23Nov iRig Pre after hack testing
It seems there is some confusion about the iRig Pre Hack I posted. You could use the adapter cable (on the right) to brake out the pins on the included iOS cable into a microphone output and a headphone input but this is messy and the headphone part of the cable is basically useless for none iOS devices. The microphone output on the other hand is really the only important part of the iRig Pre.
By wiring the 3.5mm jack as a microphone output with iRig Pre Hack, you eliminate the need for the adapter cable and make the iRig Pre a much cleaner device to use. Now you can use a simple 3.5mm stereo cable to plug the output directly into your camera with no extra adapters.
For those of you who have always wanted to plug your XLR mic directly into your camera you’ll be able to use the iRig Pre for this application. You will also have clean phanotom power as well as enough gain to easily boost quite microphones. Even better is the fact that the iRig Pre is only $35 and about the size of two 9volt batteries stacked on top of each other. I should have a full video up on the hack shortly but for now here’s an audio sample of the unit after the audio hack was completed this afternoon.
iRig Pre after hack sample.mp3 (download)
The hack has no effect on audio quality and when you’re done, you have a simple preamp in a very handy form factor.
November 23rd, 2012 at 11:02 pm
Hey Deejay ok did the mod as you described. Plugged directly into my 5D MkII set the gain 100% on iRig and the about 5 ticks back on the rec. level on the 5DMkII and here is a sample audio
http://vaphotogallery.com/stuff/iRigPreRodeNTG15DMkII.mp3
How does this sound to you? Just updated my Firmware on the 5D MkII with 2.1.2 going to attempt Magic Lantern install now I hope I don’t regret it but I want a great end result so wish me luck LOL!!
George
November 24th, 2012 at 9:20 am
George, it doesn’t sound to bad, but it does sound like you have a computer, or heating running in the room. I can hear the hum of a fan in the back ground. Other wise good job.
Also I am a CPS member and magic lantern has never stopped them from cleaning my cameras every year.
April 5th, 2013 at 11:27 am
Please Dejay, I need help, I bought the irig pre following your advice, done the hack but does not work, I don’t get any sound at all, follow the steps of the hack, except I did not soldered it, just put the cables together and taped them then plug it to the T2i (Magic lantern), and a shootgun mic to the pre and the pre swich on but no sound at all. Please what am I doing wrong? as I cut the cable already so I can’t send it back.
April 5th, 2013 at 3:33 pm
“except i didn’t solder it, just put the cables together and taped them” is likely your problem. The power amp has enough juice to feed an audio input to your camera, but just twisting the wires together can give you very high resistance. You need to solder or crimp the wires together (solder would be best).
November 24th, 2012 at 9:53 pm
Hey Deejay.
How would this plug into the DSLR if one were to use the y-cable?
Also where would one plug the headphone out of the pre-amp into the DSLR (post hack)?
I assume monitoring is done from the DSLR?
November 25th, 2012 at 8:51 am
If you use the Y adapter cable you just plug the microphone output into your camera and use the camera as the source for your headphones. The headphone jack on the unit is passive.
November 25th, 2012 at 3:49 am
Wow, this is terrific. It sounds pretty decent. I don’t usually do camera sound but this would give me a pretty clean index track and backup and allow me to use my AT875 (phantom only) on camera. Thanks for the tip!
November 25th, 2012 at 4:30 am
Hi Deejay.
So all I need is the iRig Pre, hack it, and I’m good to go?
Would you suggest getting the adapter cable, if one didn’t want to tinker with the circuitry and just quickly set this up?
November 25th, 2012 at 8:52 am
Yes to the first one. If you don’t feel like going through the hack, the adapter cable also works.
November 25th, 2012 at 10:59 am
If one were using two iRigs for stereo recording, what’s the best way to get a single channel from each iRig for accurate left/right imaging? Can you hack it so that each iRig’s output is TS instead of TRS? Or is it better to use an adapter or cable that combines the TRS to TS?
November 25th, 2012 at 11:25 am
If you want to use two of these together, simply solider the red wire to the yellow wire in one unit and the black wire to the yellow wire in the other unit. Then use a cable like this to feed them into the camera. That will give you the output of one unit on the right channel and the output of the other unit on the left channel in your camera.
