16 February, 2015

Shop time in service of the blog and vlog...

I have been doing video shoots, and editing in an effort to bring you the absolute best in online HOWTO tutorials, and entertaining videos showing you not only HOWTO, but also giving you a peek into the workings of my at times organized, and at others utterly chaotic shop, and mind...

However, my current camcorder is old, not as in Super 8 kind of old, but as in SD but at least it records to a hard drive and can transfer over USB old... My current cell phone, a Samsung Galaxy S4, shoots far better photos, and video than my camcorder. 

To say the least, I have not been super pleased with the quality of the productions coming out of my computer with this equipment, even as I learn more, and practice more on the videography side of the coin as it were, the results from my camcorder were looking, old...

So out shopping for a new camcorder I went, and I admit I am REALLY liking the GoPro Hero 4 Black Edition, but I just can't bring myself to separate from that kind of money right now, not this close to tax day... 

I did mention my phone takes much better video than my camcorder didn't I?

Now while I know these guys music isn't everyone's taste, but I must admit I really like the video quality they pulled off with a Galaxy S4....

So yeah, with proper use of the video function on the phone, I CAN actually produce some good, high resolution videos...

But oh that audio...

Talking into a phone, 10 or so feet from me while laying under a truck spinning a wrench might be a bit hard to manage...

Well, okay let's address the issues one at a time...

#1. In order to get stable, clear footage, I need a way to adapt the phone in place of a camera or camcorder on a tripod...

That's easy enough... A quick browse to Amazon and I quickly had a workable tripod adapter. It's a little bit of a stretch to get the S4 in the Otterbox Defender in place, but it goes, and it is held solidly in place... It's the Arkon Smartphone Grip Tripod Adapter


Now that you have that camera mounted up to a tripod, are you going to rely on the built in mic to record your beautiful voice from 10 feet away? talk about a miserable failure of a speakerphone!

No, you need a lapel mic to accurately capture your voice. Of course you don't want to use just any lapel mic, otherwise known as a Lavalier microphone, but you want a wireless mic...

Being careful with the workshop budget, I opted for a low budget approach while I dipped my toes into the waters of wireless lavalier mic recording. And I must say I am far more impressed than I thought I would be with this mic system... The unit I opted for is the Pyle Pro PDWM96 Lavalier Wireless Microphone System which is a great bargain way to get my feet wet with wireless mics. I mean it's no Audio Technica, but it's also not $300.00 either! 

There is just one eensy weensy little, or actually big problem...


The receiver for this mic has a 1/4" phone plug. Now this is all well and good when connecting to my mixer, but it's a bit of a conundrum when trying to connect to the 3.5mm TRRS jack in the phone...

After a great deal of research, I found that the wiring on TRRS goes from tip, speaker to audio left, first ring to audio right, second ring to ground, and sleeve to mic.

More research, and I found that the wiring in a standard headset was green and red wires are speaker +, the copper color wire is for the mic, and the green /red stripe or blue wire is the ground / common.

It also appears that line level inputs for a headset and line level inputs from a lav are both still line level inputs...

So some churning in my skull took place...

I started with an old cast off headset that had an earbud torn off that came with my old HTC Inspire 4G I guess 4 years ago now... Cut everything but the TRRS plug and as much uninterrupted cable as i can salvage then..

Back to Amazon...

First off, I needed a project box, big enough to house a 1/4" jack, and some wire. I went overkill but then again, I have room for more advanced circuitry should the need arise down the road...

Of course I needed a 1/4" jack and of course Amazon had just the ticket.

Of course I needed a soldering iron and solder. I already have an older Weller, but if you need one and need to get started with solder right off the bat, Amazon has that too..

Once I got it all gathered, I drilled a hole to pass the cable through, stripped about 1.5 to 2" of insulation off the outside of the cable and separated the wires...

Using a BBQ lighter, I singed off the insulation from the ends of the blue and copper color wires, and rubbed off the burnt waste.

I then clipped off the red and green wires, leaving only the copper and blue...

With the soldering iron heated up, I tinned the connectors, and the wires. Don't know what tinning is? I will have a video on that shortly!

With the wires, and the jack prepped, I proceeded to solder the copper wire to the tip connector and the blue wire to the sleeve connector allowing for a good solid connection.

Once the electrical connection was made, I proceeded to test it out, and found it works exactly as planned...

Next I simply centered a 3/8" drill bit on the opposing side of the project box, and drilled it through, CAREFULLY to not snag the wire, or jack.

Once I determined how much slack in the cable I wanted inside the housing, I determined location for, and tied a small stress relief knot in the cable, I then mounted the jack, secured the cable down into the project box and sealed the pass through to cable connection with 3M clear silicone adhesive caulk, screwed the lid on the box, and then applied a label clearly identifying this for anyone not able to figure out what on earth this doo dad is for...



While it's not the most stunningly beautiful thing to look at, it allows me to record with good clarity and volume at a considerable distance from the camera, and at unusual angles.

You will soon be seeing some of the 1080i video with radically improved audio. Including some better video of the work on the Saturn...

You wouldn't believe how many times I have taken the same bolts on and off of the car in order to allow you to have a better view of what I am doing!

1 comment:

  1. Nice to read your article! I am looking forward to sharing your adventures and experiences
    I have always wanted one of these! Thanks for writing about it! Thanks for the article! It was a lot of good info. Thanks for share

    ReplyDelete