Ps3 Microphone Patch To Utilize Real Shure Sm-58

[U2Phreak1969]

For those that don't know me, I've hosted karaoke shows by trade for over 15 years. I have prided myself in my ability to sing, but from the moment I first tried to sing on Rockband, I've been disappointed. I have never been able to sing expert vocals. . . even hard was, well Hard.

I guess to hit a $160.00 pricepoint - you've got to cut some corners. I realized this was the corner they cut. I've sworn ever since then I would figure out a way to install my REAL Shure SM-58 microphones into the game. For an XBOX user this isn't too much brain surgery. Pretty much any kind of USB/XLR converter will work. For some reason with the PS3 that is simply not the case. . .

I'll give you a full review later when I have more time. I'm off to a potential Rockband gig right now, but I finally figured out how to get a smooth working vocal for Rockband.

It sounds WAY better than the stock mic ever did and it patches to a secondary mixing board where with the proper equipment you can mix your own vocal effects.

Once I got the mic set up right, I tried three different songs that I can usually do pretty well. Creep, All The Small Things and Buddy Holly. I have never been able to sing expert with much success. . . usually completing the songs in the low 70 percentile. With my SM-58 in hand I successfully charted a 100%, 99% and a 97%, respectively.

And even through the game it sounded decent.

Tomorrow night I will try it live for the first time and I will give you a follow-up review Wednesday morning - Complete with photos!

[U2Phreak1969]

The end result I wanted to achieve here is a set-up that would allow the singer to wander around a stage (I am doing live karaoke/rockband shows) and sing through a 30 foot long mic cable amplified over my PA speakers and set so I can control vocal level through the mixing board.

What I ended up with to accomplish this, was a second "Mic mixer" and a split of the outputs off of this mixer to both the PS3 and my main mixer a Mackie 1202.

Out of Pocket expense for this upgrade, as follows. . .
(All purchased through Guitar Center)

Mackie 402 VLZ3 Mixer ($99.99)
30 ft Monster Mic Cable ($39.99)
3 FT XLR male to 1/4" male cable ($9.99)
3 FT male to male 1/4 inch cable ($9.99)
Shure SM-58 Beta Microphone ($139.99)

Radio Shack 1/4" female adapter

How I did it!

The first thing I did was cannibalize my Rockband microphone. I don't know of another way you could do this for the PS3, for the XBOX360, I understand the $40.00 USB/XLR Lightsnake works great, but then you are limited to a 10' cord and risk having your singers rip the thing out of your machine.
Never nice when the music just suddenly stops!!!

To do this you need to cut about 12" above the inline box with the picture of the mic on it. As best I can guess this is some kind of analog/digital convertor. That box must be left in line so that the machine can sense your tone. That is all the line to your PS3 will be for.

Once you cut the rest of the mic cord off, strip back the rubber on the outside of your cable, this will expose a great deal of copper strands. . . wind them. That makes your negative lead. Also you will see a white plastic lead (that also needs about 1/2" stripped back to expose the copper wire underneath as well.) This one is your positive lead.
Once again you are going to twist these strands, but before you do, seperate them into two groups and snip off one of the groups. The positive lead on the female adapter from Radio Shack isn't big enough for the full bundle of wires. Don't worry. This leaves plenty of conductive wiring for the positive lead. The positive lead is the one on top on the female adapter. The negative is the lead that you clamp your cable into. MAKE SURE YOU LOAD THE INSULATING SHELL ON BEFORE CLAMPING. I made this mistake. . . Shouldn't have been drinking beer before hand.

Luckily, Radio Shack sells these in a pack of two, so I started over and used the other one. This is also the reason I told you to leave a foot of cable outside the box. That way you have room for mistakes. . . Just in case!

Once you have finished the connections simply solder them in place. Now, simply screw on the insulating cover and "Wa-lah!" you have a female terminated 1/4"/USB mic adapter.

At this point you are ready to hook it up. Plug your new "adapter" into the PS3. Hook up your Mackie 402. Plug your main microphone into the 402. On the MAIN OUTPUT (which are 1/4" adapters) plug the 1/4' to XLR cable into one side and the 1/4" to 1/14" to the other. Plug the XLR Jack into a secondary board (in my case my Mackie 1202), this is your lead singer's mic for the evening. Now plug the 1/4" jack into your USB adapter.

At this point I actually electrical taped the 1/4" cable to the adapter because unfortunately, its from Radio Shack and their connectors suck. This will give you a solid connecting, just test it before you tape it in place. Iwas getting a lot of light static through it, until I taped it.

Now, plug in your mic to the Mackie 402 and choose a song. You are going to have to play with levels until you get them right, but as a general rule, set your mic volume and gain to Unity. Also bring up the "Main Volume Output", to Unity. This should insure a strong enough signal to hear you through the Playstation.

At this point start a song in Rockband on "Easy". Make sure everything is working good. Adjust MIC volume on the Mackie until you get a nice smooth sounding signal.

If this is all you want is to run a professional sounding mic, you are done. Restart song on expert and rock like a pro. If though, like me. . . You are trying to run your mic independently through your own board, then continue. . .

