MightyOhm

Comic by Mandor. Thanks to Bryan Currey for bringing this one to my attention.

After being hassled by Chris about my audio quality on The Amp Hour for the past year, I finally broke down and upgraded my podcasting microphone setup.  Here are some photos of the new setup and some notes about my approach.

Here are most of the big (expensive) parts.  Clockwise from the upper left:

• Audio Technica AT2020 Condenser Microphone ($60 on eBay, I got the XLR version, not the USB version that Chris uses)
• ART Tube MP Microphone Preamplifier ($55 on eBay)
• Samson SP01 Shockmount Spider Mount ($24 on Amazon)
• Swing Arm Magnifying Lamp ($28 from Harbor Freight Tools)

A few more miscellaneous bits:

• 20 foot XLR M-F cable ($5 on eBay)
• 10 foot 1/4″ to 1/8″ cable ($0, made with spare parts)
• Nady MPF-6 6″ Pop Filter ($15 on Amazon)

I got the idea to convert a swing-arm desk lamp (often called an Architect’s Lamp) into a mic boom from the awesome site IKEA Hackers.  (Today I discovered that ham radio guys have been doing this for years.)

The closest IKEA is 40 minutes away, so instead I went to Harbor Freight Tools and bought the cheapest swing arm lamp I could find.  I removed the lamp portion (after you remove the adjusting knob, the shoulder-bolt can be removed and the lamp pulls out).  Then I cut the power cord and unthreaded it from the lamp.

The swivel mount on the Samson SP01 comes apart easily, exposing a handy flat mounting tab that could be used to bolt the spider mount to all sorts of things…

…including the desk lamp.  I used a 1/4″ nylon spacer to fill the gap left by the narrow tab on the shock mount and some lock-washers to keep the mount from rotating when the adjustment is tightened.  The original shoulder-bolt stripped (oops) so I replaced it with a beefier 10-32 bolt and corresponding nut.

While my initial tests with just the AT2020 mic were promising, I found that the swing-arm sagged under the extra weight of the shock mount.  To solve this problem, I drilled two extra holes at 1″ intervals from the original spring perch on the swing-arm.  This allows me to adjust the spring tension to balance the arm.  Now the mic stays where I put it.

Here is the finished setup.  I removed the heavy bracket and gooseneck from the pop filter and zip tied it to the front of the shock mount.  The spacing between the pop filter and the mic comes out just about right.

Here’s the mic preamp.  It’s got tubes!  The microphone connects to the preamp through the XLR cable.  The output of the preamp is connected to my PC’s line input through the junkbox 1/4″ to 1/8″ cable.

The best part about the swing arm setup is that when I’m not using the microphone, I can just swing it out of the way:

I’m really happy with the new setup, but you can judge it for yourself on this week’s episode of The Amp Hour (Xenomorphic Xerox Xebec).

I’m proud to announce that my cat Wilson has joined the Cats of Engineering, a corner of Adafruit Industries devoted to the feline companions of engineers.

Wilson is a frequent contributor to the blog (in the form of typos) and involved in most aspects of life here at MightyOhm.

More cuteness! (Flickr photos tagged with ‘wilson’)

People said that it gets hot here.

I thought that I understood hot. “I’ve lived in hot places before”, I said to myself.

Sure, Sacramento gets pretty warm in the summer. Maybe one or two weeks of 100+ weather in August.

But never have I experienced anything like this.

In January, we had snow one week and 70 degree weather the next. By February it was in the 80s, March and April in the mid-90s. By May, we had our first 100 degree day, and I suspect that it has only dipped below 100 briefly a couple times since.

The house AC has been running constantly, I’m scared to open the power bill every month, the lawn is dead (we’ve had just over 4 inches of rain so far this year), and I pretty much hide indoors anytime before midnight.

I guess the good thing is that unlike last August, when we first moved to Austin, the temps have been dipping down into the 70s at night. I remember when we first moved here, it was 100+ during the day and 95 at night.

That was rough.

Amusingly, when it’s this hot for this long, you do sort of get used to it. Kylie and I have gone out a few times lately and said to each other “wow, it’s nice out tonight”, then checked the weather:

95 degrees.

MSP430 enthusiast Mark sent us this Polish translation of the Soldering is Easy comic book.

Thanks, Mark!