URY Wiki - User contributions [en-gb]

Dynamics

2020-04-28T21:21:08Z

10693:

Audio... these are the voyages of the radio station URY, on it's brave adventure to turn literally EVERYTHING into a sosig.

Audio dynamics is simply the difference in loudness between sampleable elements of a continuous piece of audio. Surely this is simple? Audio (being the vibrations of air molecules or an electronic representation of this) can be loud and then audio can be quiet, and considerable variations of this. Whilst it is all very simple, the reality is human ears pick up on these differences very easily and even small variations to how you handle audio signals can greatly affect how the audio is perceived.

For most audio dynamics processing, the changes made by a certain piece of audio equipment or software to the 'pure' input signal can be represented as a simple 2-axis graph, mapping a sample of an audio signal between 1 and -1 to an equivalent graph with a practically equivalent range like so:

These graphs are not perfect, as processing can be context sensitive.- i.e have a different response to a signal if it is part of a representation of a higher frequency -. However for most basic applications they are a reasonable compromise to keep things simple.

Dynamics

2020-04-28T01:28:51Z

10693: Removed redirect to Channel Dynamics

Audio... these are the voyages of the radio station URY, on it's brave adventure to turn literally EVERYTHING into a sosig.

01v96i User Manual

2020-04-28T00:35:59Z

10693:

This page is currently under construction. Please check back regularly over Summer 2019 as [[User:10418]] continues to write this up.

[[Patching]]

[[Channel Pairing]]

[[Scene Management]]

[[Channel Dynamics]]

[[Equalisation]]

If you notice any issues with the technical content of this guide after October 2019, please contact me immediately.

I am currently writing this from a combination of the User Manual & Memory, and will revise this when I return to university in September and can spend more time with the mixer.

P.S. As of March 2020 this guide should be considered abandon ware, and any Freshers with too much time/too little life should feel free to continue it.

Dynamics

2020-04-28T00:35:01Z

10693: 10693 moved page Dynamics to Channel Dynamics: I want Dynamics for discussion of audio dynamics as a general topic. Also, I believe the 01V96i has dynamics on the busses and stereo out too?

#REDIRECT [[Channel Dynamics]]

Channel Dynamics

2020-04-28T00:35:01Z

10693: 10693 moved page Dynamics to Channel Dynamics: I want Dynamics for discussion of audio dynamics as a general topic. Also, I believe the 01V96i has dynamics on the busses and stereo out too?

This is where a channels dynamics settings can be altered. Each channel has two dynamics processors which can be inserted. One is a 'gate type' and the second is a '[[Compression]] type'.

Both dynamics processors are parametric, which means that parameters such as attack, hold and release time (measured in milliseconds) can be adjusted. Not every compressor/gate will let you do this.

Take me back to the [[01v96i User Manual]]

User:11090/Microphone Technique

2020-04-28T00:10:04Z

10693: /* Summary */

[[Working From Home Resources|back to hub]]

If you have arrived at this page, you likely want to know how to get more out of your auditory capture device so that your listeners can admire the smoothness of your dulcet tones.

==Summary==
* Work out which end of your microphone captures the audio and if you're using an integrated microphone like those on a laptop or an iPad so you're a certain exactly where on the device the microphones are located to avoid accidentally covering them with your hands.
* Make a best-effort attempt to position the microphone where you can comfortably sustain it's position and distance from your mouth.
* Try to setup your microphone in a room that is isolated military reflective surfaces (these include tile metal large glass surfaces like Windows or a conservatory). If this cannot be avoided maintain your distance from the surfaces, ideally place a damping material such as a blanket or a mattress against the wall directly behind the microphone from your speaking position.
* Try to avoid knocking the microphone or anything that it is directly attached too as this will come through even louder than your voice on air.
* Minimise background noise as much as possible this may include closing windows, turning off fans, or the ejection of loudly purring animals/siblings.
* Try to control loud popping and ess noises by keeping your tongue closer to the bottom of your mouth and speaking slower.

==Types of Microphone==
This is one of the most important ones in terms of handling and address. The Shure SM58 dynamic mic can be, (and from the look of some of ours, has been) dropped out of a helicopter and still used for a respectable gig at the other end. However there are some high-end ribbon mics used for voice over that you can damage simply by shouting at them.

===Dynamic Microphones===
These microphones are some of the more common around and are at the time of writing used by URY in our studios with our SM7Bs and in OBs with our SM58 microphones. They work due to an induction coil attached to the diaphragm moving in response to changes in sound pressure within a magnetic field, this generates a current proportional to the original noise.

