DIY USB Microphone Showdown: MEMS vs Electret vs Dynamic!

I'm going to see if I can beat my shop bought USB microphone with a home made one. I've got three microphones to try out, an ICS43434 MEMS microphone, an Electret microphone and a Dynamic Microphone.

We'll be using a Teensy to do the USB interfacing. Let me know what you think in the comments.

You can get the components used in this vide with these affiliate links:

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[james]

I love how you told us what sections were recorded on what mics, they all sound mostly pretty similar

[itsshuler]

Mine was a usb microphone. The square house shaped plug broke but it has a 4 pin plug to the motherboard. I wired it a thousand different ways. It don't makensense

[avejst]

great test 👍
great video too 😀
thanks for sharing your experience with all of us 👍😀

[smearumi]

great project! is it possible to build microphone array with INMP441 I2S microphones and esp32/esp8266?

[DustinWatts]

The biggest difference imho between the three DIY mics and the shop bought mic is the lack of low end which make the sound "thin". I think this is partly caused by the pickup patterns of the microphones and due to the lack of a body around the microphones. One other thing to note is that a larger capsule is usually more sensitive. Downside is more noise, but the upside is more detail, in this case in your voice.

[Pre.C_King]

Wouldnt it be possible to use a External Sound card/Board to make a USB mic out of an E Condenser Capsule? Seeing as the sound interface is already there, there's input for Mic aswell as output for headset. Im thinking along the lines of soldering the power to the feed of the board, desoldering the mic jack and soldering the mic's "data" wire to where the jack was etc etc. This is all theory in my head atm, but it feels like it would be a straight forward procedure and these usb cards can be found for around 5$ US (Which is a really cheap alternative )

[JesTheii]

very impressive work sir! I got a microphone recently with heavy white noise, is there a way to diagnose if this is normal or not? is oscilloscope required?

[stepaciej]

Hi. I am working on a project where I use PCM1808. Can you please provide some schematics how you connect this module and some sample of code with configuration?

[JR-lxnn]

Nice video. I suspect it is possible the lack of higher frequency output on the analog microphones could be ... um ... ahem ... the other microphones produce more self-noise manifesting high frequency noise - hiss. The analog items are, perhaps, just a bit more quiet up there. And that could be a good thing. um ... maybe ... I think. Anyway, just saying that is a possibility. Thanks for the video. Nicely done and well scripted. JR

[TheEmbeddedHobbyist]

Sounds great, how if you could Sorry battery died in my keyboard ;-)

[electronash]

Dynamic mic definitely sounded the best, IMO.

(both the shop-bought and Dynamic mics had a tiny bit of clipping during the second "testing" word spoken. Seemed like a bit of clipping/clicking as well when you were doing the voiceover in the last section?)

The ICS sounded quite thin / hollow in comparison, but not too bad.

The Electret probably sounded a bit worse overall, with some frequencies being limited, almost like a slight notch filter?

The Electret seemed to have a slightly asymmetrical waveform, maybe due to the way the mic needs to be biased?

Having said that, until you pointed out you'd used a different mic for each section of the vid, I wouldn't have said any of them were terrible. lol

[PokeAmp]

i would have liked to see the wireing dowe on those

[EdwinErdiyana]

I want to buy ICS 43434 I2S Microphone Breakout Board, but where?😭

[aarriikknnll]

Hey, that's me! Once again, great video with so much information!

[raguaviva]

wow, your videos are getting better and better!

[NamasenITN]

Fantastic video and pace!

I would love to programmatically generate a sinusoidal waveform (and bypass the A/D conversion and the microphones).

Are all Teensy capable of acting as USB sound input sources?