0:15 ..... or just repair / replace the USB Socket!

I really like this "DIY or buy?" series. I always ask myself that when I need something.

Are you sure your sound card did not affect the recording of the diy mic ? Because the studio mic has an integrated sound card that might be better than your computers internal one!

"usb studio microphone" is an oxymoron

I think this test is unfair. Electret microphones needs some housing to avoid the "echo". To make it somewhat similar, I at least would put the band-pass filter in the condenser mic.

Hey greatscott maybe you can make a diy or buy episode about lipo balance chargers, or even a episode on how to build them. Because there are not a lot of diy lipo balace chargers on the internet and buying one is a little bit expensive. Besides that, if we know how to make it we can make more safe battery packs in our diy devices, for instance: make an electric longboard with batterypack and built in charger so you only need to plug in an adapter and dont have to plug the bttery out everytime you charge or have a less save batterypack with a bms. I hope you will see this! And loove your vids, one of the best youtuber

I work with audio for a living and train high schoolers as well. This is an interesting and quality explanation of condenser mics from the functional standpoint. Definitely going to incorporate this video into my curriculum!

I think that reducing both filters (lowering the low pass and extending the high pass frequencies) could greatly improve the resulting sound of voice recording.

Excellent video! I have been using for years a diy mic in my videos. it works for me xD cheers

3:29 nice search suggestions

I just use a Samson Go mic. It's a steal for $40!

One project that I actually did. And it works well Kudos to great Scott for taking the time to make these projects and videos

You could have also replaced the usb port!

For the next diy or buy: a 3d printer

Can you do a DIY or buy episode for a professional quality studio mic with a nice capsule? Converting a phantom power studio mic to a USB mic with proper ADC would also be super awesome!

Love the DIY or Buy series. The DIY microphone definitely has its applications! Thanks for your schematic

Please make for DIY noise cancelling headphones

With your knowledge about electronics, wouldn't it be cheaper to replace the broken USB port?

U are a God in drawing understandable schematics. Seriously

I've built an microphone amplifier with the studio quality op-amp OPA2134PA made by Burr Brown. The sound quality is amazing! Super clear and very low noise. I recommend this amp absolutely.

I'm going to modify a TI84 graphing calculator to make phone calls. Now I know how to get the microphone working, thanks!

So that's what phantom power is about when talking about mics. I had always wondered. I assume the music was from audioblocks?

Thanks for the video - I have an old broken condenser mic at home which I was always too scared to try and fix but your explanations are helpful enough for me to try and look! :)

DIY or buy is actually a great series idea

Please do digital amplifier || DIY or Buy

Its time for a update on this Video. Watch DIY perks Building a quality USB-C microphone. And make a better one :)

Man do I wish I that I'd studied electrical engineering when I was younger. You make this look easy! thanks for the videos.

Thanks again for the awesome build and advice. I implemented your build for a simple Skype mic and worked like a charm. Your videos are youtube-electronics classics. Keep it up. Stay safe

I wouldn't have minded seeing you fix the old studio mic, I'm sure most of the quality is nested in that capsule

Nice job yaar... Don't be upset over negative comments.

Oh, you made me remind the glory days of ham radio... I used to do those kind of amplifiers, but on that configuration the noise level is to high when connected to Power supply. We used to connect it with 9v batts. I remember to make one with pair differential input, that way you zero'd all the interference captured in the mic line.

GREATSCOTT You have slight background noise in your video besides your voice and background music from 4:12 . Just a week ago I got RODE NT USB microphone and it works like charm. Also no matter what microphone you use you always have to Normalize, Equalize, Compress, Limit and again Normalize sound waves to get better results. Also with proper Voice modulation and Software use one can get very decent voice over even from cheap Electret microphone i.e., headphone microphone. But to do song recording you definitely need better studio grade microphone. As usual this was again a great video which I enjoyed a lot. YOU SIMPLY ROCK!!!!!

