Two mics into one iRiver

[gozar]

We are planning on doing some "man on the street" interviews, recording onto the iRiver 795. What would be the best way to do this? I've got two XLR mics (Nady something or other). I was thinking of just getting a XLR-> 1/4" adapter and plugging that into the iRiver, but it would be nice to use two mics. Is this possible with a two->one headphone adapter or should I look at something else?

[ferg]

a 2-1 headphone adapter would work, but the issue is that, with XLR mics (I'm assuming these don't require phantom power), you would need an impedence transformer for each, which to my knowledge are only available in XLR to 1/4", so you'd need to have each mic pluggedinto an imp. transformer, which is plugged into a 1/4" to 1/8" adapter, before the splitter. Due to the size of the impedence transformers, it will work best if the "splitter" is actually a Y cable, as opposed to just a little adapter, because with the adapter, you'll have trouble getting the imp. transformers close enough together.

All of that said, I'm not 100% sure the iRiver sends enough power to the mics to power 2 mics, but it's worth a shot.

there's also this:

http://reactivesounds.com/am2.php

[gozar]

what if I split the stereo mic inputs into two mono, one for the right and one for the left?

Is there a small battery powered mixer out there?

[Version3]

It might be an expensive solution, but you could check out BeachTek adapters for a solution to this. 2 XLR inputs, impedence transformers built in and the output is a stereo mini plug. This is a super quiet solution, and will allow you to control the input of each Mic (seperately on the box) and you can split them between L / R or dual mono. They are used a lot of video cameras, and I can't recommend them enough. They make them with and without phantom power. You can get them to adapt to other ouputs as well, just check their website.

www.beachtek.com

I just noticed they make a preamp too! Excellent!

[Craig]

I'd be amazed if the iRiver supplies enough power for even one studio dynamic mic.

Craig

[jeffoest]

I'll soon be in the position to tell the group. I'm going to try my Shure SM58 or Senn MD421 into the iRiver as soon as I get the following $15 cord from Sound Professionals (wired for dual-mono with a DC blocking cap added in).

http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/gold/item/SP-XLRF3-MINI-1

The folks at Sound Professionals (who also sell the iRiver) recommended this actually so it SHOULD work.

I'd be amazed if the iRiver supplies enough power for even one studio dynamic mic.

Craig

[Craig]

The folks at Sound Professionals (who also sell the iRiver) recommended this actually so it SHOULD work.
If it does I'll order one. (And be amazed!)

Craig

[jeffoest]

Yea, I know - I'm still a bit suspicious here... this mixing of professional and consumer equipment together seems kinda hoaxy. But for $15 what the heck? I figure worst case I'll get one of those portable pre-amps and just go into line-in. No biggie... but I'll definitely let you know....

The folks at Sound Professionals (who also sell the iRiver) recommended this actually so it SHOULD work.
If it does I'll order one. (And be amazed.)

Craig[/quote]

[ferg]

I'm inclined to think it would work.
I used to record my band gigs using the following setup:

2 Shure SM57s, each into an XLR to 1/4" impedence transformer.

Each of the 1/4" transformers went into a 1/4" to 1/8" mono adapter.

The 2 mono adapters went into a splitter (stereo 1/8" to 2 mono 1/8").

the 1/8" stereo went into the mic/line in of my portable sony DAT recorder.

No problem. Worked like a charm.
Now, I know that the iRiver is a completely diff't piece of equipment (that runs on 1 AA battery, no less), but the Sony DAT ran on only 4 AAs, and needed to power all the motors, etc, in the DAT, in addition to sending power to the mic.

I will tell you this - I continue to be impressed with my iRiver. It is amazing to me that you can get 3 1/2 hours 320KBps that sounds as good as it does for < $140. Gotta love technology.

On the topic of the iRiver - am I an idiot, or is there no way to set the level of the built-in mic?

[jeffoest]

Ferg, you know before I got into the podcast world, I had the old condensor / dynamic mic/ pre-amp / phantom power all nailed! But with things like 'plug-in power' and mini-plugs and so forth in the land of consumer audio I found (and am finding it) much more complex. (funny, you'd think it was the other way around).

I thought I pretty much nailed it (I wrote about this in another thread here somewhere) but now you bring up the impedance transformer and I'm thrown again. I sort of figured that since I was brining the dyamic mic into the mic-in and not the line-in I my impedence's would be matched already.

Oh - well I guess I'll find out when I get this cord/adapter that was recommended. I believe I'll know right away if the impedence doesn't match ;-)

I just bought my iRiver a couple of weeks ago and found that even at moderate voice levels, the internal mic was clipping all over the place. To answer your question - there is not way that I found to adjust that input. I DID find a work around though - it seems clip less when I set the recording to lower than the maximum sample rate. My hunch is that the higher frequencies of the larger sampling rates muck up the leveling but it's weird that they would design it that way.... (Craig said I should probably consider returning it but I figured I'd wait to see the responses from the 'real' mics - I also ordered a binaural stereo in-ear mic)...