December 7th, 2012 at 7:18 pm
So as far as using this with a T3i goes, since I’m lacking a headphone jack on the physical camera, could I use something like this:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/750963-REG/Sescom_LN2MIC_ZMH4_MON_3_5mm_Line_to_Mic.html
to get headphone monitoring? I think it’ll work but I’m not great with audio stuff.
December 7th, 2012 at 7:33 pm
It might help.
December 7th, 2012 at 7:51 pm
Thanks. I’ll give it a try. Anyone have any other suggestions?
January 16th, 2013 at 3:12 pm
Thanks so much for responding! I noticed the “Neutrik Combo 3-Pin Female XLR / 1/4 Inch Stereo plug” link and am curious if you can run the output of the iRig to an XLR without matching impedence? Being able to plug in to the XLR jacks on my field recorder would be much better.
January 22nd, 2013 at 6:59 am
Hey
This is a really amazing hack.
Couple questions
1) Do you know how the gain compares with the a device like the juicedlink? Does one have more gain? This would be more important with condenser mics that low low output voltages …
2) Is the headphone jack output stereo? meaning does it take the mono xlr mic (like an ntg-2) and output the sound to both L and R channels on the dslr?
January 22nd, 2013 at 7:04 am
Gain is clean. I have not taken an exact measurement, however it should be fine for condenser microphones like the one used in the audio test. If you go through with the hack the answer to the second question is yes.
January 22nd, 2013 at 12:19 pm
Thanks so much. I just ordered one. I will def do your hack!
Just curious, if you connect it to an iPhone with the original trrs cable and power up one of there irig apps for effects purposes(compressor, reverb, etc)…. Would the irig headphone jack give too much of a signal to a dslr mic input? It seems like with everything connected as designed by the company, the headphone out wont really be mic level, rather it will be line level…? any thoughts?
Also, when i get it, I will put up a video with a comparison to the Juicedlink $300+(since i already own one). It would really be crazy if this thing sounded anywhere close to it.. and a bit scary for a $39 device!
January 22nd, 2013 at 1:11 pm
Plugging a headphone output into a DSLR can be done if the output volume is low enough, but it’s not a very good way to go. You wont find much difference in audio quality from between the Juicedlink and iRig Pre from the tests I’ve done.
January 22nd, 2013 at 1:25 pm
Thanks again for your help!. Your videos are great! Great reviews,hacks, diy’s, etc! Ill let you know how my hack goes.
January 25th, 2013 at 2:01 pm
Hi Again,
So I got the iRig Pre and did some prelim testing.
1st – I did not use you hack yet.. incase i needed to make a return… thus i was using a splitter cable i got from radioshack (http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=15438956)
Comparing the Juicedlink RM222 (JL) and iRig:
This was not done in any scientific way just yet, I only wanted to get a overall sense.
Used a AT-875R at about 1 foot distance. Recorded in highest gain for both devices on a T2i with ML, AGC disabled, and +10db analogue gain.
The JL did sound slightly louder and the meters did peak slighter higher (about 10bd higher) then the iRig. Although there was slightly higher room noise as well in the JL.
When lowering the JL to about 3/4 gain (while keeping the iRig at full gain), the peaks were almost identical and noise floor/room noise was very similar.
Both sounded about the same in terms of audio quality.
Interestingly I could get the iRig to peak higher with the T2i analogue gain set to 17db. At that setting it was almost identical sounding to the JL at full gain with the T2i at 10db.
Im also willing to bet the iRig will sound even better using your hack–> less unbalanced cable length and no splitters/extra connections which means overall less interference.
All in all for $39 im pretty shocked how well this performed. I suppose if you don’t need 2 inputs and some of the extras that come with the JL, the iRig is a pretty solid solution. I’m keeping my JL because I need the extra inputs…
Nice find!
January 26th, 2013 at 3:30 am
Hi,
Im not a technical guy, at all – could you please post how this is done. I really need this work… (!)
