Internal mic in hollow body guitar

[nicholaspaul]

I've heard of other people (Teuffel, for example) putting microphones inside a hollow guitar, and I wanted to give it a try. I'm looking for something unexpected and strange, so whatever it sounds like will be fine with me!
I bought a couple of 3.5mm lapel clip on mics on eBay to experiment with.3.5mm Jack Hand Free Clip On Mini Lapel Mic Microphone | eBay I cut off the plug of one, hooked up the shield to ground and the other wire to a point on the pickup selector switch. I got nothing. Not even a hum.
Is a mic like that likely to need a preamp inside the guitar?

[soundguruman]

I've heard of other people (Teuffel, for example) putting microphones inside a hollow guitar, and I wanted to give it a try. I'm looking for something unexpected and strange, so whatever it sounds like will be fine with me!
I bought a couple of 3.5mm lapel clip on mics on eBay to experiment with.3.5mm Jack Hand Free Clip On Mini Lapel Mic Microphone | eBay I cut off the plug of one, hooked up the shield to ground and the other wire to a point on the pickup selector switch. I got nothing. Not even a hum.
Is a mic like that likely to need a preamp inside the guitar?

It did not work, because you wired it wrong.
Microphones inside guitars don't work very well. You will have a lot of feedback and other problems.
It's OK to mic the guitar with a proper (condenser) mic, on a mic stand, or use a real pickup (recommended) such as DeAlmond guitar pickup, which fits in the sound hole.

[Jazz P Bass]

If you have any 'cherry' mikes left, measure the resistance from one of the tips to the sleeve.
Now measure the one that you cut & soldered.(i'll bet it is open circuit)
My take on it is the soldering did not go well.
Flimsy (ie: cheap) stereo cables have the wierdest wires.
Some kind of nonconductive braiding with a small wire buried inside it.
You will have to poke around inside the braiding until you find the actual conductor.
I use an ohmeter looking for the mic coil resistance.

[nicholaspaul]

It did not work, because you wired it wrong.
Microphones inside guitars don't work very well. You will have a lot of feedback and other problems.
It's OK to mic the guitar with a proper (condenser) mic, on a mic stand, or use a real pickup (recommended) such as DeAlmond guitar pickup, which fits in the sound hole.

" I'm looking for something unexpected and strange, so whatever it sounds like will be fine with me!"
How should it have been wired?

[nicholaspaul]

If you have any 'cherry' mikes left, measure the resistance from one of the tips to the sleeve.
Now measure the one that you cut & soldered.(i'll bet it is open circuit)
My take on it is the soldering did not go well.
Flimsy (ie: cheap) stereo cables have the wierdest wires.
Some kind of nonconductive braiding with a small wire buried inside it.
You will have to poke around inside the braiding until you find the actual conductor.
I use an ohmeter looking for the mic coil resistance.

The mic measures a whopping 1.15k. I tried testing continuity for each lead I stripped and it works fine. Measuring from wire to wire also measure 1.15k

[Jazz P Bass]

The mic itself should not care what it is plugged into.
As long as it can amplify.
It would be nice if you had a 3.5mm to a 1/4" adapter.
Then you could plug a 'cherry' mic direct into an amplifier.
At first, I would try the setup without the pickup selector.

[rjb]

How should it have been wired?

Your clip-ons are undoubtedly electret condensers that require a DC voltage source.

Everything you need to know is in this article and its external links: Electret microphone - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


-rb

[nicholaspaul]

Plugging in to an amp, mixer or fx unit doesn't work. Thanks rjb, I'll have a look.

[kurtdaniel]

It did not work, because you wired it wrong.
Microphones inside guitars don't work very well. You will have a lot of feedback and other problems.
It's OK to mic the guitar with a proper (condenser) mic, on a mic stand, or use a real pickup (recommended) such as DeAlmond guitar pickup, which fits in the sound hole.

Right,, im using DeAlmond pickups too back in my guitar classes.. its great.. it works perfectly for hollow guitars..

[rjb]

Right,, im using DeAlmond pickups too...

DeAlmond pickups aren't made any more. Unless you want to go vintage, you'll have to get DeFilbert pickups.

It's DeArmond, dudes.

-rb