John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

I was wondering about this for a few weeks and my curiosity got the better of me.

I am planning on building a 2 room studio (Live, Iso, Control), and for mic panels in the 2 tracking rooms, I wanted to use the same mic lines (Live room has 12 mic slots, #1-12, Iso room has 4 mic slots, #1-4).

My question is, how would I confugure a red LED to light up when a mic is plugged into the corrosponding slot in the opposite tracking room.

(If anyone has been to the AIR studios, they'll probably know what I mean)

I remember seeing a post about this about a year ago, but I don't think there was any resolve in it.

Without doing some extensive research, at the moment I dont know.

something on the mic circuit would need to detect the mic - could be as simple as a switch on the plate that gets pressed when a cable is plugged in, or something that detects an impedence change on the line and lights the LED. the switch would seem to be simpliest.

the switch though only tells you if a cable is plugged in, so some impedence/capacitance change or circuit complete detector seems to be needed to truly determine if the mic is plugged in.

maybe this link has enough info.
http://www.epanorama.net/circuits/micro ... ering.html