Awesome! I'll definitely be picking up one (or more) of these. I'm planning to make a noise box and hydrophone, so these will be incredibly helpful for those projects.
Hi, Great informative video. I am interested in buying the DIY kit but wondering if we could use a plastic box instead of metal to eliminate the need to ground the box? will that affect output?
Hi, the box needs to be grounded metal to prevent the mic from picking up electromagnetic radiation and humming at 50 or 60 Hz. you could use a plastic box but you would have to line it with metal foil or conductive paint and ground that to prevent hum.
Your contact mic series of videos are great and inspired me a lot. I have few questions. I am a graduate student studying MEMS piezoeletric microphones. From calculations, I know that its capacitance is only 100~50pF. Do you think I can use your design for my microphone? Or how can I change it to match my microphone? Thx
Recommendations for recording significantly attenuated noises around 40 dB (since I hear them far away should I consider -40 dB?) and above? I await info critical to me. Thank you very much.
Thanks for your work! So I can use the DIY Kit to connect it directly to headphones? I would love to wander around with a portable thing with headphones to put the contactmic on anything I see and listen to it.
You would probably want to run the output of the DIY kit into a headphone amplifier, TI and Analog Devices both have many to choose from. I also have a phantom powered version of this kit that works really well with handheld audio recorders. I use mine with a Zoom H4N so I can monitor the sound live with headphones. (I also sell a complete phantom-powered mic if you don't want a DIY project).
Hello! Can I solder four wires instead of two to get two different signals from one sensor? I wouldn't want to use a splitter or a second sensor, I want a small difference in phase and harmonics from one sensor.
You can solder on 4 wires, but I think the signal on the second pair of wires will be identical to the first. This is because both layers of the sensor are conductive, so the voltage should be uniform everywhere on the disc at all times. I'm brainstorming here, but I wonder if it would be possible to cut the ceramic material on the disc in half, then you might get slightly different signals on each half. I'm not sure if this would be different than using two sensors side by side.
I m asking because I am considering buying the kit. If I connect, for example, 3 piezzos, can all of them go into the p+ and p- pins? Thank you for your advice.
@@zsoltyszabo I just tried it with 2 piezos and it does work, three should work also. I'm sure you realize that this dosen't give stereo sound, it just mixes the two discs to mono. It could be useful if you wanted to get sound from different parts of an instrument and mix them all together.
Sounds like a great idea to me! I enjoyed the video it was quite inspiring but for the end where the technical side of grounding became less inspiring, but seems straight forward. I imagine once news gets out your kit would become quite popular, good luck 😊
Hi, as far as I know aluminium reacts with oxygen from the air to form aluminiumoxide, which is an insulator. So, how can it shield the piezo disc when it is isolated from ground? Would copper foil not be better?
That is an interesting question and I'm not sure I totally understand the physics of it; You are right that annodized aluminum does not have a conductive surface owing to the thick aluminum oxide. On the other hand I just very gently tested a piece of aluminum foil that has been sitting in open air for over a year and its surface very much is conductive, so evidently whatever oxide is there isn't enough to affect the conductiviry.
If you suspend the discs by calipers and measure it, you will find that larger discs have lower resonant frequencies. Larger discs also have a wierder frequency responses with many peaks, while smaller discs have flatter responses; or at least the wierdness of small discs is high in the frequency range where it dosen't matter. If you stick the disc to something massive like a wall, the peaks mostly flatten out. There isn't really any difference in sensitivity between large and small discs. I need to make a video about this.
Hello, I would be interested to know if this system would be a good fit to capture the “click” part of the sound of a kick drum. I have hung a senheiser on the front beater head just for this job. Would be cool to have this disc attached to the head and be able to capture mainly high freq area.
@@roq_itrecordingstudio4152 I think it should work but I dont't have a kick drum here to test it with. The only issue is that sometimes the sound distorts for really loud sounds. For example if you put the mic on a cymbal and hit it as hard as you can with a hickory drumstick, the sound will distort. I think the bass drum should be fine. I would put the disc on the very edge of the drum head, you can get very crisp highs there, I show it with djembe in my most recent video with the phantom powered version of this board.
I made a blog post about how to phantom-power this board: metalmarshmallow.com/blog_post.php?id=9
Awesome! I'll definitely be picking up one (or more) of these. I'm planning to make a noise box and hydrophone, so these will be incredibly helpful for those projects.
Based in the required voltage I assume this should work with plug-in microphone power?
Hi, Great informative video. I am interested in buying the DIY kit but wondering if we could use a plastic box instead of metal to eliminate the need to ground the box? will that affect output?
Hi, the box needs to be grounded metal to prevent the mic from picking up electromagnetic radiation and humming at 50 or 60 Hz. you could use a plastic box but you would have to line it with metal foil or conductive paint and ground that to prevent hum.
Your contact mic series of videos are great and inspired me a lot.
I have few questions.
