The Stealth Mic

Cut two 3' lengths of wrap wire in each of 2 colors. Solder these to the first microphone element’s 2 contacts.
Slide a couple inches of heat-shrink tubing over each connection, and heat it with a lighter. This will secure the connections. We want them to be as stationary as possible, as movement of these wires will create noise on the line.
Twist the 2 wires together, but not too tightly. Slip on another piece of heat-shrink, this time over both wires. Slide it up to about 2" from the mic element, then shrink it.
Repeat the same process with the second mic element. About 10" from the mic elements, slip another piece of heat-shrink tube over to combine all 4 wires. Keep track of which pair goes to which mic.

Open the stereo plug, and slide the cover over the 4 wires. Here’s the trickiest part: in order to have the correct stereo image, the wires on 1 of the 2 mic elements should be reversed. So, for one mic element, the red goes to a plug terminal, and the blue to the plug’s ground; on the other mic element, the blue goes to the second plug terminal and the red goes to the ground.
Solder these connections, then screw the cover back on the plug.

Fasten the earbud cushions over the mic elements so that they’re large enough to sit comfortably in your ears. That’s it, you’re done.

To hear exactly what’s being recorded, some folks will actually use a mannequin’s head to hold the binaural mic, and will hold the head in their hands while wearing a pair of normal headphones to monitor the sounds. Working this way creates the amazing effect of listening to a binaural recording as it happens, but keep in mind that if you walk around holding a dummy head out in front of you, you may attract attention (in fact, I think you’d get arrested in some places).
With these stealth binaural mic headphones, as long as you’re in a situation in which it’s socially acceptable to be wearing headphones, you can record away, knowing that what you hear will be very close to what you play back later.
For a schematic diagram and list of recordings, go to http://www.makezine.com/17/diycircuits_m....

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