====Advantages====
* Better rejection of background noise
* Usually has more directional pickup pattern
* Does not require Phantom Power
* Less sensitive to physical handling

====Disadvantages====
* Non-uniform frequency response
* Struggles with far away sounds

===Condenser Microphones===
Condenser microphones work through two thin metallic plates with a potential difference between them forming a capacitor, one of these plates acts as a diaphragm to vibrate in sympathy with sound waves like the human ear drum. As the diaphragm vibrates it changes the distance between itself and the other plate, thus creating a current which is a representation of the original sound.

====Advantages====
* Generally more accurate representation of original sound
* Cover larger frequency range
* Can pick up sounds from further away, including groups of people

====Disadvantages====
* Picks up large amounts of background noise, even noise that you can't hear, such as low frequency rumblings through walls.
* Receptive to handling noise, if you grab or knock your microphone while using it, it will be very loud and noticeable.
* Require phantom power in order to operate, the microphone can be damaged if this is not done properly.

===Ribbon Microphones===
Ribbon Microphones were some of the earliest microphones used in a broadcasting context. They are quite rare to see these days outside of specialist music studios and orchestral concert recordings, but they are still produced, and can be found in a number of applications if you're into this sort of stuff.
====Advantages====
* They can produce a very nice coloured sound, reminiscent of the golden days of radio... if you're into that...
* They have a figure 8 pickup pattern with excellent noise rejection to the sides, this means they make a very good stereo microphone when used in pairs. This is useful to know exactly non of the time to you, but is very important for things like concert orchestra recordings.
====Disadvantages====
* They break *very* easily, like you don't even need to drop them, just give them a hard knock.
* They're usually very expensive, and if they're not, they're usually very crap.

==Pickup Patterns==
Microphones are in general directional. This is important to bear in mind while using them. You will always want the zone of the microphone that picks up the most noise directed towards the source of the sound that you want to record, (in this case, your voice). This is very important to bear in mind when you are doing your shows, you don't need to rigidly sit in the exact same spot but if your microphone is designed to only pick up things directly in front of it it is very easy to slowly drift out of this cone without noticing, especially when you are in the middle of a long link. One good tactic to deal with directional microphones in a home environment is either to keep a chair in a fixed position that you have already checked for good pickup, or if you are especially excitable, to keep your no-dominant hand on a desk in front of the microphone throughout the broadcast. If you practice doing this for a while you will get used to constraining your movement to within a certain cone where the microphone is at the right angle and distance to yourself.
<gallery widths="100px" heights="100px">
Image:Polar pattern omnidirectional.svg|<center>Omnidirectional</center>
Image:Polar pattern figure eight.svg|<center>Bi-directional or Figure of 8</center>
Image:Polar pattern subcardioid.svg|<center>Subcardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern cardioid.svg|<center>[[Cardioid]]</center>
Image:Polar pattern hypercardioid.svg|<center>Hypercardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern supercardioid.svg|<center>Supercardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern directional.svg|<center>Shotgun</center>
</gallery>

==Microphone Mounts==

===Microphone Arms===

One simple way to keep a microphone at the right distance and relative positioning to yourself is to use a mic arm like the ones we have in the studio. These can seem excessive, and certainly will increase the bulkiness of your setup as compared to a laptop and a desktop microphone. However they contribute to your final product by aiding a more natural delivery of your speech from a comfortable position and making it much easier to move the microphone to a good position.

Buying a mic arm and making yourself a small, vocal environment does not need to be complex or expensive. Cheap microphone arms that clamp to the edge of desks and use a standard 1/4" thread mount can be found on amazon for [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Neewer-Adjustable-Microphone-Suspension-Broadcasting/dp/B00DY1F2CS/ below £12].

===Shock Mounts===

Certain microphones react badly to being knocked or held while being used, particularly condenser and ribbon microphones, even when on the ends of a microphone arm or a headset. In order to prevent the nasty knocks and scrapes associated with handling being picked up in the final result on air the microphone must be isolated from the sources of these noises, a microphone connected rigidly to a desk receiving hard knocks will pick up the noises almost as well as if they were made to the microphone itself. This is why it is important to remove sources of vibrations and other external noise from your environment before recording.

One way of avoiding these handling noises is to use a shock mount, these suspend the microphone away from vibration conducting surfaces using elastic cords and a pair of elastic disks. It is important to ensure that once you have installed the shock mount, you only use it to move the microphone, and do not touch the microphone itself. Normally, dynamic microphones do not need shock mounts.

