New to the forum...a few questions

[sunjess]

Hey guys, just picked up my micro BR, seems to be a great tool. I have a question though. is it safe to mic my amp and input the 1/4 mic into the guitar input on the BR rather then the 1/8? Or should I get a 1/8 adapter for my 1/4 mic cable? Any pros/cons? Is the BR not really intended to have a amp mic'd and fed in? Should I just stick with the onboard features?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. This is my first attempt at actually recording my stuff. This is a great community and one of the reasons why I picked up the unit, there seems to be so many knowledgable people out there.

Take care

Doug

[Pedro]

Hi there, Doug!

Hey guys, just picked up my micro BR, seems to be a great tool. I have a question though. is it safe to mic my amp and input the 1/4 mic into the guitar input on the BR rather then the 1/8? Or should I get a 1/8 adapter for my 1/4 mic cable?

The main difference between 1/8 Line IN and 1/4 Guitar IN is the inpedance, which can be seen as a resistance to the signal. So, more inpedance means more resistance to the audio signal and that means less volume. I'm assuming your talking about a dynamic microphone. These microphones inpedances range from about 300 ohm to 10 Kohm. The inpedance in Line in is 16 kohm and in the Guitar IN is 1Mohm. So if you connect your microphone directly to any of these inputs, chances are you aren't going to get any sound because the inpedances don't match.

One way to solve this is to get an inpedance transformer or to pass the microphone signal through a mixer and then connecting the output of the mixer in the Line IN. Another way is to use Electret Microphones, these have the right inpedance to connect to Line In (with the Plugin Power on).

Anyway, first you can always try to plug it in and see if works. You won't damage anything. This is not a promise, though.

Any pros/cons? Is the BR not really intended to have a amp mic'd and fed in? Should I just stick with the onboard features?

The Micro BR can work like that. I must confess I've never tried it. I will try to make a search on the best way to capture sound from a microphoned guitar amp with Micro BR. I never really thought about that. Maybe other users can help.

More info about the inpedance: http://www.tape.com/resource/impedance.html

And the Electret Microphones:
http://microrecorders.org/articles/diy_electret_microbr_microphone.html

[sunjess]

thanks for the response!

I tried it, it does "work", but not that well if you try to mic your amp and use the guitar input. Deflated....I started messing around with the BR's effects. Wow, for such a small unit that thing packs a punch. For what I am using it for there is really no reason to mic my amp afterall, the effects that are built in sound pretty damn good to my ears.

[97teledlx]

I agree.  The sound effects are good.  BTW, I recorded my ovation adamas using the on board mike at approximately 2 ft from the guitar and is sounded better recorded than live! Next I will try recording it directly using the DI port and cable to see which sounds better. Good luck with your project!

[Pedro]

I agree.  The sound effects are good.  BTW, I recorded my ovation adamas using the on board mike at approximately 2 ft from the guitar and is sounded better recorded than live! Next I will try recording it directly using the DI port and cable to see which sounds better. Good luck with your project!

That guitar must sound awesome. Would like to hear it. I would say maybe DI sounds better. On most electro-acoustic guitars that seems to be the case.

[Pedro]

A more clean answer to this topic would be to use a Microphone Preamp. They amplify and convert the signal inpedance and have an 1/8 jack output suitable for conneting to the Line IN of Micro BR.