miniDSP UMIK-1 microphone shock mount

An isolating shock mount for the miniDSP UMIK-1 measurement microphone. The mount is intended to be installed on a monopod, tripod or selfie stick with a ¼" or 3/8" screw. It isolates the microphone from a broad range of vibrations, which is useful for many applications - e.g. moving microphone measurements.

The “Single” variant works without extra parts. The “Dual” variant requires either two ¼" screws with at least ⅓" length or four M3 x 8 screws to attach the two mounts to the base. In a pinch, two cable ties through the ¼" holes will probably work, too 😄

Other makers report that this mount also fits the Audio Technica ATR6550x and Sennheiser ME66 microphones. Essentially, most shotgun mics with roughly 20 mm diameter are likely to fit.

Test results

To make sure that this model actually works, I performed a couple of tests using prototypes made from PLA mounted on a roughly 0.5 m long monopod and compared them to the stock miniDSP microphone clamp. I started a recording using a UMIK-1 and knocked on the monopod ten times using my hand for each run. The results looks like this (lower is better):

The graph shows, that both mount variants (shown in orange and red) reduce shocks by as much as 18 dB in the frequency range around 400 Hz, when compared to the stock clamp (dotted blue line). The design could potentially be improved a bit in the range below 60 Hz, but overall I'm very happy with the results.

Print settings

• Layer height 0.2 mm
• Line width 0.42 mm
• Infill 25%
• 4 wall lines (This is important to reproduce the damping results shown above!)
• 5 top & 4 bottom layers
• Supports not required

PLA works as material, but you should avoid brittle types like matte PLA. PETG is probably better suited overall.

Approximate print time @ 60 mm/s: Shock mount 0:20 h / Base 0:30 h