===Headset Microphones===

Headset microphones are mounted on to a pair of headphones or earbuds, usually in a position that makes them closer to the mouth of the user. They often come cheap or free with modern headphones as they are an integral part of the noise cancelling system. Having the microphone physically attached to the user is a great way of making sure they don't move to far from the microphone. They can be dynamic or condenser, with most consumer earbud microphones being electret condensers.

===Positioning===
When placing microphones the no.1 thing to consider is the position of the source that you are recording. Knowing the pickup pattern of your microphone, you want to be certain that the thing you want to record (i.e your voice) is in the centre of the zone that gets picked-up the easiest while ensuring that it is pointed away from any sources of background noise or reflective surfaces such as tiles or glass. A presenter must be kept at a comfortable distance from the microphone, and then processing set from that point, the human ear can very quickly get used to poor quality audio containing background artifacts or noise, but if the presenter is swaying backwards and forwards away from their sensitive microphone, this will rapidly distract the listener from the topic of conversation.

Speaking of room positioning, you want to be aware of what you voice will be bouncing off of in the room, as it can very easily go back into the microphone a second time and become distracting to listeners. You can prevent this either though personal positioning, placing the microphone in an area where the sound wave of your voice will dissipate and fragment before being picked up a second time i.e having the microphone and presenter in the middle of a room not in proximity to walls that can immediately reflect audio. Another way of preventing it is through soundproofing, this can be very simple, hanging a soft blanket on a wall on the opposite side of the microphone to the sound source can dampen reflective waves from the initial noise source, and is not difficult to do with sufficient amount of duct tape or some bed slats.

===Windshields===
When broadcasting outdoors (or even indoors in larger rooms subject to rising drafts), your microphones will pick up the sound of wind passing by and running over their edged surfaces as a low frequency rumble, this can be highly annoying and can making it impossible to hear the intended content. To combat this, windshields are used. They can be several times larger than the microphone and if they are 'hairy' will often be termed 'dead cats/kittens' depending on their size due to their fluffy nature and habit of being attacked by birds when walking in the open.

=='Plosives==
Plop, Pancake, Pizza, Poke, Pan, Pop....

Say that to yourself, the hard 'P' noise at the beginning of the word is called a 'Plosive. This is because it is a very loud low frequency noise at the beginning of the word, your human ape ears have gotten used to this, and you won't notice it often but compared to all noises you make in pronouncing a sentence, this will usually be the loudest, and your listeners don't necessarily need bleeding ears to enjoy your show.

It is however quite easy to mitigate plosives through three methods:

1. A pop shield, these have two layers of fine fabric close to each other that will reduce the amount of transmitted sound pressure, but not the frequency distribution or general vibration of the noise. You can make them from a crochet hoop and a pair of old tights!

2. A big mic muff, you can buy these for cheap of amazon, and so long as they are made out of a good kind of foam they will attenuate loud plosives admirably.

3. Complicated processing shit™, plosives are louder and bassier than their environment, often focused at 100Hz, if you are willing to mess around with multiband compressors, you can usually deal with them.
Don't.... it's not worth it.

==Sibilance==
Slithering sounds of sonorous symphonies.

That 'esss' sound is sibilance, it's annoying. Really annoying, it cuts through and hurts your ears. Worse there is no physical way of getting rid of it :/ . So you have 2 choices:

a. Get a de-esser and calibrate it towards where your specific sibilance frequencies are to be found. Annoyingly they are different for each person, and in quite distinctly different groups depending on if a person as a traditionally male or female voice. Mine is at 8Khz, which is towards the high end, but yours will be different, you can find yours by using a multiband analyser, and seeing what frequencies you produce when saying sibilant words, then using hardware or software, process it out. This is difficult, and wholly unnecessary, which is why only <s>Arseholes</s>Radio 3 and ClassicFM still invest in the technology to have individual processing for each presenter that tackles these noises.

b. Keep what your mouth is doing in mind as you say the sentence at the top of the section. Instead of curling your tongue to make the hissing noise through a small gap in your mouth, make a concious effort to force your tongue down. This will result in a softer more rolling ess sound, that won't hurt your listeners to hear. This is difficult to do at first, but after a few hours, it's pretty easy to get into. After my first term doing radio my mum noticed how much softer my voice was as a result.

==Proximity Effect==
As you get closer to a microphone, a thing called proximity effect occurs. This results in your voice sounding deeper and more rumbly. Some people like this and will use it for accentuation. Musicians with proper vocal training in particular can make great use of this effect in order to add more character to the song. In general though, it is to be avoided, as unless you sound like it all the time listeners may be distracted by the difference between your 'broadcast' and natural voice.

