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Comment by Todd Allen on April 13, 2010 at 5:35pm

Rik, I missed your follow up on the mixer til just now.

The mx153 looks like a great little mixer. Not the cheapest option, but it packs a lot into a small package. For bike use it looks a lot more convenient than units with a full panel of equalizer knobs that one rarely needs. And taking 12 volts is great.

Have you been out using it yet? Just curious to hear a report on how it is working out.

Comment by Todd Allen on April 13, 2010 at 5:19pm

If the batteries are cheap/free I'd definitely take whatever is left over. I don't need them for myself, but if they are good enough I could use a few to make an electric trike for my mother-in-law.

Also, check in with Chopper Carl if the batteries become available as I think his old one was getting weak.

Comment by rik on January 4, 2010 at 9:33am

I decided on the Rolls mx153.
It is a nice little mixer with mic preamp and phantom voltage.
I cut off the AC wall transformer and saved it for something else.
Then I just wired the remaining 12vdc plug to the 12volt battery.
It has a very low draw on the battery; so I can easily run it all day.

Comment by rik on December 25, 2009 at 11:37am

Todd Allen
Thanks for the quality response! It took me a while to digest all the info. I looked up that Rolls GLC cl151 and it looks like it is the best portable mic pre amp with compression. It is also great because it runs on 12volts dc which matches my battery. The only problem with it is that it is not a mixer, so I still need to add a mixer box to blend the mic with the mp3 player. While looking up your Rolls box I found different ones, the Rolls mx153 and Rolls MX122. These are mixer and mic-pre-amp in one little box that runs on 12v dc. These will let you add a wireless mic as well.
There is new breed of wireless mics for camcorders. They use batteries for the transmitter and receiver. These are perfect for connecting directly to an amp with out the need for a pre-amp.
Has any one tried one?

Comment by Todd Allen on December 12, 2009 at 7:06pm

Mics output very weak signals unless you find one with an integrated preamp. Otherwise you need a separate preamp. And some mics also need an external power source, ie "phantom" power.

Mixers have mic preamps and most offer phantom power. They are a good choice, especially if you want to use the mic and music or other sound source together. But you can also get just single channel mic preamps or units like the Rolls GLC which incorprorate additional features like a noise gate and a compressor to help avoid problems with clipping.

One thing that can be awkward is that most preamps run on odd power sources such as + and - 9 volts DC supplied by a 120 volt AC transformer - phantom power I believe is 18 volts... There are models set up to take a pair of 9 volt batteries but the run time is short and the batteries are somewhat costly.

I run a mixer using the stock wall wart adapter plugged into an inverter. It works, but it isn't very elegant. The added bulk, weight, connections to fail and power wastage are annoying for portable use.

One nice thing about using a mixer is that most also function as a preamp to boost headphone level signals. I'm currently running a very sweet, inexpensive, ultra light and efficient amp. But it doesn't have much gain. Run straight off my mp3 player it only puts out about 5 watts per channel into 8 ohms. But with the mixer I can boost the input and unleash the full 400 watts.

Comment by rik on December 11, 2009 at 9:39pm

Hi all
I am setting up my ride with sound
I just got a Fusion Reactor 450 watt amp and 12 in sub in a box.
This kit was on sale at Best Buy for $59
I do not have a trailer for the sub yet, so I am using the amp just on some old tv speakers mounted in rear milk crate basket.
Right now it runs a mp3 player ok.
Do I need a mixer to add a mic?

Comment by Todd Allen on October 28, 2009 at 5:42am

Spencer, I just downloaded your mix. If I don't have a live performer I'll play it. We can try and sync up at ride start although digital music players vary in playback speed. Thus they can drift a good fraction of a second every few minutes.

Comment by Madopal (16.5 mi) on October 28, 2009 at 3:35am

Sansa 8GB with Rockbox FTW!

Comment by Spencer "Thunderball" Thayer! on October 27, 2009 at 6:03pm

I have a Sansa Clip 8GB. So if anyone is interested in using Side A & B on the ride they can download it at http://spencer4hire.info/ .

Comment by Madopal (16.5 mi) on October 26, 2009 at 5:43am

Just getting into it...but good stuff, Spencer. I had been lax at looking into the Halloween mixes/mashups this week, so this will also jumpstart me.

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