Hi,

I am using a mini condenser electret microphone for research that I
would like to connect to the balanced XLR input of a mixer. Ideally, I
would like to power the mic on the mixer's phantom power.

I tried connecting the - and ground of a hacked XLR cable and hooking
up the mic's leads accordingly (as suggested by some websites), but the
noise was too dramatic. So, I'm unsure what the best solution is.
Should I buy an unbalanced to balanced converter? Is there a simple
"hack job" solution? Should I just splurge for some more expensive
balanced mics?

I'm not incredibly knowledgable on the subject, so any words of wisdom
would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks a lot.