[ELECTRON] Contact Mics - Preamps and FETs

[Thomas Coles]

Hello all,

I've been a lurker for quite a while, but I've been getting more and more
into a bit of messing around with electronics, and had a few questions you
might be interested in / able to help on.

I've been working with piezo contact mics and have been having problems with
high voltages, and my recorder getting overloaded/clipping. A solution I
have found to this is building a FET amp as seen on this great page:
http://www.megalithia.com/sounds/tech/piezo/fetamp.html.

I was mostly wondering if anyone had experience on building DIY powered
(DD3) preamps, and using them on cheap contact mics? What are the pitfalls
etc? I am trying to record low frequencies, low amplitudes and drones -
really I need something to 'compress' the sound, drop the loud 'pops' from
impacts and boost the lower noises.

Also, the schematic on the site I linked looks pretty easy to put together,
but are there good needle-point soldering irons in the club room? (Mine is a
little like a bludgeon)

Cheers guys,

Tom

p.s. depressing news, Cameron to arrive at no.10


On 11 May 2010 17:33, Seb Bacon <seb.bacon at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Hope folks don't mind me posting questions like this here.
>
> In the electronics self-study group (meets each Tuesday night from
> 6pm, more people very welcome!) I'm trying to get to grips with some
> fundamentals, but it's a bit hard to progress on some stuff without an
> expert on hand.  So I might throw out a few dumb newbies questions.
> Like:
>
> On our wee lamps, it says 0.3mA, 3.5W.  What does that mean?  That the
> lamp performs most efficiently at that current and power?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Seb
>
> --
> skype: seb.bacon
> mobile: 07790 939224
> land: 020 8123 9473
>
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