Phantom Power for Mic?

adriaband

condenser mic noob confusion...

I just bought a Studio Projects B1 Condenser Mic, recieved yesterday, go to plug it into my old tascam porta02 tape 4 track to mess around with it... and nothing.

The manual says it needs 45v phantom power? How do I get this thing to work and how is this different from a regular mic (such as a shure sm57).

Jesse

Phantom power is needed to charge the metal plates in condensor mics. You can easily pick up a mic preamp like this one.

johnniespring

yeah you need a mic preamp or a mixer that supplies phantom power. without phantom power your mic won't work. it's different from what you call a regular mic (ie a dynamic mic) in that it needs phantom power which dynamic mics don't. it's called phantom power cos it's invisible to dynamic mics.

adriaband

ok sweet. thanks guys. I guess I'll get some sort of tube preamp for it.

adriaband

For anyone interested, I just picked up this http://www.americanmusical.com/Item--i-PRS-TUBEPRE--m-5_87_359--d-2.html#

real nice smooth sound for vocals and acoustic guitar. Seemed like it would be good for recording bass direct as well, but haven't got to mess around too much yet.

nine

At least you were able to easily get a preamp. There's nothing worse than getting some shiny new piece of gear and can't use it.

I picked up one of these the other day:

http://www.artproaudio.com/products.asp ... =1&type=79

adriaband

oh nice! yeah i was going to get either that or the beringer one but that had this down the street at the music shop and it was better than waiting for it to come