“You could use the adapter cable (on the right) to brake out the pins on the included iOS cable into a microphone output and a headphone input”
Thank for helping out – you have no idea how moch this helps around the worlds dslr users…
January 26th, 2013 at 6:19 pm
The adapter cable splits the signal and gives a mic level out. Plug the that into the “mic input” on your dslr.
Simple as that.. no solidering
February 25th, 2013 at 11:12 am
I just made the hack, I also have the adapter cable. I feel that now, after the hack, the signal is considerably lower than before when I was using the adapter cable. I don’t connected the Rig Pre in a DSLR, but on a digital audio recorder (a Sony M10) features both Mic IN and Line IN, and I connected the IRig Pre in Line IN, which is the right thing to do since IRig Pre is a preamplifier.
Unfortunatly, I didn’t check the signal before and after the hack, so…
February 26th, 2013 at 7:36 am
I would check your soldering as well as the length of cable you are using. There shouldn’t be any difference between using the adapter and using the hack. In fact if soldered correctly the hack should be slightly superior.
February 28th, 2013 at 5:45 pm
Hi Deejay,
probably in tomorrow I’ll be able to test either the units (the hacked and the original unmodified) and compare them. I’ll post a link to the comparison ASAP.
March 1st, 2013 at 8:42 pm
Here
http://soundcloud.com/marco-pesente/irigprehack-vs-irigpre-with
the link to a downloadable soundcloud file with the comments to IRigPre hacked vs unmodified IRigPre. Recorded using a Sony M10 and a microphone AudioTechnica AT 3032.
March 30th, 2013 at 1:10 pm
Thanks for a tip. I got Irig and I did simple test with NTG3. Can you guys link me to good quality, short cable 3.5 jack. Irig to GH3 please.
https://vimeo.com/62805571
March 30th, 2013 at 2:48 pm
I’ve been using these coiled cables lately, they seem to do a pretty good job.
May 20th, 2013 at 12:10 pm
I use Oktava 012-01 + iRIG pre + EOS 6D. When connected via an adapter that you submitted on the first picture, stereo sound is recorded, although the Octave of 012 mono microphone. Of course, this is not a full stereo, and duplication of the mono channels, but it is very convenient, do not need to do it on a post. The question is – will be recorded sound stereo (2 mono channels) after hack or just a single mono channel?
August 16th, 2013 at 4:05 am
You will get two mono channels, duplicated. But a word of warning, make sure your cables are good, i had the experience of using an old cable which did two things to mess me up, one it only provided one mono channel and at a really low volume, i had the irig turned up to max and the camera turned up to max and i still had to turn up the volume in post, which really wrecked my buzz after hacking this thing. then at around 2am i decided to switch up my 8″ cable and hey presto LOTS of gain and a duplicated mono signal…Delighted
August 15th, 2013 at 6:16 pm
Hi Deejay,
Thanks for this awesome bit of content, i have been toying with this idea for a while now and i just took the plunge. So i hacked the irig pre and using a Rode NTG2 plugged into the iRig, plugged into a GH2, it does work, but it’s a very quite signal. In order to get usable audio i have to have the iRig turned all the way up, plus the mic level turned all the way up on the camera and even then i can only be a foot or two from the mic. Then i need to boost levels again in post. I had originally been happy with the levels when using the iRig for it’s intended purpose recording into my iPod touch using the voice memo app. Is it possible that i have done something wrong or that it delivers less juice with the hack.? or that the NTG2 is just not a very suitable microphone, maybe i should look at adding the add a Fiio E5 into the mix.
Regards
Cormac
August 16th, 2013 at 4:31 am
Scratch my comment above, it was simply a crappy 8″ cable issue, switched it out for a super short one (which came with the Wi Audiolink from Jangus digital that Deejay has covered quite a lot here) and i got a proper HOT, low noise, signal. The only thing that would make me happier now is if i could find a short straight female to male xlr adapter so this fantastic little thing could just become an extension of my NTG2 and cut down on cable clutter.