The DIY version can definitely sound better with shielding. ( I think )😂

Op-amps NEVER produce faithful amplified signals. They ALWAYS distort analog signals, even if they claim to be 'designed for audio amplification', because they amplify signal at varying levels depending on their frequency. Use op-amps for low quality audio applications, single frequency applications (like RC control signal boosting), digital signal boosting at low data rates, or a few other applications they are useful for. A higher quality audio amp used instead of an op-amp would make a huge difference. This would require a powered circuit and increase the bulk of the design, but we are talking about studio sized mics, so that is no problem. You could use a high quality IC amp made for audio or a set of JFETs with accompanying components for the audio amp section. A minor change to the circuit with minimal cost for the IC option and there are several that would work well. There were 2 mistakes in the design that also effected the quality of the audio. First, you need a few noise floor filters to remove inherent noise in the circuit and any light background noise. This can be done with op-amps in the correct configuration or by discrete parts. One goes between the mic and the first audio amp stage, in between any other amp stages, and one right before the output. This will do noise reduction in the entire circuit and keep the amps from raising the noise floor. Second, your band pass filter was at the wrong frequency ranges. You used the range for the human voice's primary frequencies. This works fine for a telephone call, but it cuts off resonant frequencies that add to the sound of the human voice and music. 20 Hz to 20 kHz is the hearing range of a young, healthy adult. Mics like this can have problems picking up both very low and high frequencies, but for voice it is not really a problem. Music is a different story. A bandpass filter set to 20-20k Hz right after the noise filter at each stage and the initial would be the best filtering solution. You do not need one on the output since the sound card has a bandpass filter built in. There is also the consideration of what your sound card had for the sample rate on its analog to digital converter. This can make a massive difference on sound quality. The USB studio mics would have a very high and high bit-width output from theirs and would have told Windows through the USB connection to use the correct sample rate. Many sound cards built into motherboards are not of very high quality, but there also is the possibility that Windows defaulted to a low sample rate. Go into the mic properties and try turning the sample rate up.

Woww.. His writing and straight hands.. Omg

I think I finally understand high and low pass filters as a side effect. Awesome video...thanks

Hey, maybe you can make a small surveillance system (camera and network to connect to phone) for your shed? Using a camera and seeing whenever someone is in the frame of the camera. Also you can have it notify you if there is. You can compare a DIY or whether to buy it.

Does it sound any different going into a quality USB ADC?

This is great. Now i have the solution to my camera Microphone recording. Small and compact for this kind of use. Wooow wat a great project Scott

I'd love to see this revisited with what DIY Perks just did.

I know this question is 6yrs late😅 but why didn't you use a positive and negative 5volt for the op amp. I'm trying to learn how to use op amps so forgive the noob question 😅. 6:50

please can you do 3d printer diy or buy?

I like ur enthusiasm for electronics

I love those tiny micros - Built a custom UNO shield just for this that supports all tiny micros with some dedicated test sockets too. you can find it on tindie - Just type 'All ATtiny Arduino programmer shield'

3:29 converse CONDOMS convertible contact lenses concealer conversion van like if you too edit: thank you guys for all of this likes never had so many :)

Your efforts always add quantum shift to my growing understanding. Thanks and best wishes 😊👍

