What type of condenser mic

Just what I've been looking for. This article is now saved in my "Bookmarks" header for future reference. We have a lot of wind here and it sometimes takes over the mic.

What kind should we use in this windy environ we live in? Newbee here. Sir kindly suggest me a mic which is most sensitive mic to capture all types of sounds inclusive with surrounded noise as well with-in the open field. Note: Relevant to stumps mics. Recommendations on microphones for live performances of ensembles? Is there a microphone that would pick up a keyboard, violin player and 3 vocalists? Pretty much any microphone that you can place on someone's chest aught to work - for extra sensitivity go for a condenser rather than a dynamic mic.

Condenser mic is best for studio recording, but are very fragile. Hi, i've purchased a Sony HXR nx5E Camcorder and would like to try both indoor and out door interviewing, i have a shotgun mic with the camera, what would you advise I use to achieve best quality?

What are the types of mics which are used to record the Foley Sounds? Either inside or outside the studio. Hi, So helpful. I'm running a club at school that will include foley sound work, radio dramas, and podcast interviews.

Three setups. Thinking of two sets of lavalier mics for the interviews going into a laptop or possibly a used H1 or H2 Zoom for field work. Unsure what to get for the radio dramas. Limited budget for sure. Any thoughts? I teach 20 3rd - 5th grade children to play ukulele and sing each year. At the end of the school year the kids give a recital, but without amplification. This year we have money for a microphone -- what is best for a group of this size?

Assuming that you already have a PA System to plug your mics into, then I'd usually go with a pair of Cardiod Condenser mics like these from Samson - but you will have to check with your sound technician first to see if your PA System provides phantom power to operate the mics.

If you don't have phantom power then you'll need a couple of dynamic mics. I am looking for professional quality mic for a youtube channel. I would be grateful for any recommendations or suggestions. I am really struggling for choice of mic. We have a ukulele group and sing and play. Some of us are comfortable on dynamic mics, not scared off by the sound of our own voice. Others, however, well, a little timid.

There are 12 of us more sometimes our harmonies are great but we need to be able to pick up the overall sound - not sure what kind of mic would be best, only one or two of the ukes have pickups, so we need to mic up some of the vocals and pretty well all of the ukes. What do you suggest? Which mikes only pick up close noise cancelling and which are the ones that pick up everything around?

Microphones don't use noise cancelling, instead they have different polar patters to determine which directions they pick up sound from. Cardioid mics pick up sound from in front while Omnidirectional mics pick it up from all directions. I am looking for a mic suggestion for vocals where I picture the mic will be on boom over a large drum with multiple singers sitting around it. I intend to mic the drum with a kick mic on a short stand from below.

It would be ideal if the vocals mic could somehow reject below it to some extent as the drum can be very loud. The room is big and the speakers are a long way from each drum. But it is a large gymnasium so acoustics are lively. To make matters worse it can't be too expensive unless you suggest a mic I have lol. I need to mic 4 groups at the same time.. I do this event only once a year..

Right now I have one wireless 58 on a boom stand and a tech moves it from drum to drum between songs. I was wondering if i could use a lapelle mic for live band use. My aim is to make more of a show of running round a venue but carrying on vocally singing but wondering about issues of feedback etc. That should work just fine - it's common practice in musical theater and I've used wireless lavaliere mics the technical name for lapel mics in that context successfully many times.

What would be a decent mic to plug to a phone and record through a phone. I have flstudio installed in my phone and I want have a better quality recording guitar and vocal. Could you please guide me. This is where things get interesting. The grid can be thought of as the input of the triode tube. It has an incredibly high input impedance and is able to accept the high-impedance signal from the capsule. The grid then acts as a modulator, allowing varying amounts of electrons to flow between the cathode and the anode.

This, in effect, allows the vacuum tube to convert signal impedance and even boost the voltage level of the audio signal! Transistors have replaced vacuum tubes in practically all electronic disciplines. Though many tube microphones are cherished for their character saturation, distortion, etc. Transistors are more accurate, smaller, cheaper, and require less power than their tube counterparts.

The typical FET impedance converter is based on a field-effect transistor and, more specifically, a junction-gate field-effect transistor. A JFET is an active electronic device with three terminals. It utilizes semiconductive material i. To properly power a JFET, external voltage via biasing or phantom power must be applied across the source and drain.

The gate-source can be thought of as a high-impedance input capable of accepting the high-impedance signal from the mic capsule.

This source-drain can be thought of as the low-impedance output, which often has a greater amplitude as well. Condenser microphones are all active regardless of if they have pre-polarized capsules electret mics or not. This is true because all condenser microphones require an impedance converter which is an inherently active device. On top of that, many condenser microphones have printed circuit boards with active components built into them.

So condenser microphones may require power to polarize their capsules and run their printed circuit boards, but all condensers require power for their impedance converters. Phantom power is a very popular, standardized and safe way to power condenser microphones. External power supply units are required for tube microphones since vacuum tubes are so power-hungry. A bias voltage is a low DC voltage typically between 1. It is typically used to power the JFET impedance converters of miniature microphones.

One of the first methods was to power condenser microphones directly through their audio cables using 12 V DC. Since then, phantom power has effectively replaced T-power as the standard microphone powering technique due to its superior powering and safety.

Plug-in-power is a common method to power consumer-grade electret microphones that connect to consumer audio equipment portable recorders, computer sound cards, etc. PiP and DC biasing are nearly the same though their applications are different.

Note that any particulate mic will likely belong to many different types. Electret condenser microphones have electret material built into their capsules, maintaining a quasi-permanent electric charge across their plates. These mics are considered pre-polarized and do not require an external power source to provide a polarization voltage for the capsule. In microphones, the electret material is typically Polytetrafluoroethylene PTFE plastic in film form or solute form.

