With the addition of a PDM microphone, 4-pin cable and amplified speaker, the MONSTER M4SK can alter your voice. The first two items are included in the ADABOX 013 bundle, or can be acquired separately.
Frankly, the voice distortion isn’t super great, but good enough for Halloween fun. Some words are hard to understand, especially with the pitch lowered. It’s fantastic for grunts and roars and monster sounds though!
Ideally the microphone should be right in front of the wearer’s mouth.
The wide-set eyes of this skull mask meant extending the PDM microphone cable, similar to the split-eyes cable on the prior page. Fortunately there’s only four wires and they’re color-coded. Your own project might not need this.
The mic seemed to work best centered about 1cm in front of one’s mouth.
Scrounging in the craft supplies again, ended up with a popsicle stick, trimmed to size. This part made me grateful for having chosen a rigid plastic mask.
Experiment and adjust, using tape to hold things temporarily until the sizes and positions are just right. Then one can commit to more permanent methods.
Hot glue holds the stick in place, and I gave it a coat of paint to hopefully seal the wood a little (so it won’t absorb moisture and bacteria).
Once the paint was dry, some hot glue held the mic in place, as well as a few dots to keep the wires under control.
Remember, the point to all this hot glue is that it’s removable later.
Exhaled breath contains a ton of moisture! A couple layers of plastic wrap, taped down around the mic, keeps out condensed breath and spittle. Or cut out a small piece of a sandwich bag. Or improvise. Maybe there’s a 3D-printed doodad that could encapsulate this and still let enough sound through?
A really humid over-the-head mask might require more drastic measures. Heat-shrink might work, or might block too much sound, haven’t tried. An old audio engineer trick for rain or underwater recording is to put the mic inside a balloon and tie it off with a rubber band.
The humidity issue is one of the most vexing problems when combining electronics and costumes. This is why it’s a good idea to start early and do some realistic test runs, not just a few words. An idea might seem to work but then cuts out after 30 minutes. Allow time for experiments.
The MONSTER M4SK needs to be connected to an amplified speaker to make this work. The next page, mirrored from the main MONSTER M4SK guide, gives some recommendations.
The Monoprice amplifier mentioned there includes lanyard holes…it’s easily worn over the chest (maybe hidden under a cloak), a little more natural than a voice coming from your hip.
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