[creyc]

Often times I'll notice my IEMs are just TOO isolating. They are small and portable which means they go around everywhere with me (I'm writing this traveling down the expressway at 67 mph and using them) but sometimes the places you can use them aren't exactly the ideal situation. Like in the company of others, when you are just dying for some tunes, or when you're waiting on something that you would miss without being able to hear, like in a dentist or doctors office waiting room. Or at work where you might miss a phone call or someone talking to you. Surely there must be a way to have your cake and eat it too!

I have found a way, and its saved my butt countless times already. I almost always use my G4 powerbook as my source, it's got all the tunes on it and a nice Indigo DJ output card or USB iMic, depending on where I am. The laptop also has a built in microphone.

I run a program called Audio Hijack pro which lets me take my microphone signal and feed it into the system output. But not without a bit of processing on it first!

First I EQ the heck out of it. Go to some situation with people taking and start with a nice 31-band EQ. (thanks to apple this is built in

) I pulled each slider down one by one till I cut out the majority of the background sound and only kept what's needed for intelligible speech. My powerbook hard drive creates a nasty little noise at I forget the frequency, so using a notch filter I take that guy out too. Finally I toss everything through a soft gate filter. This completely shuts the mic off to soft sounds, only letting the louder noise through. And even at that, because the gate is AFTER the EQ'ing, it's only sounds in my frequency range of interest that that will turn the mic on. I can adjust the gain of this in comparison with my music level depending on my situation. Finally I save all of this to a hot-key. Think of it like an ultra advanced push-to-hear technology like that found on shure's new E500 but without degrading your audio even with it enabled, thanks to the gate. Its a bit of tinkering to setup at first but now that it's all saved as a configuration I bring it up every-time I listen to music on my computer.

Keep on rockin' on head-fi

 

[TheMarchingMule]

Bump, because i think this is a rather ingenious self-made solution.

However, the majority here associate IEM=Portable, which you kind of...killed

 

[kramer5150]

A lot of portable MP3 players have built in voice recorder mics too. IMHO it would be a very useful feature to be able to flip a switch, and take the mic feed and amp that through the phone output.

It would have to be defeatable of course.

As nice as it is, to use a laptop portably... IMHO its a sure fire path to a hard drive crash. At least with the IBM / Hitachi death-stars.

 

[GreatDane]

" it would be a very useful feature to be able to flip a switch, and take the mic feed and amp that through the phone output"


I've often thought that. I'd love to have that feature on a DAP.

 

[TheMarchingMule]

Wait...it just hit me...

(First off, this topic is getting be better placed in the portable audio thread place, but wtv)

Rockbox...and most of the players that it supports have mics on them...what if...

 

[leng jai]

I always thought it was pretty rude to listen to music with headphones around people who you're talking to...

 

[vYu223]

Aww, you did it on a mac? I need this for PC! How can I get the exact same result, but on a PC? My family hates me for wearing these. If I do this "mod," then being in a bubble, completely isolated from my family would no longer be a problem.

 

[vidas7de7jesus7]

I think mics usually automatically go straight through to the speaker out. Of course, it would not have all the EQing.