Hello all,
I was wondering what the best way is to combine the signal from two microphones. Some sort of super simple passive mixer I was thinking... My very basic knowledge of electronics has lead me to speculate on sending the signal of each through a diode so it can only go one way and not loose steam trying to drive the other microphone as if it were a speaker. Yes, thats right I really dont know what im talking about, hopefully my musing are lol-worthy and not jsut plain tradgic!
Any thoughts?
Cheers!
Mike
Hi Mike,
I don't know if you're intending to build this specifically, but Maplin do a passive 3 channel mic mixer for a tenner if that's any good to you?
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=36158&C=Froogle&U=36158&T=Module (http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=36158&C=Froogle&U=36158&T=Module)
something a like that is the sort of thing, it certainly looks like the level of simplicity im after. Any ideas on what circuit is inside the box then?!
Cheers!
Mike
I can't imagine there's much complexity to it. Try googling for passive mono mixer circuits or even pick one of those up and take it apart! :P
http://www.aaroncake.net/circuits/mixer2.asp (http://www.aaroncake.net/circuits/mixer2.asp)
http://www.circuitstoday.com/3-input-mic-mixer-circuit (http://www.circuitstoday.com/3-input-mic-mixer-circuit)
theres lots of circuits out there. This page is usually a good start
http://www.epanorama.net/circuits/#audiocir (http://www.epanorama.net/circuits/#audiocir)
Microphones are at a pretty low level to begin with, so really you do want some sort of active mixer. It can be a really simple circuit with just a single transistor preamp for each channel, followed by a couple of resistors to combine the outputs.
A diode definitely won't do it, but might give you some horrible crunching distortion that sounds like your speaker coil is rubbing on the magnet. This might be what you want.