This PTFE is melted and resolidified in a strong electric field to keep the electric charge within its solid formation. The electret material is designed to supply the appropriate fixed electric charge across the electret microphone capsule. For a detailed read on electret condenser microphones specifically, check out my article The Complete Guide To Electret Condenser Microphones.

Externally-polarized condensers, as the name suggests, require an external voltage to polarize their capsules properly. With all that being said, externally polarized condensers remain great options. For example, the highly reputable microphone company, Neumann GmbH, prides itself on only producing true condenser microphones. Tube microphones are nearly all externally polarized condensers. Quite a few studio-grade condenser microphones are also externally polarized.

As you could probably guess from reading the earlier parts of this article, tube condensers utilize vacuum tube electronics as their impedance converters. Tube mics are often loved for their character. Vacuum tubes often exhibit saturation, distortion, and compression, all of which colour the mic signal in sonically pleasing ways. So although tube electronics are not as precise as transistor-based electronics, tube mics are still sought after because they sound magnificent.

FET condenser microphones otherwise known as solid-state condensers have transistor-based impedance converters.

Because transistor technology is so popular in these mics and can be quite inexpensive , we have a wide range of condenser microphones that utilize FET ICs. There are mid-range FET mics. The cheap consumer-grade mics in toys and other devices are also commonly FET mics though MEMS microphones are becoming more and more standard.

The main point here is that FET condensers have solid-state transistor-based impedance converters. FET condensers can be pre-polarized or externally polarized and can have small or large diaphragms. With Mic Examples. These are the mics that use a high-impedance capacitor-based capsule to store a fixed charge and vary the capacitance of the capsule to produce a voltage. These mics require an impedance converter if the capsule signal is to be used at all. AF condensers are very popular and have been designed to work tremendously well.

In a humid atmosphere, the stored charge across the plates can escape on water molecules in the air rather than through the impedance converter. This causes noisy and reduced output. The high biasing voltage also attracts dust particles to the diaphragm, reducing its efficiency and linearity. There is another type of condenser capsule we must mention that works much better in these humid environments. This makes them highly versatile tools, especially for stereo recording. The sooner you get familiar with multi-pattern mics, microphone polar patterns, and stereo recording, the quicker your recordings will improve.

Of all the microphones on this list, ribbon mics are the ONLY ones that are neither dynamic nor condenser. Rather than using a diaphragm, they use a thin aluminum ribbon to capture sound. While highly-prized by professionals for their unique sound…their high cost makes them rare in home studios. But with the recent rise of bedroom studios , and podcasting …. USB mics plug straight into your laptop, no other gear required.

And some even work with tablets! You rarely see them used in home studios…. But to many professionals, boundary mics aka PZM mics are essential tools in their recording arsenal. Rather than using a mic stand, boundary mics mount against a flat surface in the room, such as the floor or wall.

While other mics suffer from comb filtering , when direct and reflected sound combines out-of-phase …. Boundary mics are immune …because up against a wall, the two automatically align.

While not commonly used in the recording studio…. Normally used for outdoor tasks such as news reporting and wildlife documentation …. They do so, using a design known as an interference tube , which features a series of slots designed to reject off-axis noise. The longer the tube, the narrower the pickup angle. Using these mics, you can record further from the sound source, in much noisier environments. And while advanced sound engineers might use them in the studio occasionally, most of us never will.

Probably the least used type of micrphones in home studios or even regular studios for that matter , wireless microphones have grown big in the last few years…. Partly because of the rise of Youtubers, who need good sound in any situation, even when far away from the camera. A different kind of mic, field recorders are meant to capture sound anywhere, at anytime and as quick as possible.

However, they do have some use with music and home studios, especially the high-end model…. Whenever someone starts a new home recording studio…. The next most common instrument recorded in home studios is of course…. Because…combined with vocals, this one instrument alone can occupy the role of an entire back-up band.

One of the most crucial specs of any microphone is its polar pattern or the direction s from which the microphone picks up sound. Some microphones can only pick up sound directly in front of them, others can pick up sound from any direction.

Cardioid microphones are unidirectional. They pick up significantly more sound from the front of the capsule than the back and sides. The name cardioid stems from the heart-like shape you see in a diagram of its polar pattern. Most consumer and hobby-grade unidirectional types of microphones feature at least one of three cardioid patterns. Supercardioid mics are more focused on the front than cardioid mics but have a small lobe that picks up from the back but at a much lower level.

Hypercardioid mics prevent more audio bleed from the sides but pick up a little more noise directly behind the capsule. Engineers often choose hypercardioid or supercardioid mics when even a cardioid mic is getting too much bleed from other sources. Taking this to its logical extreme, a shotgun mic—like the Sennheiser MKE —only picks up sounds directly in front of it, and only from a distance. An omni mic is best used in either a recording studio setting, where you can control ambient noise, or in a situation where you want to record everything around you.

Lastly, bi-directional mics pick up equally from either side of the capsule but reject the sound coming from the front. The various types of microphones—dynamic, condenser, and ribbon—feature different technologies to convert sound waves to electrical signals.

Dynamic microphones — like the Samson Q9U — use a process called electromagnetic induction to convert sound waves to an electric signal. Inside the capsule is a Mylar diaphragm with a conductive coil attached to it. When sound waves vibrate the diaphragm, it moves the coil in a magnetic field, creating an AC voltage. As a result, dynamics are sometimes called moving-coil dynamic microphones. Dynamic mics are less likely to overload and distort than condenser mics when capturing high SPL sources such as drums, guitar amps, horns, and vocals.