Next you are going to want to take the Microphone volume "In Game" down to 0 - Hold down the triangle button and move the left stick to the left to remove all mic volume. You should notice if you sing into it, you'll still vaguely hear your voice. Make sure you adjust the mic sensitivity as well. You do this by holding down the square on the controller once again adjusting the volume level with the left stick. Once sensitivity is about half way, you are ready to go.

Now turn up your mic on your main board and set the level. If you have a professional vocal processor you can finally make some decent vocal effects now and you don't have to hear the tinny sounding BS that goes on in game.

The mic now sounds awesome and the accuracy with which you sing will astonish you.

It was well worth the money to me, granted, I already owned my SM-58 so I just bought the additional Mackie Board. By the way there is a 402 board available through Behringer for less than half the price ($44.95) I spent on the Mackie, but I have never been impressed with Behringer quality. There is a reason you spend double for the Mackie!

Anyways, that's pretty much it. Enjoy the upgrade if you make it! It is awesome!!!

[ggdoll]

I'm doing expert tour and have beat 15 songs with no mods and I can't sing good. Got friends who sing good and they can nail the songs on expert. Just dueled with PS3 buddy who hit 3 100% expert and all other high 90% with no mod.


Don't think scoring is the issue, but if your talking about mod for vocal audio output looks like a cool setup.

[mooremwm]

Wow, sounds like you really know your stuff. I don't think I want to invest that much cash into a mic upgrade and don't really need a mixer but I might be willing to invest say $40-$50 in a better USB microphone if it will help pick up my voice better (and not do the jumping pitch arrow thing on the PS3). Do you know if anything like this exists and if it would work on the PS3 without any mods or converters? One of the loading screens in RB says that we can use pretty much any USB microphone. Or is the real magic in the board and the control it offers?

[Tralfmadorian]

So instead of being good at singing on expert with the mic that came with the game, you spent ~320 bucks and can now sing on expert.

Congrats.

I have the same mic, and have tried it with RB. I noticed no change.

[depthdefy]

Yeah, the RB mic isn't all that responsive. It would be nice to have a mic that when you start a lyric the arrow doesn't take a half second to rise to the proper pitch (not to mention the twitchy arrow PS3 problem). And it would be nice to have a mic that doesn't make your voice sound like you're singing from inside a tin can at the bottom of the ocean.

[akspiderman]

My mod cost me less that $30.

http://www.rockband.com/forums/showthread.php?t=45832

[Apples]

Always cool to see people finding creative hardware mods to improve their experience.

Good for you! :D

[U2Phreak1969]

Okay, from my prior review of my mod I have to tell you. It was probably premature. I had yet to hook it up through the PA. . . That came last night.

Unfortunately, it still ended up coming off sounding tinny.

When I'm doing a Rockband show, its also married in to my karaoke show. I use an A/B switch to flip the video back and forth between my PS3 and my karaoke system.

That allowed me a side by side comparison of what my mic should sound like. . . and what it sounded like in Rockband. Now don't get me wrong. I'm not unhappy with my upgrade. It's just not everything my earlier review cracked it up to be. It's still far from perfect.

The first thing I've got to say (and this has nothing to do with mic quality, just functionality) is that the mic isn't muted except when a song is on. I love that. It was frustrating that the mic never worked until the song started, before. Now my mic works, so long as the mixing board volume is turned up.

Second, going more to function again. . . the mic didn't get ripped out of the PS3 once. Yeah!!!!

Now more to function. and the heart of my problem. The mic still sounds great (in comparison with the in game mic), but unfortunately, when amplified over PA speakers as opposed to just hearing the one source (over my TV). It gets lost in the tinniness coming from the Rockband output.

Apparently, turning the mic volume down only takes it to like a 4 (if the overall output of the mic was measured on a scale of 1-10)

I guess this almost becomes a tech support question at this point. I have done the best job I think anyone could have to bypass the vocals (in-game) while still allowing a "karaoke" type experience with the scrolling lyrics.

Obviously, if I could just turn the vocals off and still choose to have the lyric scroll I would be thrilled - end of problem, but then the singer couldn't score with everyone else. So the only other option would seem to be a patch on Harmonix's part to allow the vocal to be completely reduced to maybe a 1-5% output, just enough that the lead I have going to the PS3 (tonal lead) could still score their tone while not overpowering the (performance) lead to the mixing board.

Any chance of this happening HMX?

By the way, just to give an idea of overall performance, if through my karaoke system the mic sounded like a 10, it was still barely a 5 through Rockband, simply because of all the tinniness. . . but that is still better than the two I would have originally given it.

[U2Phreak1969]

I played at a different gig last night again and I figured something out. If I keep the main board at a higher level than the "Rockband board" I could actually get the mic quality up to about an 8, but you can't crowd the mic at all or you will washout your band mates with vocals.

I would still love a patch where the in game vocal could still be sensed (for tonal feedback) but not heard at all. This would be ideal for us public Rockbanders!

Thanks!