I just got a Shure SM58. I got Livewire EXH20 / EXH20P2H, 20 foot cord with it. I got HOSA GMP113 1/4 in. adaptor to put on the end of the cord so i can connect it to my computer. Shit is not working, what did I do wrong?

P.S. The mic works when i connect it to my home stereo system, without the adaptor.

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Hey. I'm going to assume this mic is a fairly recent model (cant find any info on it). Most new microphones are low impedance (lo-z) so as long as its a low impedence microphone, this will most likely apply. Impedence is like... wax. If you heat it up, its easy to push your fingers or something else through it but when its cool, its harder to push somethign through it; low impedence is where the wax would be basicly liquid. Having a low impedence microphone means that you need a low impedence input into your computer, otherwise, it is like pushing on a solid chunk of wax. Most soundcards are medium to high impedence so to correct this, we need a transformer. A transformer takes the voltage changes in the microphone and amplifies them to a higher voltage, making it high impedence.

Check out the one. I bought this same model and am very very pleased with it.

Cheers,
Zac

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the shure SM58 is a dynamic microphone, so it doesn't need any phantom power running through the line. On it's own though, it uses a XLR connection. so you should be able to run it to any balanced input device. You should make sure everything connected to the mic is grounded properly. The only thing I can guess that's stopping you from hearing it work is if an input is muted or gain dropped too low, or you can't hear its playback because the input's output through your computer is muted or gain is dropped. It's quite a common and decent mic, that SM58, so treat it well.

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Well, everything is connected properly and nothing is muted.

I think the adaptor/transformer I have is not good, because when I don't use the transformer I have [similar to the one Dark Sword posted] and connect the mic with its cord to the home-stereo that I have, it works fine.

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Hey. What type of transformer did you buy. If you have a link to the auction, I'd be glad to look at it for you. It is possible to the tranformers in both directions as well; mic(lo-z)->input(hi-z) or mic(hi-z)->input(lo-z). You may just have it plugged in backwards. Oh, and duh for being stupid and not noticing it was a Shute SM58 you were talkign about :P. Thats the exact same mic I have lol. Overlooked that and thought it was made by livewire. Stupid me .

Cheers,
Zac

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i can see on the jack that if the line and mic are XLR, grounded/balanced, then the adapter you have won't accomodate it since it's a mono tip adapter. it has to be a TRS (tip-ring-sleeve) adapter on both the input and output

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The cord i have is XLR.
Here is pic of cord and mic.

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So do i get the adapter like the one Dark Sword suggested? He said he had the same mic.

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Hey. I see on the XLR cable box that your cable is a Hi-Z cable. This will cause a problem . I actualyl didnt realize they made hi-z specific cables abut I'm also not surprised. Try first going to your local Radio Shack and getting (or even excahnging) the cable you have for a lo-z or standard XLR cable. All of the other pieces seem to be good choices and not conflicting, just the cable. But do remember that unless you have a higher-end audio card, you probably wont be able to directly use it with your sound card. Also remember that if you dont have a higher-end audio card and you use your microphone directly with your soundcard, you will be forced to use the built in amplification on your card. This is a problem for recording clean audio because a LOT and I mean a LOT of noise is introduced on the audio card because of all of the other nearby components spraying out tons of electrical signals. Basicly amplifying it with your audio card amplifies all of this other noise with it, making almost unusable vocal/instrumental tracks. It would be best to pick up a cheap amplifier on ebay somewhere that has a high gain with it. A 10watt amplifier would be good and an 80watt would be excellent. These amplifiers will allow you to amplify it before all of that noise is introduced and youll have a low amount of noise in the recordings. I'm not saying get the adapter for sure because I dont know what stereo you are hooking it to and I'm not sure why it is working but it sounds suspect to me that what it is a difference of impedence. Give the model number of the stereo on here and I'll do some research on it to find out what its impedence is.

Cheers,
Zac

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Last edited by IDarkISwordI on May-24-2005 at 17:46

I have a Creative SB Live! [SoundBlaster] card. I have been using Audio Technica ATR20 with it. It's another dynamic microphone. I got an SM58 now, and I just wanna connect it to the back of my computer like i did with ATR20.

Are you implying that all I have to get is the lo-z cord? Do i have to get the CP8201 transformer?

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Stereo that I connected the mic to by only using the XLR cord without the adaptor is an old Panasonic SG-V03 cassette/turntable player. It is the only device that allowed me to fit the XLR end into the mic slot.

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