FUGGING AWESOME DUDE!!!! Two thumbs up! I can't even fathom how you got 337 "thumbs down" on this! But, then again, out of well over 1,000 YT vids that I've watched - i've NEVER seen one that didn't have a few hundred "thumbs downs"... HUMANS!!! Whatevah... I've done this audio/electronic stuff for well over 40 years now - but I am gonna post this on FB to show my friends the kind of stuff that I do. They have no clue and (like most engineers) you probably explained it to the general populous better than I could... LOL! The only thing that could have made it better was if you were to show the results of the noise results before and after you added the 5532 preamp. The 5532 (also know as the NE5532) is a great chip and was utilized in many many pro-audio consoles back in the day! Also, that big (non-electret) TRUE condenser diaphragm IS available by itself! Those are mainly made in China. No, not "gold sputtered" like the Neumann's or AKG's - but "close enough". It would be nice to see you compare your cheap favorite Chinese clone mic TO a Neumann - and then also to DIY a U88 with your fav mic - and a Neumann (if you can find or rent one). Also, you might want to use a better mic pre than "the green jack" found on EVERY PC. The USB jack mic uses a much better converter than your standard computer - and KUDOS to opening up the mic to show us what it is - but the converter I use cost $1,000 (when it was new) and is obviously quite better than either that you are using. You are almost giving your DIY mike quite a disadvantage by plugging it into a cheap computer A/D (aka "the green jack"). Usually that doesn't matter - but to us "golden ears" types, it does! AND if doing a "real world" test between the two, ummm... the MP3 quality of youtube is not the way! How about a 24 bit/96K UNCOMPRESSED WAV (or the Apple format) to show us the REAL sound of these mics!

GreatScott! I hope one day you will make a video ( not a project ) but a video on how you succeeded in electronics. Electronics is so tough but you can make it somehow easier for someone to learn.

Hey scott, great video! Very interesting. I wonder, could you show how to make a noise cancelling circuit for such a microphone to increase the audio quality? Or perhaps for noise cancelling headphones?

I would like to see a video on shift registers. Never fully understood how they worked or what purpose they served.

It's important to understand that there are 3 kind of microphones. Pure dynamic microphones that actually generate very small amount of electricity from sound waves, electret microphones that require 3-5 V bias voltage (also called plug-in power) that this video is about and condensator microphones that require 48 V phantom voltage. The problem is that many electret microphones are incorrectly advertised as dynamic microphones and people end up claiming that some microphone is not compatible with some device when the device only supports dynamic microphone and user tries to use (incorrectly advertised?) electret microphone.

Interestingly, I'm doing a mix of DIY and BUY with my mic. Few months ago I bought a Neewer NW-700 mic kit (comes with a mic, phatnom power supply, XLR cable, XLR-phono cable, boom arm, and pop filters all in a USD$60 kit), but I completely forgot that analogue condenser mics produce signals only a hundred or two millivolts strong. So I'm intermittently (when I can motivate myself) DIYing a pre-amplifier to boost the mic's output for recording. And mostly using jellybean components. The op amp I'm using is the LM324 quad op amp, with two utilized for the left/right channels of the mic output, and a third acting as just a voltage follower to buffer the 2.5V DC offset for the other op amps. I'm at the point where I just need to breadboard it and test it out to make sure that it works like it should. :)

Awsome Video Dear Scott!

Can you please make DIY or BUY episode on RC transmitter and receiver ?

Great Job @GreatScott! making this video

Thank u so much man! Cuz of u I made a mic preamp and it almost costs 1$ and it sounds good enough for normal use 🙂

8:59 lel quite disapointed for a 57€ RODE mic... t. bone are the best haha

DIY or buy 4k 60fps camera are you up for the challenge

Excellent video. Watched this 5 minutes after I ordered my new USB studio microphone. After all, it still was a good choice. Thanks for sharing.

I would be interested in seeing a follow up episode on how you could improve this design for a mic. Other Interested Topics: DIY Drone DIY Analog Audio In to Digital Audio self contained device (not using sound card).

Is it because of the high pass filter?

great video! suggestion: diy or buy: arduino (buy e.g an arduino uno or use an atmega chip and build the "fancy stuff" like headers, regulator, ftdi chip, ... arount it yourself)

Like your result. Quality compares to what I experienced when I did my electret microphone tutorial. The small capsules and the soundcard ADCs are basically too bad to get a good result.

Huge fan of your diagrams and penmanship.

*Can I get the Schematic for this Project, Please*

3:27 searches....

