Hey everyone—
I’ve been doing amateur/hobbyist video for a while now and it’s high time I got more serious about knowing my audio. I had maxed out the capability of my previous audio setup (a somewhat outdated camcorder microphone with a 3.5mm stereo jack hooked to a small Sony voice recorder… better than DSLR built-in mic, but not by a whole lot), so I finally scraped together the money to buy some better gear.
I just ordered a Tascam DP-008EX field recorder and a Rode NTG-2. I’m excited to get those going, but my question is not about XLR connections.
I have a couple of lavalier mics that I got pretty cheap a while back. They use a standard 3.5mm jack. My DP-008EX hasn’t arrived yet, but it has two XLR inputs and two “unbalanced TS” inputs. I’m basically a noob when it comes to audio, and I don’t even know what a TS input is. Tried to read up on “balanced” vs “unbalanced” and everything I could find kind of went way over my head. Anyway, I’m just curious as to whether or not my lav mics are worth adapting to this new Tascam when it arrives? I’m not even sure what kind of adapter I would need. Not sure what a TS input is, but from the pictures it looks basically like a 6mm or 1/4" stereo jack?
TL;DR:
- How do I plug a 3.5mm audio plug into an unbalanced TS jack? Which adapter do I need?
- Is it worth it or should I get an XLR lav mic, or some other kind of lav mic?