"Cortado" Balanced Piezo Contact Mic kit now available from Zeppelin Design Labs
The Cortado is a diy piezo contact mic with a balanced, buffered, phantom-powered output. This properly matches the impedance of the piezo to your recorder input for very low noise and terrific frequency response.
Available from Zeppelin Design Labs in Chicago.
View our neat promo video here.
The Cortado is a diy piezo contact mic with a balanced, buffered, phantom-powered output. This properly matches the impedance of the piezo to your recorder input for very low noise and terrific frequency response.
Available from Zeppelin Design Labs in Chicago.
View our neat promo video here.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
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UPDATE: We recently determined that this circuit biases better with R8=680 ohm. I will replace the schematic soon.
Here is an audio recording of an entire (mostly acoustic) band mic'ed entirely with Cortado contact mics. The above video gives a glimpse of how we did it. More recording notes here.
https://soundcloud.com/zeppelin-design-labs/summertime-recorded-with-the-cortado-contact-mic
https://soundcloud.com/zeppelin-design-labs/summertime-recorded-with-the-cortado-contact-mic
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Fun customer build: Dan L of Spring Lake, Michigan sent us this photo of his Cortado Tin Can Mic mounted on a vintage gooseneck lamp base.
Probably not. But they do have some downloads of things recorded with them. It looks like fun and what do you think a real $25 balanced microphone sounds like?
There are dozens of quite nice mics based on the Panasonic capsules published on the web and if you move up to $7.50 or so there are capsules that rival commercial mics. Try the micbuilders Yahoo group.
The Cortado frequency response is about 300Hz - 20kHz. It can be easily modded to lower the low-end rolloff as far down as 20Hz. When built as a tin can mic, of course, what you hear is the response of the resonator, in this case a styrofoam cup in a soup can.
Yeah be a spoil sport. 🙂 For a lot of folks a kit is easier. The other issue is shipping. The mic may be $1-$2 and the other parts less than $5 but the shipping depending on where you are could be twice the total! (Go ahead point out the mic here has to be shipped also.)
Not everyone uses enough parts that shipping isn't an issue.
Then there is the issue of some folks like colored sound.
Something coming out for something going in is not the usual definition, how about a measured plot of +- 3dB frequency response. The pictured transducer looks like a Radio Shack piezo buzzer, the disk will have a huge resonant peak. The dimensions of the transducer preclude a flat response to 20kHz, it alone is > than a wavelength.
It's hard to take this seriously Scott Helmke's mic with Transound TSB-165A is within the reach of any DIY'er. http://www.scotthelmke.com/stereo-mic.html
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Scott,
This is the vendors bazaar. So if you want to sell your mics start a thread.
If folks want to play why not let them.
This is the vendors bazaar. So if you want to sell your mics start a thread.
If folks want to play why not let them.
You know I sell nothing, just that my threshold of tolerable inaccuracy was crossed. Nothing wrong with novelties or science fair projects.
I remind you of the time you jumped all over my junk box piston chamber even though the medical grade pressure transducer made it +-1dB with no calibration.
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The Hula Mic: We used a Cortado Balanced Contact Mic, a hula hoop and a wall clock to make this crazy vocal mic!
Read our Instructable
Hula Mic How-To Video
Read our Instructable
Hula Mic How-To Video
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