Cheap lavaliers for the Tascam DR-40

Richard Crowley said:
"Plug-in power" microphones are not considered "professional"
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I know what you meant by this, but there are lots of examples of pros using unbalanced lav mics.

For instance the Sennheiser UHF body-pack mic systems are popular and used by many pros, but they used unbalanced plug-in power lavs, including the $400+ DPA and Sanken mics.

I've never experienced an interference issue caused by a short cabled lav mic plugged into a Sennheiser UHF system, though I've had interference from the UHF packs themselves. The short cabled unbalanced mics had nothing to do with the interference, and the newer Sennheiser G3 UHF diversity receivers have helped to minimize this problem.
 
TheDingo said:
... the Sennheiser UHF body-pack mic systems are popular and used by many pros, but they used unbalanced plug-in power lavs, including the $400+ DPA and Sanken mics.
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ALL electret mic capsules are unbalanced, "plug-in-power". That is the nature of electret mics. The difference between "consumer" and "professional" is that consumer gear takes the short-cut of just extending the medium-impedance, unbalanced output of the mic capsule, unbalanced all the way to the unbalanced (typically 3.5mm mini-phone) input connector in the recording gear. While professional equipment buffers the signal (inside the mic body, or on a belt-pack, in the XLR connector, etc.) into a low-impedance, balanced source that is robust enough to travel 100s (or even 1000s of feet) while rejecting common-mode interference along the way.

The short cabled unbalanced mics had nothing to do with the interference, and the newer Sennheiser G3 UHF diversity receivers have helped to minimize this problem.
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Then you have been lucky. Others have had significant problems even with the short length of unbalanced cable from the mic head to the transmitter. Note that the problem happens between the mic head and the transmitter (because of the unbalanced wiring). There is nothing you can do about that kind of interference/noise by the time it gets to the receiver. No amount of receiver sophistication can remove the noise at that point.

Diversity reception is used to "work around" multi-path transmission problems. It is a completely different problem than balanced or unbalanced audio signals.
 
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Richard Crowley said:
Then you have been lucky. Others have had significant problems even with the short length of unbalanced cable from the mic head to the transmitter
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Richard, is there any way to induce audio interference to test how well my unbalanced gear performs?

- I have had interference problems with unbalanced mics any time the mic cable gets much longer than 3-4 feet.

- I have also had interference problems with XLR balanced mics due to poor shielding of cheap XLR cable. ( switching to Canare star-quad XLR cable seemed to take care of this )
 
TheDingo said:
Richard, is there any way to induce audio interference to test how well my unbalanced gear performs?
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Clip a lav wireless to someone with a cell phone in their breast pocket. Cell phones (partiularly GSM) are miniature "jamming transmitters" in the best tradition of Cold-War USSR satellite countries. For that matter, the same happens with wired lavs. The unbalanced, medium impedance cable between the head and the impedance buffer is vulnerable.

- I have had interference problems with unbalanced mics any time the mic cable gets much longer than 3-4 feet.
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What is the nature of the interference? I have used 50-foot unbalanced cable between inexpensive "plug-in power" mics and little consumer camcorders. It is a matter of recognizing the nature and source of the interference, and therefore potential remedy. You can break many of the rules if you understand WHY they are "the rules".

- I have also had interference problems with XLR balanced mics due to poor shielding of cheap XLR cable. ( switching to Canare star-quad XLR cable seemed to take care of this )
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I guess I have been lucky there, also. I make my own cables, and I bought a couple of 500-ft rolls of "no-name" mic cable for $40 each. I have used almost all of it on various projects, etc. and I can't tell any difference in interference rejection between the "cheap stuff" and the expensive name-brand cable. I've also never observed any difference between ordinary shielded pair and star-quad. My memorable interference problems tend to be high-RF areas (right in the node of a nearby radio station transmitter). But the problem there is the susceptibility of the mic preamp input. There is almost nothing you can do about that with cable.

I would wager that switching to "name-brand" cable or star-quad simply replaced a damaged cable with a good one, and it had nothing to do with the "brand name" or the star-quad configuration. At least IME.
 
GrahamH said:
Steve, thanks for the reply. Actually, the ATR-3350 lavalier terminates in a "mono" 3.5 plug, not a stereo one. So I'm guessing that's the problem ... the Rode VXLR adapter is expecting a stereo plug.
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I found a solution ... I simply connected a "Dual 3.5mm Mono to 3.5mm Stereo" adapter to the Rode VXLR, and then plugged the 3.5mm output of the ATR-3350 into one of its mono ports. Works great.

Either of these adapters work: http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2102691
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000068O5H/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00

With the Radioshack adapter, connecting to either mono port works.
With the Hosa adapter, only connecting to the black mono port works. Not the red. Go figure!
 
Richard Crowley said:
"Plug-in power" microphones are not considered "professional". Their main problem is that they are not balanced, and much more susceptible to ambient interference. For that reason, professional mics use balanced/XLR connections which, by design, use P48 phantom power.

To be sure some "plug-in power" microphones are used by professionals for specialty applications. For example, they are useful for "destructive" applications where they can be written off as expendable.
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Now to be the Devils advocate here. A LOT has to do with the person dong the recording. Alen Splet won an Oscar for the sound on The Black Stalion. The waves were recorded with a Sony portable cassette recorder. "Profesional" is a good guideline but really the bottom line is what you produce. You can use total Sh&t equipment and produce great sound, and you can use the worlds greatest equipment and produce sh&t.

I would always go for the best you acn get your hands on but technique trumps equipment nine times out of ten.
 
colinut said:
I have to say that sounds pretty good for the money. there is a bit of noise there but it's hard to tell weather it was actual noise or the room.
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I cant tell whether the noise is the mic or the Tascam DR40. The Tascam seems to produce more noise when phantom power is on. I tried a comparison with a Rode NTG1 on phantom power and the floor noise was about the same. Less noise seems to come from the Tascam using internal mics.
 
I guess you could de-noise this in post anyways to a certain extent.
I think I might order one, probs their pro version.
Thanks Inveresk ;)
 
Hey there! Just wanted to say thanks to everyone on this thread for steering me in the right direction. I have a Tascam DR-40 and purchased the Micronic lav mics from this eBay link:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/PHANTOM-POW...nstruments_Microphones_MJ&hash=item3efcddfb72

They work really well, and are super inexpensive at less than $60 each. I bought two, and am very happy with the results. I also purchased these windscreens from B&H:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/885689-REG/FOAM_WINDSCREENS_f_1_4_DIAM_3-PK_BLK

Here's a link to a very recent video I shot and edited (GH3 footage) using the two Micronic lav mics and the Tascam DR-40:

http://newyorkstatesofmind.com/2013/11/12/zach-iscol-reaches-out-a-helping-hand/

I'm glad I took a chance on the recommendation on this thread, and I hope this helps other folks looking for good & cheap lav mics.
 
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