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Connecting a Mic Without a Beachtek Box

bennyboytx's picture
Last seen: 3 months 4 weeks ago
Joined: 07/25/2010 - 4:26am

I got a wedding on saturday for a friend, first one i will ever do, and it might become more of a business than a hobby with the word of mouth going around. When i plan on doing interviews, i want the person to be able to talk into my sm58 for clear and crisp audio. My camcorder (Canon hf m30) has a 1/8" mic input. So questions...

If i get a 1/8" M to xlr F cable, does it matter if the 1/8 is in stereo or mono. I've read people complain of hissing and such.

Is there gonna be an impedence mismatch, i realize the mic is Low-z, but can the camera do Hi and Low z?

Where can i buy this?


birdcat's picture
Last seen: 8 months 1 week ago
Joined: 10/21/2005 - 10:09am
Plus Member Moderator

They sell impedance matching converters - Since you're short on time, go to your local Radio Shack and see what they have.

Don't forget to test before going live!

Bruce Paul 7Squared Productions http://www.7squared.com


EarlC's picture
Last seen: 2 months 3 weeks ago
Joined: 10/15/2008 - 1:15am
Plus Member Moderator

Radio Shack would be my first checkpoint for the cable. The cable SHOULD make everything work OK, more or less, for you, but I would absolutely do a couple sound checks prior to the event date. I've found cables that take a mono output and feed it into a LR signal that records the mono audio to both channels and this has not resulted in hissing or other problems. I use a couple different handhelds with no additional audio adaption and have received clear, clean sound. If you want to hear an example go here where I conducted some person-on-the-street interviews for Video StoryTellers! with a lot of surrounding noise, outdoors and got some really decent quality.

The six samples are, of course, the ones where you see the handhelds in the images ;-)


EarlC's picture
Last seen: 2 months 3 weeks ago
Joined: 10/15/2008 - 1:15am
Plus Member Moderator

I intended to warn you also to use some gaffer's tape or something and "dress" the connection in such a way as to support the mini-plug connection. I usually coil a loop or two of the cable/converter and tape it to the handle of the camera, making sure it doesn't get yanked out or the connection otherwise damaged if someone puts pressure on it.


bennyboytx's picture
Last seen: 3 months 4 weeks ago
Joined: 07/25/2010 - 4:26am

I received my stereo XLR F to mini stereo today, popped it in with my SM58 and hum ahoy, an impedance mismatch. Luckily I remembered that my HFM30 has a microphone attenuator and that "solved" the problem, I know the realistic way would be to buy a transformer to match the impedance, but that's off the budget. Unless there's a cheaper/better way to do this?

UPDATE: Somehow turning on and off the attenuator got rid of the hum, and i'm now picking up crystal clear audio with my 360 degree stereo mic. Strange.