Mini-stereo mic into soundcard

I

ivan

Logician
I'm in need of some help connecting a stereo mic to my system:
I'm trying to connect an electret condenser stereo mic into my external sound-card. The mic has a male mini stereo (1/8") plug, and the sound-card has the following inputs:

Mic (XLR)
Guitar (1/4")
S/PDIF (single RCA in)
Unbalanced line inputs (pair of 1/4" ins)

I'm thinking I could get an adaptor (1/8" to XLR) and plug into the Mic input. I'm not sure if there's any other way I could do it, and even then, I'm not sure I'd be receiving a stereo signal. Stereo is not crucial for my current needs, but it would be nice if there was a way to do it.

For reference, the mic is a Sony ECM-DS70P, and the sound-card is an M-Audio FireWire Solo.

Thanks for any and all help!
 
For stereo recording you need two mic inputs. I am not sure what you get when you take a mini-TRS to XLR adapter but definitely no stereo. Rather something strange because your XLR is a 1-channel balanced input. It expects two identical but phase reversed signals from one source (= one mic in this case).

You need to disconnect either the tip or the ring of the stereo mini plug and solder the remaining lead to both, tip and ring. I think you cannot do this with your mic, you might need to make your own adapter for that or get a Y-cable that converts from mini-TRS to 2xmono and use just one of the mono plugs.

However you do it, you need a mono output from the mic and what you finally want is this:
20090323-j32jn486ngnhkgbfc9xpuk48p7.jpg

(Source: http://www.rane.com/note110.html)

The better solution is to buy a 2-channel mic preamp and use the 2 line inputs of your interface. There are some cheap models on the market but of course, most cheap preamps sound cheap.
 
Your electret mike is unbalanced, there are 2 channels (tip and ring) and common on its 1/8 connector. You can use the adapter Peter described - it should work but you'll get only one channel from your mike (depending on what you connect to pin 2 of xlr - tip or ring).
I personally wouldn't bother getting dedicated preamp 'cause this electret mike won't give you the good quality. If you need a good stereo recording consider getting a decent pair of mikes and a good 2-channels pre instead.
 
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