[MUSIC] Speakers are microphones,
which is one of the things that blew me
away when I first started trying some of this stuff.
What I learned is that dynamic microphone and
a speaker are the same exact thing just using reverse.
Some of the most fun practices I've had is
just wiring up speakers to function as microphones.
This makes an amazing kick drum mic.
In fact they sell a commercial product called sub kick for 200 bucks,
which is just a speaker wired to a cable and
then you plug it into your interface and it makes an awesome kick drum mic.
So I pulled the speaker right out of
an old home theater speaker cabinet that I got at a thrift store.
I can make a $200 microphone really quick. So it's fun.
This is what I'm making now this one I ripped my accident.
[NOISE] So I'm just going to cut off my cable
and make a new one and we'll try it on a kick drum later.
So as I work with this stuff,
there's a certain bunch of tools you're going to want to have,
a diagonal cutting pliers always useful
just a little nipper so you can pull things [NOISE].
This is like a soldering holder.
So when you're soldering, you get a couple alligator clips and
a good magnifying glasses to see what you're doing.
Wire stripper is always handy [NOISE] and now I have two kinds here.
This is a typical electricians wire stripper has a couple graded strippers here.
So you can be really careful with what kind of a wire you're
stripping and this is a really fancy one that I use when I'm doing a lot.
Same kind of idea but I always loved this when I was a kid.
My dad would pull this out and I just like such a freaky looking tool.
[NOISE] It makes cool sound but it's great wire stripper.
A couple screwdrivers and you're good to go.
It doesn't take much. Soldering can be intimidating when you first get into it.
But you really only need a couple of things a soldering iron.
A lot of people use electric ones.
This is a butane one.
I like it because I can bring it to shows and as
keeping a bag and I can fix things behind a rack
without having to plug
electrical supplies in also there's not a wire hanging off the back.
So I feel a little safer when I use it.
Using butane is a little intimidating at first but it's really quite easy.
Then some solder and you really want to get flux core solder.
So flux is a chemical that cleans out and
deoxidizes as you're soldering and it really makes a soldering go better.
The one thing that happens when soldering that can be a problem is just the contacts,
the two things you're soldering are not
clean and that can just make the solder joint week.
So the flux core solder really helps with that.
So that's really all you need.
Don't be too intimidated by it,
just go for it and just don't get burned.
I think that's the big thing.
To do this project,
I just have an old speaker and I just cut off the backside of here.
I have two here and we're going to try both these this is
like a big sub woofer speaker. So it's really heavy.
I've never tried one of these before. So we'll try it on a kick drum.
It feels like to be the right thing but I
wonder if it will actually move well when the kick hits I'm not sure.
Here's one that I have tried before a really simple mid range speaker.
So I'll do this one first. Take an old quarter-inch cable
something you're okay to sacrifice.
We just got to cut off the outer portion of this stuff diagonal cutting pliers.
This kind of experiment is great to start with soldering
and experimenting with this stuff because it's not like critical right?
If you break something it's all right.
So when I pull this out, there's a bunch of different ways that on
instrument cable or a TS cable will work.
There's an outer shield that we're going use
as one side of this only got to pull it off and
then just twist it off to the side to make
a wire out of it and that'll connect to one of the two posts.
If you use an XLR cable there's going to be this plus two wires inside.
But with a TS cable like this,
it's just going to be a two.
So that's one side of it and then
the other side I will get my wire strippers and just strip out here.
This one has two layers to it. I'll strip that.
Now, the nice thing about it, it doesn't really matter which way we wire this up.
There's two posts. We just got to connect the two in any kind of fashion you can find.
These are nice because they have holes in them.
So it makes it pretty easy.
I find one of the challenges of soldering is just keeping this stuff in place.
So that's where these things come in handy because they can hold a wire for you.
Just keep it in place for you.
I don't use the magnifying glass much but having a little alligator clip is nice.
We can just hold this in place.
Let us wrap it around.
We have to be overly careful.
One thing that's nice if you want to get
fancy is shrink wrap and that comes into various sizes.
The idea with this you put it,
it forms the sheath if you need to. All right.
So you put a right around your wire.
You give it a size that's just a little bit bigger than what you're dealing with.
It'll shrink up when you heat it up with a soldering iron.
So that way I can protect both sides,
I don't have to do this but it's a nice thing.
Another tool that I like to have when working is a pair of scissors.
You can use tape but over time tape gets sticky and funky.
So the shrink wrap is just a little cooler.
Just put that on at the time it will shrink up and I start soldering.
So again, I'll just wire these in around here.
Don't overthink it. It's all we're working with.
The general thing is you just want the soldering iron to heat up a lot, give it time.
One of the big mistakes is just trying to do this too fast,
turning it on and to try and use it
immediately just frustrating when it's not hot enough.
It's getting really hot. So I'm just going to fire this thing up.
Let it warm up there. While it's warm up I'll talk a little bit.
It's always nice to have a sponge with some water nearby mainly so we can clean off
the soldering iron and actually this little kit that comes with
my iron has a sponge that's dampened right there.
Let's wait a little bit. I think the mistakes that
I make with soldering is always just not preparing well enough. It's like painting.
All the work goes into like sanding the walls ahead of time
and the painting is this last easy task when
painting a room and the same thing as here I just want to make
sure everything is laid out well and I'm ready for the tasks.
The actual soldering part is quick and not really that complex.
Give myself a nice length of solder.
When we attest is just you cut the solder [NOISE]. That's all I need.
It doesn't take a lot of this to work and I'm just going
to dive a little on the tip of the soldering iron just to make sure it's working.
This heats up really fast compared to an electric one,
electric ones can take more time than that.
The next thing is you want to make sure
both surfaces are really hot. So take your time with it.
The idea is just hold it on there.
I like to have a little bit of solder on
the tip of the soldering iron that helps the heat
moving through the wire and the piece of metal and just hold it there for a while.
I like to use the solder a little bit further away from
the soldering iron because that'll tell you if the materials are hot enough.
If you just touch it right on the soldering iron,
it'll stop a melting like get around
the two wires of the wire the surface but it won't really suck in and connect right?
So we got just take your time.
Wait for it, it is waiting.
You'll see if I hold the solder here eventually it'll like just suck right in.
That's it. Really easy.
I'm going to try the other side, it'll flow into the wire there.
If you're using shrink-wrap,
you just rub the soldering iron it's hot right against it and just shrink up right around
the wire which holds things in place
and it protects that ground wire from touching the other thing.
So it just makes a nice clean look and I could have put
another one on a wider one to cover that wire there.
But this will work just fine. All right.
So we've made our speaker microphone
or sub kick mic and let's just try this out and hear how it sounds.
So I'll plug into my interface,
get my level set pretty well my headphones on and we'll try it out [NOISE]. There we go.
So it sounds a bit like a NPR broadcast microphone,
has virtually no high-end which makes sense because it's
such a big diaphragm right [inaudible] has very small diaphragm.
So it's kind of ringing and I could even
[NOISE] do stuff like that which is
a cool sound effect and even just touching it [NOISE].
Get cool kicker sounds.
So speakers are microphone.
[MUSIC]