Can you tell us what you are trying to do with the Stethoscope? There are various ways to amplifiy very small sounds which is what a stethoscope does. I have a good friend who is a doctor and he has an amplified stethoscope which he likes because he can vary the gain. It would not be too much of a problem to add a small jack to the output of the unit to allow you to take a high level feed. If you are just doing "heart sounds" any good cardioid condensor microphone with a high gain preamp would do a good job (just don't have the monitors or headphones in the same room or you will get feedback)

Hope this helps!

Also if you want a heart beating sound...
Just get a towel or tshirt, grab it by the sides or arms and while holding it tightly throw it up in the air with your wrists only and pull it back down when it reaches the highest point.

Just play around with it and try to mimic a heartbeat and you'll catch on.

i am doing a live sound performance and would like the attending audience to hear my heart rate as the performance is conducted. im interested in somewhat illustrating the increase of heartbeat due to nerves etc.

Sound interesting... Is it spoken word or musical?

I dont know about your doc friend Thomas, advances in medicine come faster than just about any field except maybe electronics, but I think there may be a hand in glove relationship there.

The stethoscopes I have seen dont seem to have/need any electrical components on them. Kind of like the old phonographs with the huge horns to amplify the sound from the needle. They have the big collector on the end (the cold piece they put on your chest) then the sound goes up the tubes to the ear pieces. No batteries, no wires, no electronics. So sticking a jack on the end would be like sticking a jack infront of a speaker, seems kind of silly (though I can picture some new guy to audio holding a TRS jack and looking at his speaker. . .)

If you REALLY want I guess you could do a DIY by cutting the tube and somehow craming a mic in there then tape it to you chest. But I bet it will probably sound like butt.

If you just want the whole pulse thing you might be able to get one of those cardio meters for exercising then rig a drummagog type thing to play a prerecorded towel-flapping-heart-type-noise :)

rahbeat wrote: i am doing a live sound performance and would like the attending audience to hear my heart rate as the performance is conducted. im interested in somewhat illustrating the increase of heartbeat due to nerves etc.

Never seen that done before, very cool. :)

How about taping an acoustic guitar transducer to your chest? Stewart-MacDonald (Stew-Mac.com) offers several inexpensive piezoelectric transducers for guitars and mandolins. They are about the size of a quarter, do have a 1/4" (some are stripped leads) connector, and can be boosted by a fairly cheap preamp. I watched an experimental electronic music production in Philly a couple of years ago use heartbeats and stomping feet in the act. The sound guy showed me his rig, using taped-on transducers and these little in-jack micro preamps. He said that he had about $75.00 invested in each "rig" and had 4 of them run into a Mackie 1202VLZ...He said the only complaint was that the male artists had to shave a spot on their chests to get the pick-ups to stick with the adhesive!

What is your budget?

One way would be to obtain a small capsule omni, like an Earthworks TC-30K, and slip the stethoscope's main plastic tube over the end. (carefully!)

You could also get a home-test blood pressure meter from a big pharmacy, and tap into the arm-band mic signal it uses to count your pulse.

There are other ways, too. How sophisticated are you with electronics?

theses are good ideas. i ve tried the guitar transducer patched into a mackie 12o2vlz, but not with a preamp so perhaps that would work for this project.
"tap into the arm-band mic signal it uses to count your pulse." this sounds possible and interesting. i will loook into this. thanks, very interestiing. i do wish i was more sophisticated with eletronics.

This thread is officially "cool". 8-)

If you get it figured out, I want to hear the results! Way to be creative!

your choices depend on whether or not you want/need to have the audience hear your actual heart beat, or just need to hear your heart rate via beep.

If you want them to actually hear your heart beat, then I do think you'll need to use a stethoscope head. The flat part is called the diaphragm, the round scooped part is called the bell. You'd have more luck by using the diaphragm as the bell is less sensitive.
My first thought would be to go to a medical supply store in your area. Buy a cheap stethoscope. Cut the tubing in the middle (before it splits to the ears). The get a very narrow headed mic ( A behringer omni comes to mind...cheap...). to insert into the tubing. To do this you'll need to get some different sized tubing to use as an adaptor between the mic diameter and that of the stethoscope tube.

If you also get some surgical tape and tape this device to your chest quite tightly, I think this approach could work...
Also, as stated above, there are stethoscopes made with small amplifiers for the hard of hearing providers. Probably much more likely to produce a sound loud enough to get mic'd, but also prolly more expensive to buy / rent.

Alternatively, if you just need a heart rate, and any beep will do....
a few devices will do this real-time. Any of which you might be able to rent from the medical supply store. Then just mic the beep off of the deivce.
1. A pulse oximeter. A device taped to your finger. Measures oxygen, but also has an ongoing beep for heart rate. *my top suggestion*
2. A heart monitor. These would involve two wire leads taped to your chest to a transducer that prodcues a beep for heart rate. Likely more expensive to rent.
3. A defibrillator. This is what is used to shock the heart back to normal rhythm. These also have wire leads that sense heart rate and will produce a beep. Careful though, cause if it shocks you, you're possibly quite dead.
(big shock and awe points though for your audience).

Overalll, look up "medical supply" in the Yellow pages, and go talk to them.
I'm thinking you can do this succesfully.