August 26th, 2013 at 12:51 am
Hi! Thanks for the review I HAVE A QUESTION, can you connect the Sennheiser MKH-416 to a zoom h2n I have this mic and I have not been able to use because the H2N does not provide phantom power, and you think the iRig is usable for my problem, thanks again
October 14th, 2013 at 5:33 am
Hi ! I have the Sennheiser MKH-416 connected to my iRig pre and it’s works fine. The only problem I have it’s the battery life, during 2-3 hours it’s good and after the sound is bad (using a Duracell Pluspower 9V). I must monitoring my 550d to make sure have a clear sound.
If someone had a solution for my battery problem…
October 14th, 2013 at 8:52 pm
You could probably wire in a higher capacity power supply, maybe 6500mAh. That would give you a full day of power.
October 18th, 2013 at 8:05 am
Good.idea, but hey(!) it’s seems to be this is a monophonic solution (when camera have stereo input, right?). So you need two unit and the required cable adapter From two mono-in (from two iRig units) to a stereo one (to plug into the camera). Do I’m right?
October 19th, 2013 at 3:54 am
You could use two of them if you like. The main idea with this hack was to give people a very compact clean phantom power mic unit for your camera. You are more then welcome to expand on the idea.
October 19th, 2013 at 1:29 pm
Thanks pal. You saved me some serious money. Did the hack easily with 0 soldering experience. Will post soon a test video.
November 26th, 2013 at 4:50 pm
Do you happen to know what the signals are on the TRRS pins? Do you know if the mic signal from the iRig Pre has any DC blocking capacitors to stop any plug-in power from the camera coming back? I’ll be testing it with a camcorder, not a DSLR. Thanks.
December 5th, 2013 at 12:15 am
I found the pinout of the TRRS cable (see below) and I made a little TRRS to 3.5mm stereo cable to feed into a recorder/camera. I used the Zoom H1 to test with along with an AT875R shotgun mic.
With the Zoom H1 input gain set to 10 and the iRig Pre set to full gain, I got a very weak signal. I had to turn the gain of the Zoom to 37 (supposed to be the level at which Zoom gives the maximum SNR) before I got a good signal but there was a fair bit of noise too. Looking at the Spectral Frequency Display in Audition 3, there was noise plus some sort of noise signal running all the way across at around 20KHz. I tested the iRig Pre without a mic connected with the Zoom, turning the gain slowly up to its maximum and there is a lot of noise as you reach the maximum.
Maybe the only way is to hack the device. I wasn’t getting anything like the sound sample Deejay provided with the iRig Pre turned all the way up and the gain on the Zoom being set to 11. For me, that didn’t produce any workable level at all. It’s a new device and the battery is new too. Any suggestions as to what might be happening?
iRig Pre TRRS pinout:
T – LEFT
R – RIGHT
R – GND
S – MIC
December 5th, 2013 at 6:20 am
The people i’ve talked to that have had problems, had them because of poor soldering. Might want to take an ohm meter and check your connections. Also might want to check the capacitors on the side of the PCB.
December 5th, 2013 at 7:18 am
Thanks Deejay. I didn’t open the iRig Pre – I made cable that I put on the end of the TRRS cable that’s on the iRig Pre. The resistance is about 1 Ohm for all the connections on the cable. Maybe it has to be soldered on the PCB rather than using splitter cables?
December 5th, 2013 at 8:10 am
1 ohm seems kind of high. You should be getting micro ohms. The posted results are from a soldered connection, not sure how well a homemade splitter would work.
December 5th, 2013 at 8:24 am
Thanks, Deejay. What I did was take TRRS extension cable, cut it, and soldered a 3.5mm jack on the right end. I’ve been soldering for a long time and I know the connections were very clean. Maybe it’s a poor cable to begin with?
December 5th, 2013 at 9:54 am
Not sure, they sell pre made cables on amazon for only a few dollars if you’d like to go that rout.
December 5th, 2013 at 10:14 am
I just wanted to try it before going ahead and hacking it. I did order a cable only to discover it was coming from the U.S. so I put one together while I’ve been waiting for it to arrive. I think someone else on the forum is using an AT875R mic too and it seemed to be ok. It wouldn’t surprise me if it was the cable.