[jeffoest]

Ferg, you know before I got into the podcast world, I had the old condensor / dynamic mic/ pre-amp / phantom power all nailed! But with things like 'plug-in power' and mini-plugs and so forth in the land of consumer audio I found (and am finding it) much more complex. (funny, you'd think it was the other way around).

I thought I pretty much nailed it (I wrote about this in another thread here somewhere) but now you bring up the impedance transformer and I'm thrown again. I sort of figured that since I was brining the dyamic mic into the mic-in and not the line-in I my impedence's would be matched already.

Oh - well I guess I'll find out when I get this cord/adapter that was recommended. I believe I'll know right away if the impedence doesn't match ;-)

I just bought my iRiver a couple of weeks ago and found that even at moderate voice levels, the internal mic was clipping all over the place. To answer your question - there is not way that I found to adjust that input. I DID find a work around though - it seems clip less when I set the recording to lower than the maximum sample rate. My hunch is that the higher frequencies of the larger sampling rates muck up the leveling but it's weird that they would design it that way.... (Craig said I should probably consider returning it but I figured I'd wait to see the responses from the 'real' mics - I also ordered a binaural stereo in-ear mic)...

OTOH, I set the iRiver with internal mic under a tree outside for about 15 minutes nad recorded. The birds and squirrels and wind were very audible and, ni fact, a dog barked two houses down (it wasn't really that loud to the ear when I was out there). When I exported it into my software to check levels, the dog barking nearly clipped the thing.. That is one 'hot' mic.

[ferg]

Jeff,

You may well be right about the impedence. I was looking at the specs for the cable you listed, and it certainly appears to be designed for the purpose for which you plan on using it....

I was justing bringing that up because my portable DAT was setup much the same as the iRiver (1 input doubled as line in and mic in)...I'm not 100% certain there's any difference between the 2 settings other than the recording level. Anyway - do let me know how it works out.

As an alternative, (and also at Craig's suggestion), I ordered one of these:

http://reactivesounds.com/rp1.php

and it works really, REALLY well. I cannot say how the quality compares to a sure dynamic on the same setup, but it does sound outstanding, for a $25 microphone. You simply hit record, and flip the "hold" switch, and it's like having a mic/recorder all in one..actually, the iRiver and this mic together are smaller than an SM58...

[ferg]

When I exported it into my software to check levels, the dog barking nearly clipped the thing.. That is one 'hot' mic.

Yah...it kind of drives me nuts - to me, it almost seems too hot to be of any use...except maybe recording a lecture from the back of the classroom.

That's why I got that other mini-mic...

[jeffoest]

Ahhh.. actually maybe that DOES make sense - I'll bet you're right - it was designed for students recording lectures easily figuring if anyone was going to do any 'real' recording, they'd use an external mic.

Yea, there's no way to know about the impedence on the iRiver inputs without experimenting - I looked for the specs on the iRiver site and couldn't find any - go figure.... I guess they figure people buying the iRiver wouldn't be using these in this way... Hmmm. I suppose I couldn've called or mailed iRiver - but I guess I just figured people were using them here successfully and I was lazy, lol.

I guess the good news is that there are easy work-arounds if that cord doesn't work. The impedence adapter you mentioned seems cheap and easy enough to snap on (glad you brought that up because I didn't know about those) PLUS I have a suspicion that at the end of the day I might end up with one of those mobile pre-amps (maybe even with input level meters!) and just go into the line-in. I think most mics sound better anyways with pre-amps though the downside is one more thing to bring along on a mobile recording adventure!

Good to know that those mics you mentioned work great - the binaruals I ordered are a very similar product so at least that one ought to work without a hitch.

Anyways, I'll report results when they come in.

[jeffoest]

Update - just got off the phone from Sound Profesionals. They haven't shipped it yet (it's been about a week and a half, maybe two weeks). They may ship it by this Friday. So it will be a while before I have anything to report. (guess I was used to amazon.com logistics....)... oh well

[jeffoest]

Update:

I got the cord from Sound Professionals. It works pretty well but there is a hum. Here is a sample using a Sennheiser MD421 dynamic mic with this 'special' cord into the iRiver. I recorded at 320 kbps and left the file at this size for comparison.

Incidentally, the stereo binaural mics are much less noisy and sound pretty cool.

http://www.thisandthatpodcast.com/PodcastAlley.mp3 (1:33)

[gozar]

We are planning on doing some "man on the street" interviews, recording onto the iRiver 795. What would be the best way to do this? I've got two XLR mics (Nady something or other). I was thinking of just getting a XLR-> 1/4" adapter and plugging that into the iRiver, but it would be nice to use two mics. Is this possible with a two->one headphone adapter or should I look at something else?

Just to close out this topic, I want to let everyone know about my setup which should help people in the future.

From the iRiver, I've got a 1/8" stereo to separate RCA jacks. Two mics are used, one into each side of the RCA jacks through a XLR->1/4"->1/4" coupler->1/4"->RCA. Each mic is separated, one into left, the other into right.

We will be trying it out Friday night at the Apple Store in Columbus. I'll post in the New Show announcements when the show is up so people can compare the sound quality. Thanks from everyone for their input!