portable mic suggestions for Teenage Engineering Pocket Operator(s)?

April 1, 2018 11:23 AM

Looking for an affordable, decent, self-powered small mic to use for sampling with my PO-35. Yes, I know I can line in from anything (my old cd player, mixer, audio interface, adapt a fancier mic, etc) but I'd rather not, in the name of super portable funz. I don't want the cheapest thing out there, because the built-in mic is already doing an approximate job of that. I know I could get a used SM57 or something like it to work, buuut is heavier than I'd like. Thx audio gadget mefiters!
posted by bitterkitten to Technology (5 answers total)

Search Amazon for "karaoke mic" and see if that might work. It's self-powered and lighter than a professional mic.
posted by irisclara at 11:55 AM on April 1, 2018

Best answer: For clarification, it looks like you only have a 3.5" jack to work with that expects a line-level signal. You're not getting a usable signal into that from a SM57 without a preamp (and you already said that's too heavy). Your best bet is something like a small diaphragm condenser; for your purposes maybe a lavalier mic. Audio-Technica makes a bunch of good ones - you can go from cheap and self-contained (that one should plug right into your device) to fairly high-quality with an external preamp power-pack.

I have used the latter as a banjo mic for several years.
posted by aspersioncast at 2:03 PM on April 1, 2018 [2 favorites]

Best answer: On the super-inexpensive end at $40 US, the Samson Go Mic is a tiny condenser smaller than my cell phone. It delivers great sound quality for the price- enough to hear pages turning during a narration or voice over session.

The Zoom h4n is about $170 and offers better ergonomics, sound quality and usability down the road: The h4n itself is a big upgrade to internal camera mics if you end up recording video, but also has the capability to power an external mic like a Rode NTG-4 (or any other XLR mic), although it may not have quite enough juice for a dynamic like the sm57.
posted by Giggilituffin at 2:05 PM on April 1, 2018 [1 favorite]

Best answer: The operator-1.com forum is a pretty good resource for anything pocket operator related - e.g. here and here. The threads about external mics for OP-1s and POs should all be relevant for your needs. The main things are that you need a 1/8" jack and a self-powering mic. My vote would be for a Zoom H1N. It had a recent upgrade in 2018, is super affordable ($78 on amazon) and portable, and gets the job done decently enough. I've got one and love it. As a bonus, you can also use the Zoom H1N to back up your data and recordings from the PO-35, it's one of the best ways to do that.

That said, I've got a PO-33 and find the built-in mic to be more than adequate for my needs. These pocket operators are 8-bit sampling anyway, so I'm not entirely sure the quality will be greatly improved when you upgrade the microphone. It's going to sound gritty and lo-fi by design.
posted by naju at 8:03 PM on April 2, 2018

Ah, correction - the older model is $78, the 2018 model is $120. Still pretty affordable!
posted by naju at 8:10 PM on April 2, 2018