Pro Sound Web: Here’s a highly simplified explanation of mic specs in plain English. It may help you evaluate microphones based on their specifications.
MICROPHONE TYPE: Dynamic, condenser, ribbon
These terms refer to the way the microphone converts sound into an electrical signal. Each type has its own “sound” and application.
7 comments:
This is a very handy little article. Thanks to Production Audio class last semester, 95% of this was not news to me, but it was a great refresher. I think it's very smart for sites such as ProSoundWeb to publish Church Sound articles like this one. There are countless churches, small community theaters, and other groups who use the same sound technology that we do, just on a smaller scale. It's important for them to be educated on the technology so that they can use not only use their equipment properly, but also get the mot out of it. The same is true for lighting and media as well. Why not put the information out there in a clear and simple way so that more people can use the technology? It would be very smart for a manufacturer to have a guide like this, because they could be promoting education while also promoting their product.
while reading this article i couldnt help but hear eric t lawson in the back of my head. this is an extremely helpful guide when it comes to microphones. these simple guides are a necessity and a rare commodity in theatre. the trouble is that with sound and lighting is that utilizing sound and lighting seems (to many) like rocket science. in truth its typically relatively easy to use once the concepts of it are understood. any person running a sound board has heard the repeateded slap worth question "do you know what all the nobs do?"
It's about time people started writing about sound equipment in a way that actually makes sense. Luckily, the way we were taught in Stagecraft made the technology easy to understand, but besides that class I have never heard a straightforward, simple explanation of anything sound-related. I spent a good portion of this summer putting together specs and working on sound equipment rentals and installations. It became apparent that most people who called in for orders had no idea what they were spending their money on. It should not be nearly as complicated as it is to understand the things this article so clearly explains. It is really all in the wording.
This was a nice crash course in microphone types and their related specifications. Almost none of the information was news to me, yet the way it was presented would be very clear to someone who had very little experience with audio. While important, some of the information presented such as signal-to-noise ratio and impedance are things that I feel may go right over the heads of the intended audience of this article. I'm happy that an article like this does exist, as the easier it is to educate people about audio equipment, the better of many small community theaters, schools, and church groups will be.
Sean, this article reminded me of Erik's stagecraft class too. This is a simple but effective review of basic microphone specs based on their specific uses. I agree with Dan - the more people know about basic microphone usage, the better off everything will be. I'm disappointed in a lot of the proofreading on ProSoundWeb. Has anyone else ever heard of anything called a "rol-loff"? Besides that, the series of frequency response curves was well-presented.
Where was this my past two years at CMU!? This is a great summation of microphones. While it doesn't go into necessary details if you are learning initially about why or how the microphones work, it gives you the requirements to possibly pick a microphone. Churches especially might be buying new equipment or just needing to pick the correct microphone and this will help. We did a lot of learning about microphones, how they work and so on, but this could help you to actually choose a good mic if you need to and you dont know much about them.
This is a really great article! I'm very active at my church back home and sing onstage most weeks (with at least one microphone)--we're a fairly large, contemporary church. Everyone knows how important sound is in theatre, and it is equally important in religious settings…if not more so. In a religious service, sound could completely make or break a parishoner's experience. While at my church we are lucky enough to have a wonderful sound team, this guide would be extremely helpful to smaller churches, where sound is just as important.
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