Hey guys, feeling a bit frustrated for a while now.
I bought myself an “img stage line mmx-2usb” which has a built-in phantompower of 18V.
The problem is, I have no microphone yet but I planned to get one. I want to record acoustic-guitars as well as vocals with it.
So, the genius I am, I did not inform myself about phantompower before, and now I realize how stupid it was not to think about it before,
considering I’ve now got the problem of finding appropriate and compatible microphones. I found a lot of answers to my endless questions,
but one of them still remains: What microphones can I use with this phantompower now? I saw that a lot, if not ALL condenser mics require +48V!
The manual says that I shouldn’t use anything that doesnt require phantompower, so basically no dynamic mics now either.
Does anybody have an idea what I am supposed to do? The only thing I can’t do is getting a different audiointerface / mixer, considering my budget is limited to only a microphones-price now…
I wouldn’t worry about connecting a dynamic microphone. 18V phantom power is very rare in my experience, isn’t that used for some electret type microphones or something?
I’m not so sure, I haven’t been in business with microphones for long, as my experience might tell.
But I was really surprised that it has such low phantompower, where as most condenser mics need +48V…
Guess I’ll be connecting a dynamic then! Now, while we’re at it: Do you recommend any dynamic mics?
I am sure that you guys have mics and I’d like to get an idea of them to be able to choose better.
It’s a directional, small-diaphragm, low-powered condenser mic which can run on either phantom power or uses the internal battery (regular AA) in it’s absence so should perform happily on your 18V.
For vocals you really want a large-diaphragm condenser which typically need more juice (+48V) to power them and are normally quite expensive unless you get a bargain or a piece of junk.
However, there are a number of handheld vocal condenser mics that are designed for stage use but will generally give a clearer sound than a dynamic mic. Checkout the AKG C5 which will run on anything from 9V to 52V:
Hmm, these seem very fitting for my purposes! Though I should’ve mentioned what budget-limits I have…
I sadly can only spend about 50-100€, so around 135,67 US-Dollar at most. Is there anything I can get in that price-range?
Really almost everything is better than what I have right now, which is a freakin’ headset-mic. I searched for mics myself before,
but its not so easy with so many mics out there. Any suggestions, taking that budget-limit in account?
Dude, you’re not gonna get a decent studio mic for that price and even the cheapest Behringer or Samson condensers need 36 - 48V to power them, so you might want to look into a different mixer / interface for another brand or get a cheapo pre-amp for the one you’ve got.
I would get a semi-decent, cheap dynamic mic like a Sennheiser E825_S and make do with that for now. It won’t sound great but with some clever placement, maybe some double-tracking and a bit of crafty compression you should be able to get some respectable vocal and guitar recordings going on.
Yeah, I knew from the beginning that I won’t get really decent studio-quality in one smack, but at least I need -anything- that is better than the mic of a very, very cheap headset.
I will certainly get myself a Sennheiser E825_S, though I just want to check again: Are 18V of phantompower going to kill dynamic mics? There gotta be a good reason why they warn the owner, right?
Look, I’m not going to say I’m 100% sure it won’t harm your dynamic mic but I connected dozens of dynamic mics to phantom powered mixer groups and I’ve never had a single problem. On bigger mixers sometimes you can only switch phantom power per 12 tracks, there’s bound to be a dynamic mic in there somewhere.
