IRig Pre as an inexpensive preamp

German version

Hello!
If you use a DSLR or Blackmagic Camera for filming, you will probably notice that the sound from an external microphone is noisy and its volume is low.
The reason for that are the bad internal preamplifiers integrated in the most DSLRs and especially BMD cameras.

As a solution there exist some very expensive external preamps like the ones from Beachtek. Though they are worth their money for sure, I want so show you a quick and cheap remedy which is sufficient for many pracitcal purposes:
The IRig Pre .
Actually it is dedicated as a preamplifier for connecting your E-Instruments to your tablet or smartphone, but you see, if we substitute "E-Instruments" by "microphone" and "tablet" by "camera", we get pretty much what we want ;-)

The Irig does even have an XLR-Input, Phantom Power and a hardware gain knob and so may enhance the usability of your setup.
The only hitch we have to deal with is the fact that the IRig´s output connector is a 4-pole special jack for mobile devices which we cannot use with a Camera. Fortunately, there are two easy workarounds:

1.
Use this Adapter . That´s very simple, isn´t it? Yet, it means one additional connector in the line which is also very fragile.

2.
Modify the IRig itself so that its headphone jack acts as an output socket. It sounds more complicated than it actually is and here is a very good explanation how to do it.

So far we have come, but what about the actual quality?
Although I must say that the amplifier is not free of noise, it performs surprisingly well for its price and my experience is that it produces really usable results for many practical purposes.
With my Rode NTG-2 connected to the BMPCC through the IRig I am satisfied with the results given the mic distance to the person who speaks isn´t greater than apprx. two meters.

That´s what my current handheld-setup looks like:

Here is a short example from a recent project for Krita, shot with my setup. The sound is straight out of cam:

Now, have fun testing!

PS: At the moment I am experimenting with an idea to get a cheap audio levels display with blackmagic cameras, so stay tuned!