I move when I play music, especially the saxophone. Once in Middle School after a performance with an honor band my parents said I looked like I was having the most fun. They showed me a video – I was the only one moving in the ~100 player ensemble!

I haven’t stopped playing the sax, and I haven’t stopped moving while I do it. My Junior year of High School (2012), I started playing in more rock scenarios in which I needed to be mic’d. I quickly realized that playing into an instrument mic on a fixed stand felt very awkward to me and took the energy out of my performance. I started doing research and endeavored to find a solution.

There are plenty of great budget clip-on mics on the market, like the Shure PGA98H-TQG ($100) or the AT PRO 35 ($150). I thought about those but ended up deciding that I could do it myself cheaper and more fun. Besides, if you were interested in buying those, you wouldn’t be reading this, would you?

My final product was highly inspired by Pete Thomas’ DIY Saxophone Clipon Microphone post on his awesome blog Taming the Saxophone. Full credit to him, although I do believe that I learned a few interesting things along the way and have something to contribute.

The Original

I first built the mic back in 2012. I managed to track down a Realistic Tie Tac Electret Condenser Microphone (cat. no. 33-1056A). I think I got it on eBay for about $20. It’s the one recommended by Pete Thomas in the post I mentioned. Realistic is the old Radio Shack brand and many of their audio products are quite high quality and inexpensive online. It’s a nifty little mic – clearly intended for recording voices for movies or whatever, but works great for this purpose. I’ve never had any significant feedback problems, and it picks up all ranges of the instrument well, despite only being pointed at the bell (where only the lowest notes actually come out). It’s powered by a single 303/357 button cell battery that you put inside the 1/4 inch jack. It comes with several different clips for mounting.

After salvaging the bendy metal arm from a little flashlight-on-a-bendy-metal-arm I had lying around and snatching one of my mom’s refrigerator magnet clips from the pantry, I assembled the mic using hot glue, duct tape, and cardboard padding. Behold:

It sounded pretty good and served me well. As you can see I used it on my alto, but the metal arm is plenty long enough to work with tenor and probably bari. I used it for 3 or 4 performances, then it sat for quite some time.

The Breakdown

My second year of college I joined a band. Suddenly I needed this mic for practices and performances at least once a week. I could fit it in a little box that fit in my sax case, so I started carrying it everywhere and using it quite regularly. It worked, more or less. It sounded fine when it did work, which was most of the time, but every once in a while we’d encounter problems like the sound guy not picking up anything (but somehow it still played through the system) or me forgetting new batteries.

This Spring (2016) we went on a short tour up the East coast as far as NYC and Philadelphia. As any musician who has been on the road knows, any gear that can break, will break. So of course, a few shows into the tour my mic starts crackling. It’s hard to describe, but it was a kind of popping sound, especially when I moved or stepped on the cable. Not an easy thing to troubleshoot during a 5 minute sound check in front of an audience, so I ended up using fixed mics for the last 2 shows. Disappointing, but it was the only option and the shows were still fun. My little mic had finally given up after years of service.

The Rebuild

When we got back to Atlanta I set out to do a full overhaul on the mic. This was for a few reasons:

Make sure it didn’t fail me again during a show.

Pretty up the aesthetics and strengthen build.

Actually understand how the mic works.

That last one is critical – I went for years without knowing really anything about the mic I was using, which made troubleshooting on the fly basically impossible.

First I had to find out what was wrong. I opened up both ends of the mic and re-soldered the contacts, thinking something had just come loose. Plugged it back into my amp and still had the same problem – it made sound, but popped and crackled. After doing some research I theorized that the cable was bad. I desoldered both ends and joined them with a little piece of 4-conductor + shield cable I had lying around and, sure enough, that was it. The cable had gone microphonic. I ordered 10 feet of nice microphone cable online. I got 2-conductor because it was what they had, but I really only needed 1 conductor + shield. When it arrived I swapped it in and voilà! It worked beautifully.

Well, it wasn’t quite that easy. I had to Dremel out the place where the cable enters each component due to the wider diameter of the new cable, so now the cable is only held in by tension, but it’s quite tight because I was able to adjust the opening precisely.

The mic itself. A conductor to spare. I don’t think this is going to be long enough…

Now to beef up the body of the mic. I started by ripping off the layers of duct tape, hot glue, and cardboard holding it together. Then I tore out the magnet that was still in the refrigerator clip. I cut new cardboard padding pieces to the size of the clip, installed them using super glue, and tightly and cleanly wrapped the whole thing in electrical tape. Then I attached the metal bendy part using glue and electrical tape. I hung it for a few days to make sure the glue was completely dry, then cleaned it up a bit where the glue had expanded.

After cleaning. I wonder if my mom ever noticed it was gone. Assembled.

Now it’s time to put it all together. I fit the mic into the clip (which came with it), then secured the cable to the neck with a clean piece of electrical tape. The new cable is much thicker than the old one, but it still works pretty well!

The Final Product

Sound Sample

Here’s a quick sample of what it sounds like, just put through my bedroom amp, then directly into my computer. First part is just the mic, then I add some reverb from my Boss RV-6 Digital Reverb pedal.

It’s a bit tinny, so definitely not appropriate for studio work, but for live shows it seems just right. A decent sound guy can EQ and work with the sound to eliminate most of the buzzy stuff and clipping you hear in the sample when I attack a note hard.

You can also hear me perform with it live in this video:

It’s just a quick song we did at an open mic because we needed a live video to submit to a competition, but the sax is really high in the mix! Also, this is the old version of the mic before the upgrades.

Room for Improvement

One thing that I’d like to incorporate into this mic is a small switch so you can turn it on and off without having to unscrew the jack and remove the battery. Even when not in use, the battery drains (or at least seems to). I’m not sure if I would put it on the main body or near the jack, but it would probably be a useful addition. Maybe I’ll do it one day and write an update post.

Also, I should make a foam filter for the mic. I think it might help eliminate some of the popping, and of course if I ever played it outside it would help with wind.

Note About DI Boxes

One important thing about this mic is that, when performing live, you must use a DI box! I was unsure of this for a long time, although I ended up defaulting to using one even though I didn’t know if I needed one.

This mic outputs an unbalanced signal, which you can tell because the 1/4 inch jack only has a tip and a sleeve, so there is only room for one signal conductor and ground. Balanced lines require two signal conductors which are inversions of the same signal. Comparing the two signals against each other on the receiving end allows us to identify what part of the signal is unwanted noise caused by interference from other magnetic fields and remove it.

DI boxes convert an unbalanced signal into a balanced one, so you need to use one with this mic. If you don’t, the signal is likely to pick up a lot of noise on its way from the stage to the mixing board.