmm. i agree that a newbie hasn't much of chance but it's not that hard to sample a single signal and turn it into a byte stream over USB. 44K isn't impossible though i suspect something lower is used - 11K covers most of the voice range. Of course, the effort will far outweigh the cost.

on that "USB to 5.1 sound" gizmo - I wonder how they get 5.1 channels out of a single channel mic input? blatant ********.

 

[Papabravo]

I take the reference to 5.1 not as the number of channels, but as an absurd reference to Dolby 5.1 theatre quality sound. Chaaa.... and monkeys will fly out my....Well you get the idea.

They must think occidentals are incredibly gullible.

 

[bigkim100]

Usb Camera

There are also a lot of VERY inexpensive USB Webcams that come with mikes built in. The one in fornt of me cost $12.00 at circuit city, and includes a built-in mic.If you were looking to adapt to a higher quality mic, then at least you could open one of these buggers, and work out a input jack that would bypass the cheap interior mic. Dont know if it can be done....other, more educated guys out there can say