Hey guys (and gals),
I just wanted to drop a line to say thanks to this community. This is my first post, but I have been reading the board for the past few weeks.
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I am a singer (amateur with mediocre talent) and am interested in recording some stuff at home. Most of my mics are dynamic and I have really wanted to get a decent condenser, but just cannot bring myself to spend the hundreds of dollars to buy a "good" mic. I have owned an MXLV67 for over a decade but have never been happy with the sound so it has spent most of it's life in it's box. A few weeks ago, I ran across a YouTube video of someone building a condenser mic and the bug bit me.
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After a bit of research on the internet, I found JLI and watched the build videos. I ordered the parts for a "Samantha" OPA Alice board with the 34mm electret capsule. I also got mounting kit, 34mm saddle, and 22nF caps for the XLR as instructed in the video.? I bought the cheapest CAD 1800 ($17) mic on Amazon just to get a donor body and after a couple days of tinkering, managed to build my first microphone. The first time I plugged it in was truly magical. For a little under $100 I have a great sounding mic with very little noise. I sang for several hours straight just enjoying it and playing with different compression, EQ, and effects settings. Despite my poor soldering skills, it turned out great!
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So of course, down the rabbit hole I go. My next project was to build with a true condenser capsule and following the JLI videos again, I ordered an OPA Alice board, the hex inverter board, the K47 capsule and installed them in a cheap U87 body I bought for $23 on walmart.com. It was on this project that I made my first major mistake. I overheated one of the xlr pins and bent it out of place, so I ordered some XLR inserts from amazon. Meanwhile, I finished installing the pcbs and capsule and waited for parts. As soon as the parts came in, I finished the mic and it worked the first time! My soldering is getting better now and I am more confident with it. This mic sounds great, but still has a bit of noise that I intend to chase down. Probably poor soldering hygiene.?
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While waiting for parts I came across this https://www.opic.jp137.com/index-multi.html webpage and started contemplating assembling a pcb from scratch. This led me to Mic Scharf’s PCBway shared projects (https://www.pcbway.com/project/member/?bmbno=8A368813-05C9-44). So I ordered the MP PCB, hex inverter pcb, and the opa alice handheld boards (5 of each). I had a lot of fear of the soldering required so I worked on a couple of practice soldering projects while waiting for the parts to come from China.
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In the meantime, I ordered parts from Mouser enough to complete 2 of the OPA Alice handheld microphones and 2 of the 25mm electret capsules from JLI. Last night I completed my first pcb and installed it in a KMS 105 clone I bought off amazon for $10. It worked the first time I plugged it in and it sounds amazing. This might be my favorite microphone yet. I need to see if it can stand being plugged into my PA system for a little karaoke with out it feeding back. I am skeptical cause it is ultra hot with very little gain on my Yamaha interface.
So I started my journey back on 3/14/2025 with my first order to JLI. Here I sit three weeks later with 3 completed microphones and parts for another on hand. I spend way too much time surfing Chinese websites for cheap mic parts and am working on a Mouser order for my next project. Can we form a 12 step support group or something, cause clearly I have a problem.
Thanks again to Jules and all the others on this site who inspire ordinary folks like me to leverage this technology. Whole new worlds are opening up to me when I see what can be built from PCBway projects as well. I have a lot of interest outside of microphones like retro computing and I want to build some stuff for my commodore 64 now.
Mic mauler