Audio On A Shoestring: DIY Your Own Studio-Grade Mic

January 14, 2025 by Heidi Ulrich 14 Comments

When it comes to DIY projects, nothing beats the thrill of crafting something that rivals expensive commercial products. In the microphone build video below, [Electronoobs] found himself inspired by DIY Perks earlier efforts. He took on the challenge of building a $20 high-quality microphone—a budget-friendly alternative to models priced at $500. The result: an engaging and educational journey that has it’s moments of triumph, it’s challenges, and of course, opportunities for improvement.

The core of the build lies in the JLI-2555 capsule, identical to those found in premium microphones. The process involves assembling a custom PCB for the amplifier, a selection of high-quality capacitors, and designing lightweight yet shielded wiring to minimize noise. [Electronoobs] also demonstrates the importance of a well-constructed metal mesh enclosure to eliminate interference, borrowing techniques like shaping mesh over a wooden template and insulating wires with ultra-thin enamel copper. While the final build does not quite reach the studio-quality level and looks of the referenced DIY Perks’ build, it is an impressive attempt to watch and learn from.

The project’s key challenge here would be achieving consistent audio quality. The microphone struggled with noise, low volume, and single-channel audio, until [Electronoobs] made smart modifications to the shielded wiring and amplification stages. Despite the hurdles, the build stands as an affordable alternative with significant potential for refinement in future iterations.

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A Unique Microphone Preamp

July 7, 2018 by Tom Nardi 5 Comments

We live in a world in which nearly any kind of gadget or tool you can imagine is just a few clicks away. In many respects, this has helped fuel the maker culture over the last decade or so; now that people aren’t limited to the hardware that’s available locally, they’re able to create bigger and better things than ever before. But it can also have a detrimental effect. One has to question, for instance, why they should go through the trouble of building something themselves when they could buy it, often for less than the cost of the individual components.

The critic could argue that many of the projects that grace the pages of Hackaday could be supplanted with commercially available counterparts. We don’t deny it. But the difference between buying a turn-key product and building an alternative yourself is that you can make it exactly how you want it. That is precisely why [Sam Izdat] created this truly one of a kind microphone preamplifier. Could he have bought one online for cheaper? Probably. Could he have saved himself an immense amount of time and effort? Undoubtedly. Do we care? Not in the slightest.

The amplifier is based on the Texas Instruments INA217 chip, with an Arduino Nano and 128×64 OLED display providing the visualization. [Sam] was able to find a bare PCB for a typical INA217 implementation on eBay for a few bucks (see what we mean?), which helped get him started and allowed him to spend more time on the software side of things. His visualization code offers a number of interesting display modes, uses Fast Hartley Transforms, and very nearly maxes out the Arduino.

But perhaps no element of this build is as unique as the case. The rationale behind the design is that [Sam] wanted to compartmentalize each section of the device (power supply, amplifier, visualization) to avoid any interference. The cylindrical shapes were an issue of practicality: the compartments were constructed by using a hole saw to make wooden discs, which were then glued together and hollowed out. The case was stained and coated with polyurethane, but due to some slightly overzealous use of glue and fillers, the coloring isn’t uniform. This gives the final piece a somewhat weathered look, in sharp contrast to the decidedly high-tech looking display.

Overall, this build reminds us of the modular 3D printed amplifier we saw earlier in the year combined with these speaker-integrated Arduino VU meters.

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