I am a graduate student studying MEMS piezoeletric microphones. From calculations, I know that its capacitance is only 100~50pF. Do you think I can use your design for my microphone? Or how can I change it to match my microphone?
Thx
Video about selling product, it's not guide or advice :(
It is advice but not hand holding.
Thanks, my team trying to make sound on the robot. It is lovely.
Thanks for your detailed explanation!
Recommendations for recording significantly attenuated noises around 40 dB (since I hear them far away should I consider -40 dB?) and above? I await info critical to me. Thank you very much.
Thanks for your work!
So I can use the DIY Kit to connect it directly to headphones?
I would love to wander around with a portable thing with headphones to put the contactmic on anything I see and listen to it.
You would probably want to run the output of the DIY kit into a headphone amplifier, TI and Analog Devices both have many to choose from. I also have a phantom powered version of this kit that works really well with handheld audio recorders. I use mine with a Zoom H4N so I can monitor the sound live with headphones. (I also sell a complete phantom-powered mic if you don't want a DIY project).
Hello, is the gain enough high for an acoustic amp ? (With piezo on a guitar). Thanks for the video !
I'm a big fan of your work!
Do you have a version that takes a 9 volt battery?
I'd love to use this ina DIY hydrophone project.
This question may seems shady but, can i know which IC are you using ?
Hello! Can I solder four wires instead of two to get two different signals from one sensor? I wouldn't want to use a splitter or a second sensor, I want a small difference in phase and harmonics from one sensor.
You can solder on 4 wires, but I think the signal on the second pair of wires will be identical to the first. This is because both layers of the sensor are conductive, so the voltage should be uniform everywhere on the disc at all times. I'm brainstorming here, but I wonder if it would be possible to cut the ceramic material on the disc in half, then you might get slightly different signals on each half. I'm not sure if this would be different than using two sensors side by side.
@@metalmarshmallowllc A reason to experiment. Thanks, I'll try)
Hello, nice video. Is it possible to connect more piezo discs to the preamp? In your experience, do more piezodiscs result in better sound quality?
That is an interesting question. I've never tried connecting more than one disc to the same preamp. I'll have to give that a try.
I m asking because I am considering buying the kit. If I connect, for example, 3 piezzos, can all of them go into the p+ and p- pins? Thank you for your advice.
@@zsoltyszabo I just tried it with 2 piezos and it does work, three should work also. I'm sure you realize that this dosen't give stereo sound, it just mixes the two discs to mono. It could be useful if you wanted to get sound from different parts of an instrument and mix them all together.
@@metalmarshmallowllc Yes, that's the reason why I want to use more piezos. Thank you for your help.
In case anyone else has the same question, I answered it more thoroughly in a blog post metalmarshmallow.com/blog_post.php?id=11
Sounds like a great idea to me!
I enjoyed the video it was quite inspiring but for the end where the technical side of grounding became less inspiring, but seems straight forward. I imagine once news gets out your kit would become quite popular, good luck 😊
Haha thanks, you will be glad that I cut out like 15 minutes of me showing graphs!
@@metalmarshmallowllc awww! There's nothing better than watching graphs :O)
Hi, as far as I know aluminium reacts with oxygen from the air to form aluminiumoxide, which is an insulator. So, how can it shield the piezo disc when it is isolated from ground? Would copper foil not be better?
That is an interesting question and I'm not sure I totally understand the physics of it; You are right that annodized aluminum does not have a conductive surface owing to the thick aluminum oxide. On the other hand I just very gently tested a piece of aluminum foil that has been sitting in open air for over a year and its surface very much is conductive, so evidently whatever oxide is there isn't enough to affect the conductiviry.
Thank you, that is a very practical way to answer my question!
What is the effect of the disc size? is it frequency cutoff? or the overall volume?
If you suspend the discs by calipers and measure it, you will find that larger discs have lower resonant frequencies. Larger discs also have a wierder frequency responses with many peaks, while smaller discs have flatter responses; or at least the wierdness of small discs is high in the frequency range where it dosen't matter. If you stick the disc to something massive like a wall, the peaks mostly flatten out. There isn't really any difference in sensitivity between large and small discs. I need to make a video about this.
Hello, I would be interested to know if this system would be a good fit to capture the “click” part of the sound of a kick drum. I have hung a senheiser on the front beater head just for this job. Would be cool to have this disc attached to the head and be able to capture mainly high freq area.
@@roq_itrecordingstudio4152 I think it should work but I dont't have a kick drum here to test it with. The only issue is that sometimes the sound distorts for really loud sounds. For example if you put the mic on a cymbal and hit it as hard as you can with a hickory drumstick, the sound will distort. I think the bass drum should be fine. I would put the disc on the very edge of the drum head, you can get very crisp highs there, I show it with djembe in my most recent video with the phantom powered version of this board.
Hi, Where could I wire a led to add to the preamp?
To indicate power or to indicate signal level?
wow 24 bucks for that?? this guy is shameless
I sell them at cost, actually. I don't make any profit on these.