SparkFun Electret Microphone Breakout

This small breakout board couples an Electret microphone (100Hz--10kHz) with a 60x mic preamplifier to amplify the sounds of voice, claps, door knocks or any sounds loud enough to be picked up by a microcontroller’s analog-to-digital converter. Each breakout comes fully assembled and works from 2.7V up to 5.5V.

The Electret Mic Breakout translates amplitude (not volume) by capturing sound waves between two conducting plates (one a vibrating diaphragm and the other fixed) in the microphone and converting them into electrical waves. These electrical signals are then amplified and picked up by your microcontroller’s ADC.

SparkFun Electret Microphone Breakout Product Help and Resources

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Core Skill: Soldering

This skill defines how difficult the soldering is on a particular product. It might be a couple simple solder joints, or require special reflow tools.

1 Soldering

Skill Level: Noob - Some basic soldering is required, but it is limited to a just a few pins, basic through-hole soldering, and couple (if any) polarized components. A basic soldering iron is all you should need.
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Core Skill: Programming

If a board needs code or communicates somehow, you're going to need to know how to program or interface with it. The programming skill is all about communication and code.

1 Programming

Skill Level: Noob - Programming will be limited to basic drag and drop interfaces like ModKit or Scratch. You won't be writing code, but you will still need to understand some basics of interfacing with hardware. If you?re just using a sensor, it's output is analog.
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Core Skill: Electrical Prototyping

If it requires power, you need to know how much, what all the pins do, and how to hook it up. You may need to reference datasheets, schematics, and know the ins and outs of electronics.

2 Electrical Prototyping

Skill Level: Rookie - You may be required to know a bit more about the component, such as orientation, or how to hook it up, in addition to power requirements. You will need to understand polarized components.
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Comments

Looking for answers to technical questions?

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  • Member #1427325 / about 6 years ago / 1

    I've seen the different projext presented as exemple, and knowing that there's one working with voice recognition, can we use this component to create a violin tuner ?

  • Member #429727 / about 6 years ago / 1

    Can I perform voice recognition from the signals received?

  • Member #1197619 / about 7 years ago / 1

    Can someone please let me know if this can be used to detect heart sound? And how can this be used to pass data via bluetooth?

  • SteveHamn / about 7 years ago / 1

    What is the Output Impedance of this? Will it work if connected directly to a PC Soundcard? How about the Electret Microphone itself?

  • Member #625916 / about 8 years ago / 1

    Can this be used as a drop-in replacement for adafruit's model (https://www.adafruit.com/product/1063)?

    • LightningHawk / about 8 years ago / 1

      I don't see why not - we do use a different op-amp for the pre-amplifier and we do not have selectable gain. Our specs a slightly different...just depends on your application and your gain requirements.

  • Member #824225 / about 8 years ago / 1

    How do i configure this to pick up only small breathing sounds? It seems like once I make a sound it keeps logging the knock knock even if I have the volts >= 2.0 && volts <= 3.0

  • Member #525240 / about 8 years ago / 1

    Is the output centered on 0?

    • Member #666505 / about 8 years ago / 1

      no, note the bias V on non-inverting OA input pin. So will be referenced to approx 1/2 of Vcc.

  • Robert / about 8 years ago / 1

    How is this different from BOB-09964?

    • LightningHawk / about 8 years ago / 2

      This is a revision of that product. They still have the same function but the revision has an updated filter for better performance. There is also a tutorial with a couple example projects and more projects to follow in early July.

      • Robert / about 8 years ago / 1

        Got it, thanks! I'm always curious what's different when there's a new revision of a product.

Customer Reviews

4.4 out of 5

Based on 7 ratings:

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1 of 1 found this helpful:

Easy to use. Sensitive

As a "Mr. Wizard" experiment with the kids we set out to measure the speed of sound. Previous attempts used a firecracker to interrupt/allow a laser beam, because a very loud noise was needed to detect the arrival of the sound. With the electret microphone breakout I was able to easily detect the sound of a popping balloon. Now I can do the experiment legally and accurately.

John Gardner

1 of 1 found this helpful:

Higher sensitivity than the MEMS microphone

Developed a white noise system for our Advance Physics Lab for the students to explore.long data sampling. Have several different diameter tubes with different lengths and placed a speaker at one end that is powered by a white noise generator and the other end the SparkFun Electret Microphone Breakout that is then connected to digital oscilloscope. The digital oscilloscope takes a long data record 2-Mega-points and an FFT is performed to find the resonant frequency of each of the tubes. The SparkFun Electret Microphone Breakout worked very well for this and will be using it in more labs.

Did not work for me

Not enough range. Not sensitive enough.

Works great

I added this board to my Cajon to help mic it. Simple and works amazing. The added circuitry for signal boost is a huge bonus.

Does the job nicely

Simple but effective little breakout. I also reduced the gain on one and took out the mic and bias resistor to create a line-input circuit amp. Thanks for making life a little easier guys.