I had some time last night to build that 1/4 20 adapter for the ART USB dual preamp I ordered last week. As you will probably notice the 1/4 20 mount positions the unit upside down. That wasn’t my original plan, I actually wanted to drill and tap the case on both sides and just thread the hole so I could adapter it to a cold shoe.

The reason that idea didn’t work out is because the little bits of soldered wire actually stick out further on one side then the other inside the aluminum case. Even if I drill and tap holes on both sides the mounting stud might end up bumping into the circuit board and shorting something out.

Instead, I drilled 2 holes into the flat portion of the case and used 2 very small screws to attach a bracket to the back. That way I could attach something with deep enough threads to be usable.  The center hole is actually the result of my first attempt to drill and tap the case. I went ahead and mounted my adapter over the top of the hole to cover it up.

I had planned on drilling and taping a small chunk of aluminum, but a part made from the makerbot seems to be a little more elegant. I was hoping to have a mount on both the top and the bottom of the Art USB Dual preamp but I’ll have to find something with a smaller head before I can make that work.

I also removed the rubber feet on both sides of the case. This cut the weight of the preamp in half. The form factor is still a little bit wide for an on camera solution, but I think this might work well attached to my CPM cubed cage. It ends up being about 1 inch wider and 3 inches shorter then my . With phantom power, XLR combo inputs and a headphone amplifier built in, this could be a silver bullet. I’m hoping to run this through a full set of audio tests this weekend to see if it lives up to my expectations. If it does I’ll probably end up selling a few of my passive XLR adapters. Then all I have to do is add an 1/8″ stereo to 1/4″ Y cable to this little guy and I’ll be set.

If anyone thinks of a better solution for camera mounting this little guy let me know, but for now this seems to be the best solution I could think of.


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Audio Gear, brackets and mounting, Field recorders