Hacking the iMic
I've got a slightly different angle than the guy who wants to reverse engineer the iMic... I do a lot of phone interviews and use a phone bug - a suction-cup device that sticks to the back of the handset to record the conversation.
Obviously I'd love to be able to record straight to my iPod then transfer to my Mac.
I'm wondering about the length of the mini jack, I read somewhere that it was 3.5mm, as opposed to the standard 3.175. Is that the same as old mics that used to come with Macs? If so, would it be possible to hack one of those old mics and splice it into my voice recorder?
Or something?
[646 byte] By [
Troubadour] at [2007-11-9 15:32:57]
# 1 Re: Hacking the iMic
3.5mm is the diameter of the plug, not it's length.
You also get 2.5mm plugs. Not sure where you got 3.175 from...
Bob at 2007-11-15 16:05:50 >
# 2 Re: Hacking the iMic
Neither am I. I had read something on either here or the Apple discussions that said that.
Neverthless, my question about length remains - the old mics that used to ship with Macs had a stupidly long jack, I assume for phantom power - I was told they were condensor mics, and if that's true they MUST be powered somehow. Normal mini-jack based mics did not work and my phone bug does not work. I'm curious to see if the jack on the Belkin bears any resemblance to those old Mac mics and see if it's possible to splice my phone bug into it.
# 3 Re: Hacking the iMic
The mics that used to ship with the old macs (I have a few Performa microphones, and a mic from my old Mac Classic) are just standard miniplugs... no extra length.
Anyway, that's all irrelevant. The Belkin mic is largely believed to get its power from the remote port, as does the Remote Remote and the iTrip.
In addition to getting power, there has to be something in the Belkin's remote port connection that identifies it as the Belkin mic so that the Voice Recorder software shows up on the iPod. It is THIS that we all need to figure out specifically. My guess is that it is as simple as a direct (jumper) connection or a resistor across two pins.
It's only a matter of time before some geek with a little extra time and $50 extra bucks opens one up for us cheapskates ;)
I'm especially interested, because I have an extra iPod remote that I am willing to take cut up, tweak, and use the connector as a jumper/resistor passthrough for a standard mic (like the mac mike, if you wish)... I'm just waiting on instructions.
azdude at 2007-11-15 16:07:49 >
# 4 Re: Hacking the iMic
Thats exactly what I was thinking, its just a jumper, and I reckon if you hack a remote cable, and have a mic avaliable, it would take a matter of minutes to get a mike working.
Adam at 2007-11-15 16:08:44 >
# 5 Re: Hacking the iMic
azdude - I'm sure you're correct on the jumper idea, but the old mac mics are most definitely NOT the same length as a standard minijack. I'm sitting here (in the School of Audio Engineering, BTW ;) ) with a dozen of the old mac mics and a several standard minijack-to-stereo RCA and the mac mic is certainly almost half again as long with seriously different ring placements.
but that's just me being anal. ;)
I'm sure you're on the right track, I'd be seriously interested to see if it works.
