Connecting a Mic Without a Beachtek Box

[bennyboytx]

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]

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!

[EarlC]

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]

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]

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.

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