Nice video, I've got an idea for improvements to the circuitry: 1. The op-amp could be replaced with an ordinary audio transistor for a simpler circuit using less parts without hampering it's performance! 2. Adding a RIAA (or similar) filter to the circuit to suppress the higher frequencies, which should make the output less "tinny"... N.B. It's the latter of the two which will make the output quality nearly indistinguishable from the high-end mic! Also, output filter cap. It's not there, which could hurt certain devices when this is plugged in due to the 2.5V bias on the output! Analog designs can be a headache, but it's worth it to make as good a circuit as you possibly can...

An electret microphone module, which has a microphone mounted on a small pcb with a MAX4466 pre-amp, is available on ebay for about 3 euro. The gain is adjustable from 25 to 125.

I would like to see a diy/buy version for synthesizers e.g. 8-bit synthesizers. Great job you did tho

Great video. Diy or buy quadcopter : D

Summary of the great scott : builds complete projects out scrap, knows a lot about electronics, has quiet a lot of experience but doesnt replace a broken usb port.

I was into audio for 5 years or so, but I only know a little about electronics (so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). Anyways the quality isn't necessarily bad, it's just lacking frequency range.... Considering you added/applied your own filters over the raw output of the microphone, try raising the low-pass filter (to around 20khz), and/or increase the slope a bit at the cutoff(s), and I bet that mic will sound twice as good. Also make sure you're recording at 96khz sample rate to be safe or a minimum of 44.1khz. As someone else pointed out the consumer mic has a built-in soundcard/adc and those certainly vary in sound-quality.

Please give us a PCB card

diy or buy variable lab bench power supply.

Normal tech guys: ill change the usb port so it works again. Scott: lets buy a new one

yeah maybe there are high quality electrets which allow higher qualities ? As always, amazing video !!

I would like to see DIY or BUY wall adapter. May be 12 V 2A or similar

Nice video, but Why you do not use your own diy soldering station for soldering the electronic components?

I like this series a lot

I can't remember what the company was, but you can buy the high quality capacitor mic element and hook it into the same circuit as the electret capsule, you'll just need a jfet since most of those larger diameter microphones don't have one built in like the little electret.

Buy or DIY a baby?

Diy or buy a drone

As always, a great video! Thanks Scott

Great video as always! I would definitely love a video about "how does a tuner work".

how about building your own MP3 player?

DIY or buy crippling depression

Audacity has more uses than just testing DIY mics. My mom used to record youtube music before I told her about KZfaq MP3 downloader websites and I recently digitized a cassette tape using it, the line in on my PC and a cassette tape player/recorder.

Thanks, this was a good explanation of the differences between a condenser and electret microphone, the schematics for the microphone preamplifier where also interesting.

How about a Diy or Buy Episode on bright 18650 powered flashlights with an Output of 350-1000 Lumens?

can you make next video DIY or Buy with remote control car ?

I used the LM386 audio amplifier, and when I played it through the computer, it sounded almost exactly as I would hear my voice when I'm talking.

Hi Scott ! I really like those 'diy or buy' videos. Could you make more of them ?

I’ve notice he’s a Lefty....

7:31 After a mere 30 minutes of -soldering- burning you fingers off

I have the exact same 440 mic! Before leaving England I used to buy all my music stuff from thomann in Germany! They had the best prices around, and obviously no import tax from the EU. Sadly, it's hard to find good value quality stuff in Australia where I am now.

GEAT SCOTT! Another great great scott video!

jump to 2:18 to skip the ad

DIY or Buy: beard

i watched this 3 years ago on release ... got bored so im watching again

I stumbled across this video while looking for DIY intercom systems to aid in communication across Perspex barriers (COVID-19). Since the cheapest electret mics have peaks that emphasize articulations in human speech, it's clear that these are better suited to my purpose than large diaphragm condenser mics, especially in an environment with a lot of background noise.