XLR to mini problems

R

rbullen

New member
I am a new, very new, user of the DVX100b. I have yet to buy a good XLR mic and so was hoping to be able to use the existing mini mics I have with an XLR adapter in the mean time.
I tried yesterday to use both a Sennheiser MKE 300 shotgun (which has power) and a Sony Lav (which does not have power but could as I have a condenser for it.) Neither of these mics worked with the camera. I know both mics work (I tried on another camera) and I tried all sorts of configurations on the DVX but no audio was heard. Is it possible that the efforts are futile and these mics will not work with an adapter?
(I should add I am using a 1/4" Jack-to-A3M XLR Plug Adapter/Transformer with a 1/4" - mini adapter. Crazy I know.) I was just trying to make due for now. Please help!
 
Well any of the mini plug mic's that need power need a special kind of power that is not available on the DVX100 so I would not count on those ever working. I have no idea what your talking about when you say you have a "condenser" for it. The only use of that word that comes close to a power source for mic's that I know of is the British term (what americans call capacitors the british call condensers (the reason some mics are called condenser mics)).

Are your settings on the DVX correct? External mic, etc. It sounds like you are using the right adapters.
 
Thank you.
I meant the lav is a condenser mic and that it has a power source if needed. I selected correct input and external mic setting but I just could not get a level. I tried cables in both channels, with phantom and without, and everything else I could think of. I am perplexed. Seems I must be missing a setting or something somewhere.
 
Have you tried plugging the mic straight in with just an adapter? I am curious why you have an adapter with a transformer in it.
 
Yes, I tried using the lav with no transformer as well as just plugging the Sennheiser into the adapter as well. Couldn't get either to work.
 
rbullen said:
I am a new, very new, user of the DVX100b. I have yet to buy a good XLR mic and so was hoping to be able to use the existing mini mics I have with an XLR adapter in the mean time.
I tried yesterday to use both a Sennheiser MKE 300 shotgun (which has power) and a Sony Lav (which does not have power but could as I have a condenser for it.) Neither of these mics worked with the camera. I know both mics work (I tried on another camera) and I tried all sorts of configurations on the DVX but no audio was heard. Is it possible that the efforts are futile and these mics will not work with an adapter?
(I should add I am using a 1/4" Jack-to-A3M XLR Plug Adapter/Transformer with a 1/4" - mini adapter. Crazy I know.) I was just trying to make due for now. Please help!
Click to expand...

I suspect that your stacked adapters are the culprit here. Something in the maze of TRS/TS combinations possible with various music shop adapters is shorting the signal to ground, or it could be that your transformer adapter is intended to connect a guitar to a mic level input or something like that. If the particular combination of adapters you've cobbled together results in connecting XLR pin 2 to XLR pin 3 your signal is history and that can easily happen mixing various balanced-to-balanced with balanced-to-unbalanced with stereo-to-mono adapters. There's more to it than just the physical sizes of the jacks and plugs and Lord only knows what particular combination it is that you have ended up with there.

Invest $20 and get a Rode VXLR adapter - it's designed to connect their Videomic to an XLR input and is just what you need. It adapts 1/8 TS or TRS to XLR-M with tip (and ring of a TRS) going to pin 2, sleeve going to both pin 3 and pin 1. That's the correct arrangment regardless of whether you're plugging in a mono mic with a TS connector, a mono mic with a TRS connector with tip and ring connected so it puts the same signal on the camera's left and right channels when plugged into a stereo mic input (the Videomic uses this one, for example), or even a stereo mic that you want to downmix to mono into the XLR input. OR you can make your own with a couple of Radio Shack connectors and a bit of cable if you're handy with a soldering iron.
 
Last edited:
OR you can make your own with a couple of Radio Shack connectors and a bit of cable if you're handy with a soldering iron.
Click to expand...

I have that exact mic, and that is exactly what I did. Works great! Just bought a Neutrik XLR and cut the 1/8 mini off and resoldered it.
 
Doc Bernard said:
Have you tried plugging the mic straight in with just an adapter? I am curious why you have an adapter with a transformer in it.
Click to expand...

The reason you would do this is because your connecting an unbalanced mic to a balanced mic in. In many cases you can just short one leg of the balanced side to ground but not always and this can in fact damage some equipment (actually while this is true for line level I'm not sure if that is much of a danger with mic level signals except visa vis phantom power) , and of course is a very bad idea if you flip on the phantom power. A balancing transformer solves all of the above and will not fry your phantom power supply if it's not protected and you switch it on. You should, I believe, be shorting through a resistor to help solve some of the above, but a transformer is still the more "proper" way to go from unbalance to balanced.
 
rbullen said:
Thank you.
I meant the lav is a condenser mic and that it has a power source if needed. I selected correct input and external mic setting but I just could not get a level. I tried cables in both channels, with phantom and without, and everything else I could think of. I am perplexed. Seems I must be missing a setting or something somewhere.
Click to expand...

You might want to check the mics again. If you hit them with phantom power with out the transformer you could have damaged them. The power they are expecting is around 3 volts and if you hit them with 48 volts... Probably they are OK since most stuff has some sort of overload protection but I would check them out before going further.

OK stupid question. Is your level up on the mic in? And are you on mic rather than line in?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top