audio - XLR to Microphone wiring

I have an XLR cable that I am trying to wire directly to a microphone that did have a Micro XLR connected to it. I have cut the male micro XLR's from each side and am left with the following wires -

Lead - Red (2), White (3) Naked (1)

Mic - Red (3), Naked (1)

I am struggling to get these mocked up to produce any sound output. It seems that the lead numbers do not match the corresponding mic numbers or am I wrong?

Thanks, Chris

Answer

Originally manufactured as the Cannon X series, by 1950 a locking mechanism was added (Cannon XL)[2] and by 1955[2] a version surrounding the female contacts with a synthetic rubber polychloroprene insulation using the part number prefix XLR. Source: Wikipedia XLR connectors.

The XLR connector is now a standard for balanced microphone connection. In this configuration the microphone capsule is wired to L and R and neither is connected to screen. For an unbalanced microphone one of the mic wires needs to be connected to shield.

^{simulate this circuit – Schematic created using CircuitLab}

Figure 1 and 2 show how to "unbalance" a balanced microphone for an unbalanced input. Figure 3 shows how to connect an unbalanced mic into a balanced input. (Connect one of the L or R pins to shield in the mic plug.)

The circuit assumes a low-Z microphone feeding into a hi-Z amplifier using a transformer for impedance coupling. The transformer is shown for simplicity but can be effected by electronic solutions.