Microphone Mute Page


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Microphone Mute Pedal
May 2022

I use a head mounted condenser microphone when I perform live. This is great because the mic is always positioned correctly when I sing but the mic also picks up anything I say to the other musicians and my breathing when I am not singing. I decided I need a mute pedal so I can control when the mic is hot and when it is not. Being me of course, I had to build it myself instead of buying one.

This works well (with no pops into the PA when switching) with my condenser microphone but should work equally well with a dynamic mic. I found this circuit on the Internet and many people seem to use it without issue.


Here is the front view of the pedal. The switch is a
push on / push off
 3 pole switch.

In one state the mic is on and connected to the PA and in the other state, the mic is totally muted.

The pedal is built into an aluminum project box for shielding from hum and noise.

Back view of pedal.

Two XLR connectors are used. One that goes to the mic (female) on the right and one that goes to the PA (male) on the left.

You can see the pedal is pretty small and will easily fit into my gig bag.

It is also built very sturdy so hopefully it will last forever.

I put some felt feet onto the bottom to prevent the pedal from slipping around when I use it.

Here is the schematic of the mute pedal I found on the Internet. The only unique item is the 1000 uF cap which needs to be non-polarized. This is accomplished by connecting 2 470 uF 6.3V polarized caps in parallel with the + side of one cap connected to the - side of the other and vise versa. The schematic says 1000 uF but with this arrangement we use 940 uF which seems to work fine.

Questions and comments to me Craig at: calhjh@gmail.com

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