viperlabs

Thank you soooo much for your help! People like you are few and far between these days ;D j.

The mics will be mounted deep down inside a set of tone chimes (see pic), which sound kind of like hand bells but are more rugged...and cheaper ;) Hopefully I'm headed in the right direction. Would you please check out the attached image and see if this is something you think would work? Is there a specific opamp you might recommend for this application? Also, do you know of a thin, flexible shielded audio cable that may be somewhat durable? Thanks for your help ;D

Here's the overview: - 30-40 electret mics; each connected to a 2 conductor wire about 6-8 feet in length - the wires go into the ever-popular "magical black box" - one balanced or unbalanced, line or mic level signal comes out of the box to be plugged into an audio mixer The problem I've had is answering the question, "what's in the black box?" I need to create a circuit which will mix all the signals and send them out as one. I've also wondered if I can get away with using strips of ribbon cable for the 2 conductor wire and not receive much in the way of interference, or is that not possible? My goal is to have a circuit with as few components as possible, and I just can't seem to put together the information I found on op amps and other audio preamp-related ICs to feel confident. Can someone out there help me? j.