Clip-on mic in XLR connector (Alice)

[Klaus Mogensen]

Hi

I have been playing around with the Alice mic by Scott Helmke, which is my favorite instrument mike:

http://www.scotthelmke.com/alice-mic.html

I wanted to make a DPA/schoeps like clip-on mic by having the capsule, FET, 1G resistor and possible capacitor pad in a small housing, while having the rest in an external amplifier box. While fiddling with small aluminum housings and connections to a cable I realized that the Transound TSB-165A capsule fits perfectly into a XLR connector, thereby avoiding the trouble with the housing:

I sawed two ridges of about 1 cm so the xlr connector can expand a bit when the capsule is pressed in. Also holes where drilled for air on the backside. A thin metal mesh was used inside to cover the holes in order to suppress electrical noise. This particular mic has a 220 pF film capacitor in parallel to the capsule as a pad, because this mic is for percussion.

Here is a phantom powered four channel mic box. Another possibility for the pad is to use a four conductor mic cable and have a switch on the mic box to take the cap in and out of the circuit, which is probably a better solution.

Regards

Klaus
https://sites.google.com/site/klausdiy/

 

[Scodiddly]

That's a very nice 4x box for the circuit - dense packing!  And I never tried putting a 165A into an XLR, though now I'm wondering which brand you used.  One of those barrel adapters, maybe?