Re: Completly OT but...

Owain <owain47125@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Mandy wrote:
Steve (hubby and tech support usually) says I need a microphone and
something or other to plug in to the computer, some software and a blank
CD. The blank CD isn't a problem and I can buy a microphone but it's the
thing I need help with is the doberry that needs to plug in to the
computer... does anyone know what Steve is talking about please? If you
know what he's on about can you explain it to this dumbo in words of one
sylable please?

Most computers will have a microphone input on their sound card.

It's only `dark side' PCs that are mostly fitted with sound cards. Most
computers don't have 'em at all; Macs don't, for example. And who's
going to bother with sound at all for commercial server computers? And
there are an awful lot of them.

Just to explain: Macs all have sound output (and I'd guess that about
half - seemingly at random; no correlation with cost or model type -
have sound input), but there's no sound card as such unless you want to
fit one (professionals do: they fit horribly expensive professional
quality sound cards if they're goint to be doing sound mixing or
similar). That's the usual computer way of doing it: either no sound,
or integrated sound circuitry. It's more efficient than going via the
PCI bus (or whatever add-on bus you have).

Electret microphones (the sort that have a little battery inside) tend
to be best.

No they're not. Proper dynamic microphones are best. But they produce
much lower output levels than electret mikes which means the sound card
might need a pre-amp to take a dynamic mike imput (I'd guess that most
would), and they're a lot more expensive (some are very lots more
expensive) and a lot bigger and /lot/ more fragile. Electret mikes are
the best *cheap* microphones around, and have a lot of uses when
cheapness and/or robustness are more important than absolute top sound
quality - which, let's face it, really isn't needed in this case. An
electret mike will do your job perfectly well - any complaints you might
have will be the fault of something other than the electret mike
(assuming you get one).

Note: electret mikes need a battery (or other power supply). That's
because the actual basic microphone produces such an incredibly tiny
output from such an awkward source that the only way to get a useful
signal out is to have an amplifier built into the microphone insert (a
single tiny transistor and a handful of other bits is all it takes). So
all electret mikes have a pre-amp built in (no exceptions except for
researchers, I'd guess) and they all need a battery to run it: this is
why I said they produce a bigger signal output than dynamic mikes, even
though it's not strictly true if you look inside the box. The battery
will run the amp (which is very small and very simple and low power
/and/ very high quality) for ages, but you do need to remember to switch
off 'cos it won't run the mike for months at a time...

If you don't have a microphone input on your sound card (or your sound
card is a bit crap) then you need a USB microphone pre-amplifier like this

No, a USB microphone analogue to digital converter. It might have a
pre-amp inside it, but that's not what you want it for.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Griffin-Technology-iMic-Audio-Interface/dp/B00006B
ALQ/ref=pd_bbs_3/202-5015614-2396631?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1188414574&
sr=8-3

You can also get USB microphones like this one, which would save a lot
of bother as IME getting a good match between a mic and a computer is a
bit hit-and-miss.

If one happens to have a proper spec *** with the sound card, there
should be no trouble: get a mike that matches the input. The place that
sells the microphone should be able to give you one that does if you
shove the spec *** in front of 'em - and if it doesn't, you take it
back and demand your money back 'cos they flogged you something that
wasn't fit for purpose.

Failing that, you're better off getting a wee microphone pre-amp to go
between the mike and sound card, rather than a USB sound input device or
USB mike.

What I've heard about USB sound input boxes is that they're crap; as are
USB mikes (and I really, really mean it about the mikes; I know a chap
who re-built the internal analogue circuitry of one model and reduced
the noise by - from memory - about a thousand-fold. No, I'm not joking:
that kind of improvement is perfectly practical in an engineering sense,
and the figures he gave were consistent with the circuit designs and
layouts (before and after) that he showed us).

(there's never been any trouble for those of us with Sun or Apple
computers: you just buy the mike designed for the sound input you've got
(it was a mate with the Suns).)

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Logitech-USB-Desktop-Microphone-Skype-MSN-Yahoo-etc_
W0QQitemZ130147378452

For software, audacity is popular and free/open source

A bit crap, though. The current stable version is very awkward in use -
bloody awful UI, and crap docs. No, I don't have any better
suggestionss.

Rowland.

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