Simple microphone setup for Organelle?

I’m looking for a super simple microphone setup to use for sampling. I was hoping for a mic with an amp built in for proper levels if anyone knows of such a thing. I was thinking even using my phone if that’s at all possible. Thanks!

There are mic-to-line out apps out there. Definitely an option. I use a Zoom H4n as a mobile solution. At home I used a mic with a preamp.

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I’m currently using a Zoom H2n as a preamp for the SM58, otherwise it’s super-quiet… been looking at other mobile solutions such as the naiant battery powered preamps but still haven’t pulled the trigger. You might want to look into it :slight_smile: https://naiant.com/studio-electronics-products/inline-devices/ipa-flexible-power-inline-amplifier/ Not cheap though :frowning:

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If you are using a mixer you can send the signal of the microphone from an Aux so you can control the amount of signal that you send to the organelle. It’s working for me.:wink:

I recently snagged a Zoom H5 on eBay for a great price (140GBP) and have really been loving it.

what is great is not only can you use it as a mic and recorder (and it can be bus powered),
but you can also use it as an audio interface for the Organelle … so you get a great stereo mic, and also 2 channels for external input source.

basically setup it up as an external audio interface (see my earlier post for details)
but basically, you’ll want pd-opts.txt with something like

 -audiodev 7 -audiobuf 8

this says use audio device 7 (H5) and also increase the audio buffer… I found the default (4) to be too low, probably due to the extra load caused by USB traffic

Id been eyeing up a Zoom H4N for quite a while, and wish I hadn’t waited to buy one, its such a versatile device.

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I’m thinking of doing a Zoom H1n (for cost and portability) and just doing the line out into the organelle, plus it can be powered by micro usb. The extra IO of the H4n would be great though

phone is totally possible. it’s a decent quality condenser, and very sensitive. (i’m assuming you have an iphone… maybe you don’t.) & this would also work with an ipod, the kind w the touch screen. or with any android device.

if you have any apps that allow for live input… “multitrack DAW” was the first one i ever used, seven years ago now. but garageband works too. or there is a T-Pain autotune app… there are myriad ways to get a live mic signal to the headphone output of a phone. granular synth app.

ofc you could also use voice memos and playback into the organelle later.

you just need an 1/8th inch to 1/4 inch adapter or cord to allow the signal to travel from your phone into the organelle’s input.

I’m using the zoom h1 like this and it works great. Also really useful for capturing jams or making field recordings.

anyway to use this?

I would imagine it would take some type of system patch, and even then probably would’nt work because the lack of a preamp

I’m using PD-opts to access inputs and outputs on my Mix-Pre D.

Question: Is it possible to also use the Organelle input at the same time or is it either one or the other?

Theoretically it’s possible, but when I last tried I got distortion - sounded like unsync’d audio clocks - but I didn’t look into it very deeply.

Ah ok, no worries, would be nice but not a problem. The PD Opts things works great for me anyway, just irks me to see an input going unused :thinking:

Thanks! This is incredibly useful information.

Is it possible to set the options in pd-opts.txt so it uses the Zoom H4n Pro as an input device if it is connected (and then sets audiobuf to 8), and otherwise falls back to the default configuration? Modifying the pd-opts.txt file every time I want to connect the Zoom H4n Pro works but quickly becomes a bit tedious.

As far as I know PD has no feature to ‘fall back’ to another device.
Only suggestion I have at the moment is you could have 2 copies of a patch with different Pd-opts files.

Another more involved suggestion would be to write a user script that allows you to switch between 2 (or more) different configurations.
This is probably what I would do.

I just use an XLR to 1/4’ Mono cable, then boost the gain on the input a whole lot. Really noisy and not great for instrumentation recordings…

I use this method, with a battery powered rode m3. Lovely under rated mic I use, really clean sound and good live on stage too. Replaced my sm58 years ago.

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Good suggestions. Thank you.

I’ll probably just duplicate the patches that I am likely to use with my Zoom H4n Pro for now. I like the idea of writing a script that can toggle the settings for pd-opts.txt but I assume it is impossible to run scripts directly from the Organelle interface at this point, right?

Yes, you can run scripts from organelle.
Create sub dir of system directory then put script in run.sh, you can also interact with screen and encoder - seensystem scripts as example.

( you could also do in python if you prefer)

Ah. Cool!

I received my Organelle last week, so there is still plenty to learn but this device simply keeps on giving.

I’ll post a script for toggling a pd-opts.txt file here once I have it working.

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All right. I now have a user script for toggling pd-opts.txt system-wide that appears to be working.

#!/bin/bash

PD_OPTS="-audioindev 7 -audiobuf 8"
PD_OPTS_PATH="/usbdrive/System/"

oscsend localhost 4001 /oled/aux/clear i 1

if [ -e $PD_OPTS_PATH/.pd-opts-enabled ]; then
  rm $PD_OPTS_PATH/.pd-opts-enabled || true
  rm $PD_OPTS_PATH/pd-opts.txt || true

  oscsend localhost 4001 /oled/aux/line/1 s "``pd-opts.txt`` disabled."
  echo "``pd-opts.txt`` disabled."
else
  touch $PD_OPTS_PATH/.pd-opts-enabled
  echo $PD_OPTS > $PD_OPTS_PATH/pd-opts.txt

  oscsend localhost 4001 /oled/aux/line/1 s "``pd-opts.txt`` enabled."
  echo "``pd-opts.txt`` enabled."
fi

oscsend localhost 4001 /oled/setscreen i 1

I simply use a .pd-opts-enabled file as a state variable to detect whether custom settings are applied or not. This could possibly be changed into an environment variable but it solves the problem for now.

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