December 9th, 2013 at 3:12 am
An update. I got the adapter cable which arrived today and I thought I’d test it to see if it was the home-made/hacked cable that was giving me the problems. What a difference. Very clean gain. I do still have a ‘line’ of very low amplitude noise running across the whole audio, this time at 19KHz (last time it was around 20KHz with the previous cable). I suspect this will disappear if I do the hack and get perhaps slightly cleaner results too.
With the AT875R, iRig Pre gain turned all the way up, and the Zoom input gain at 10, I don’t get enough level. Mind you, I could turn that up in post and still get reasonable audio because it’s so clean. For me, setting the Zoom to 37, which is supposed to give the maximum SNR, I find that I get reasonable headroom in that I don’t have to turn the gain on the iRig Pre all the way up. I need to do some more tests and also test a lav mic too. I shall report back when I’ve done those tests too.
December 9th, 2013 at 9:49 am
I found that soldering the connections was the best solution. Best of luck and thanks for the update!
January 7th, 2014 at 10:31 am
will this cable work as well ?
http://www.allekabels.nl/na/0/1217087/delock-adapter-stereo-jack-female-35-mm-2-x-stereo-jack-male-35-mm.html
January 7th, 2014 at 10:54 am
Looks correct.
June 16th, 2014 at 8:32 pm
Hi Deejay,
I wanted to run two mics to the camera. So, I did the hack in 2 different modes.
1. Yellow and Red wire
2. Yellow and Black wire
Each of the above was tested for a mono signal. I fed each test into a stereo/mono splitter and got a substantial amount of hum/buzz on either left or right mono channel.
3. Yellow, Red and Black wires (for a one-mic solution)
With this configuration, the stereo/mono splitter doesn’t even recognize a signal. — Why is that?
(Note: for test 3, I plan to run an AGC Defeat signal into the other mono channel… and the splitter passes through that signal.)
Thanks.
June 26th, 2014 at 11:51 am
UPDATE – After thinking about it, I wondered what would happen if…
A. I connected the Yellow + Black wires to get a mono signal to the Tip.
B. And connected the Red + Green (ground) wires to essentially make the Ring into a ground.
PRESTO! It worked. Good audio signal, and no buzz, no hum.
And I feed it into a stereo splitter along with another audio in, and it all works fine.
BUT, it no longer works when plugged into a 3.5mm > XLR adapter plug.
So, it’s either one way, or other. I was unable to get it to work with the splitter the way DeeJay laid it out… before my additional mod, and unable to get it to work with the XLR adapter after my additional mod.
January 13th, 2015 at 11:00 pm
There’s a better way! I just figured it out.
Better way if you still want to use the irig with your iphone.
This option hacks the Y cable instead of hacking the irig unit itself. I have a canon t4i which doesn’t have a headphone out, hence this process.
Simply cut both pink and green TRS off the 3.5mm jack.
The headphones (green) have three wires; red, white and ground (clear). Solder the red and ground together on the side with the TRS. (wires coming FROM the jack of the headphone plug can be taped to the side, you won’t need them)
The microphone (pink) has two wires red & white. Even though you cut these solder them back to how they were exactly.
Now, solder the soldered red & ground wires from the (green) headphone plug to the red wires of the microphone side. Solder the headphones white wires to the microphone white wires. Tape em off so they don’t come in contact with each other.
Now all you need is a 3.5mm jack to 3.5mm jack on the headphone plug and wala. (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004C87WQ6/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
Not super pretty but…..I can now monitor the mic but not from the camera, from the Y cable. Not bad for 40 bucks.
January 14th, 2015 at 8:11 am
Pretty sure the sell a premade adapter for that.
March 27th, 2015 at 5:29 pm
Hello Deejay,
I’ve done the hack, it’s awesome and saves me a lot of money. But…I’ve done a video for my youtube channel “studio bonn” with a few diy-stuff and I’d like to show a few seconds from your video – if you gives me the permission. The video will be in Geman language (exeptional my thank’s for you) just to show it the people who not understand english as well.
Please let me know your decision 😉
And thank you for this brilliant idea!
Best regards
Michael
December 17th, 2015 at 2:53 am
Hey Deejay, did you ever manage to fit that Neutrik Combo 3-Pin Female XLR / 1/4 Inch Stereo plug to the iRig Pre?