Things to plug in microphone?

[durandal]

Okay, my friends and I just made a band and we have a mic (my friends has one, I don't know much about it). What should I plug it in to? All our amps are being used for guitars, so I have 4 questions.

1) What kind of connection does a microphone need?

2) What do most people connect a microphone to (not including PA systems)?

3) Is there anything at home that I can channel a mic through? I have alot of computer speakers subwoofers, but I don't think they'll work.

4)I heard that microphones destroy guitar amps? Is this true, and how long will it take/should I worry about it if I decide to do this?

[TheJarve]

1) a cable
2) a plug
3) speakers
4) yes. they're the iraqi terrorists of the guitar amp universe

nah just kidding. i'll give you some serious answers now.

1) microphones use (usually) XLR cables. they are a three pin plug that has to be plugged into a special port. by the sounds of it, your mate has a dodgy five buck one. if it is the same plug as for a guitar amp, its probably not very good quality.

2) mics are used for recording nearly everything, because of the way the guitar speaker is designed, its better to mic up your amp to record your playing than it is to do what is called "lining in", which generallysounds horrible.

3) no idea what you're asking there sorry

4) yes they do. not sure exactly the reasons, but after a periodof time the guitar amp will sound awful. NEVER USE A MIC THROUGH AN EXPENSIVE GUITAR AMP!!!! believe me.

i'll try to find some links for you

[airborne50caliber]

1) Mics use XLR (3 pin). If your mic doesen't have 3 pins up its back end, ditch it.

You need to take the mic to a preamp (Wether this be contained in a mixer or is a stand-alone unit doesen't matter) using an XLR female (3 holes) to XLR male (3 pins) and take the line level output of the preamp or mixer to a poweramp, then run a high-power speaker level ine from the poweramp to the speakers.

2) For practice, bands connect mics to a mixer, and the line in input is usually taken to some sort of powered or active (Difference between those two doesen't matter here) speaker, which contains the poweramp and speaker in one and therefore takes the line signal directly into its input. A PA system is a mixer and a poweramp / speaker system. If you cannot use PA, run the preamp into a keyboard amp or a bass amp (Which will sustain some damage, unfortunately, but before it becomes audible you will have deepfried it so much you deserve to be deepfried), NOT a guitar amp. I have worked with some Roland keyboard amps which have a mic level XLR input, and therefore contain the preamp, poweramp and speaker in one and you can plug the mic into them directly. Another alternative is to use a powered monitor wedge, which will take a line level signal from a preamp. There must be someone you know with a monitor you can borrow.. otherwise they don't cost too much.

3) Computer speakers. I have done it in the past, yeah. You are shoving stuff with two huge balls through little pussies made for gaming, however, so don't expect sonic heaven and don't be surprised if the cones excurse to the point of implosion. I did it like this:

--> Mics into mixer (XLR).
--> Mixer left and right outputs into speaker 1 left and right inputs (RCA).
--> Speaker 1 distributes to left speaker and to sub using RCA speaker lines.
--> Alternate 'tape out' in mixer to second set of computer speakers, also distributed as above.

The power you can get out of this thing really depends on how powerful your computer speakers are, and more importantly how much the cones can excurse before transforming the singer's voice into distorted mish-mash, because your mixer will be able to give your PC speakers levels way higher than they can handle, so speaker excursion will be the limiting factor.

4) Do not run mics through guitar amps. Do not, do not, do not. Unless you have a guitar amp which you are never going to use for guitars EVER again.