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Connecting a Modmic to a Mixer- Basic Streaming Setup

It has come to my attention that there needs to be some clarification on this post. Thank you Charlie Laabs for pointing this out:

Not all (maybe very few) multi-channel mixers provide voltage to the TRS microphone port. The ModMic needs a minimum of 3-5 volts of phantom power in order to function, but is capable of accepting up to 12 volts. However, I mentioned in the post to never turn on phantom power. What I should have written was do not turn on phantom power if you do not have a way of stepping down the voltage to the acceptable range of 3-12v. Some mixers will have a switch that allows you to change from 48v to 12v phantom, if this is the case all you will need is a 3.5mm TRS to XLR adapter for this setup style to work.

Otherwise you NEED to use a step-down XLR Power Converter, which we created and launched about a year after this post was originally written.

 

With more and more ModMic users upgrading their audio equipment to include DAC's, mixers and usb sound interfaces, we thought it would be a good idea to do a few write-ups on how you can use your ModMic with these new setups!

In this first “episode” we are going to tackle setting up a multi channel mixer for streaming on twitch through programs like OBS. I am going to try to keep things as general as possible, this means that you may need to find a button or a switch on your mixer that I don't mention, or the process may be slightly different.  What I will be showing you is what cables and adapters you may need, and also where they need to go on your machine. These should stay the same for most setups.  

The first thing we want to do is make sure the USB is connected to the computer, the mixer is powered on and set all of our main levels to 0 to avoid any unwanted clipping or potential damage to your gear in the process.

Next we want to connect the ModMic to the mixer, to do this on most mixers you will need one of the following adapters:
The most common mic input on a multichannel mixer is XLR, to run your ModMic in XLR you will need a 3.5mm to 3 pin XLR adapter that can be found on amazon and at many local guitar and music stores.

The next most common connector type is going to be ¼” TRS this will also need an adapter but I bet you have one laying around, I know I found four while setting up my mixer. If for some reason you can't find one they are called 3.5mm to ¼” TRS and they are available at Best Buy, Amazon, Radioshack, and other bix box or electronics stores. Use this ONLY if your mixer supplies 3-12v to this port. It is very rare to have bias voltage to the TRS port, so odds are this method will not work with your ModMic.

Once you have your chosen adapter, connect it and the ModMic to the mixer, the input is normally labeled MIC but sometimes will just be Channel 1.

Now if you decided to go with XLR, there is one very important thing to remember. If your mixer supports phantom power NEVER USE IT with the Modmic. The capsule in the Modmic does not operate at the 48 volts that phantom power delivers and may permanently damage your Modmic. If your mixer uses 48v you will need an XLR Power Converter! 

Next you want to take another 3.5mm to ¼” TRS adapter and attach it to your headphones then  plug that into the Phone out or Headphone out port on your mixer. 

Now let's switch over to our PC and configure the hardware there.
First we need to right click the speaker icon at the bottom right of the screen and select Playback Devices.

Once that is selected you will get a list of all your audio output devices that are connected to your machine.

There will be one on the list that will either say USB Audio like mine or it could say the name of the mixer you are using. Right click that device and enable it, you will notice here i selected mine as my default device. It does not need to be default, but unless you have a specific reason to avoid it, it will make your life a bit easier to set it as default.

Once you have the device enabled select the Recording devices tab on the same window and repeat the process.

Now all you need to do is open your preferred streaming software (OBS, Xsplit, etc.) and select the USB device for your Microphone and Audio sources. Now you can set your levels on your mixer and begin streaming!

This was an entry level tutorial on setting up your ModMic through a multichannel mixer, in later episodes we will cover topics like basic podcasting setups, how to mix minus with your mixer, and maybe cover some other hardware. I hope this helped you out and if you have any comments or questions drop them down below!  

 


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