Help With Electret Microphone Project?

[Zekkry]

Hello,

I am working on my first ever electronics project. I'm a complete noob with this kind of thing. I am a musician in need of many condenser microphones for recording. Since I'm relatively broke, I sought out a cheaper option, and I decided I would order a set of 18 electret microphones. They are labeled as "Gino 18 Pieces 9.5mm Dia MIC Capsule Electret Condenser Microphones".

What I want to do is create tube-shaped microphones that can be held or put on a stand, with a three-prong XLR connector at the bottom, so that it can be connected to a PA system or a recording interface.

How would I go about creating a circuit for an electret microphone that can be fit into a tube shape? What supplies will I need, and how would I connect everything? Any help you guys can give would be very, very much appreciated.

 

[(*steve*)]

You make a tube, you place the electret insert at one end, facing outwards. You speak into that end.

Whether or not you'll get decent quality depends a lot on the insert you've bought.

There are typical circuits for these microphones that you can google for. Note that an electret microphone requires a source of power. This may come from a battery (that can go flat) or via "phantom power" from the amplifier.

This might work.

 

[KrisBlueNZ]

I think you'll find that the electret microphones sound horrible for music. Their frequency response graph will look roughly like a silhouette of the Andes, and putting them in a tube will make things ten times worse.

They're also not compatible with standard balanced microphone connection; their output impedance is too high and they are not balanced. Your simplest option to connect them together would be a step-down signal transformer - something like one of these:
http://mouser.com/ProductDetail/Ham...GAEpiMZZMv0IfuNuy2LUf0ww5kCS0F7/9GJA%2b4V19k=
http://mouser.com/ProductDetail/Ham...GAEpiMZZMv0IfuNuy2LUdPfI004xUTpoCVeDic%2bYgY=
http://nz.mouser.com/ProductDetail/...=sGAEpiMZZMv0IfuNuy2LUdPfI004xUTp3v0wVKyVL/w=
http://nz.mouser.com/ProductDetail/...=sGAEpiMZZMv0IfuNuy2LUeRUcbYnIIHPC9J1VfajAnI=
... but these are pretty expensive.