==Preamps==
A microphone preamplifier is a sound engineering device that prepares a microphone signal to be processed by other equipment. Microphone signals are usually too weak to be transmitted to units such as mixing consoles and recording devices with adequate quality. Preamplifiers increase a microphone signal to line level (i.e. the level of signal strength required by such devices) by providing stable gain while preventing induced noise that would otherwise distort the signal. Items like consumer headphone mics and laptop mics will handle this for you, but all pro broadcast microphones will require a device like this. A preamplifier might add coloration by adding a different characteristic than the audio mixer's built-in preamplifiers. Some microphones, for example condensers, should be used in conjunction with an impedance matching preamplifier to function properly.

===Low-End Roll-off===
In a room without proper soundproofing, low frequency rumbles may be transmitted through walls or normally noise dampening materials, and can make the noise picked up by the microphone sound muddy. Often, humans can not hear these noises, but they still have an effect by reducing the 'headroom' (range between nominal silence and the most powerful signal that can be accurately represented). Ideally to stop this, these low frequencies should be eliminated as early on in the chain as possible. If your microphone or preamp has a low-freq rolloff button or switch it will nearly always be worth using them in order to create the best quality vocals for your show.

==Levels and why we sosig==
There are any number of things that can increase or decrease your relative volume to the listener. We have loudness standards for making sure that the audio content produced sounds about right to the end listeners. However any number of reasons including changes in positioning or even atmospheric changes in a room can make the produced audio sound off as the output from the microphone varies in volume across a wide range. This range is called the headroom of the microphone, the difference between the quietest sound it can accurately represent to the loudest, before it begins to distort. Microphones with lots of headroom can be highly desirable, and often very expensive. However for most spoken word applications this headroom is not desirable beyond the on the bare minimum needed to make the audio sound natural. In order to reduce this dynamic range without losing desirable features of the microphone such as its frequency response and accurate voice reproduction we process the audio produced by the microphone through what is known as a compressor. The topic of compressors and audio dynamics in general is discussed more in our guide to audio dynamics and you should be aware that it is not necessary how to use a compressor in all speech applications. indeed in the world of TV where lavalier mics are more common for live applications it is very rare to use compressors at all. But if you are pre-recording speech for a show you should consider asking our audio resources team how they recommend processing your voice in order to get the nicest sounding output, which will likely involve the usage of compressors within your DAW.

User:11090/Microphone Technique

2020-04-28T00:09:42Z

10693:

[[Working From Home Resources|back to hub]]

If you have arrived at this page, you likely want to know how to get more out of your auditory capture device so that your listeners can admire the smoothness of your dulcet tones.

==Summary==
* Work out which end of your microphone captures the audio and if you're using an integrated microphone like those on a laptop or an iPad so you're a certain exactly where on the device the microphones are located to avoid accidentally covering them with your hands.
* Make a best-effort attempt to position the microphone where you can comfortably sustain it's position and distance from your mouth.
* Try to setup your microphone in a room that is isolated military reflective surfaces ( these include tile metal large glass surfaces like Windows or a conservatory. If this cannot be avoided maintain your distance from the surfaces, ideally place a damping material such as a blanket or a mattress against the wall directly behind the microphone from your speaking position.
* Try to avoid knocking the microphone or anything that it is directly attached too as this will come through even louder than your voice on air.
* Minimise background noise as much as possible this may include closing windows, turning off fans, or the ejection of loudly purring animals/siblings.
* Try to control loud popping and ess noises by keeping your tongue closer to the bottom of your mouth and speaking slower.

==Types of Microphone==
This is one of the most important ones in terms of handling and address. The Shure SM58 dynamic mic can be, (and from the look of some of ours, has been) dropped out of a helicopter and still used for a respectable gig at the other end. However there are some high-end ribbon mics used for voice over that you can damage simply by shouting at them.

===Dynamic Microphones===
These microphones are some of the more common around and are at the time of writing used by URY in our studios with our SM7Bs and in OBs with our SM58 microphones. They work due to an induction coil attached to the diaphragm moving in response to changes in sound pressure within a magnetic field, this generates a current proportional to the original noise.

====Advantages====
* Better rejection of background noise
* Usually has more directional pickup pattern
* Does not require Phantom Power
* Less sensitive to physical handling

====Disadvantages====
* Non-uniform frequency response
* Struggles with far away sounds

===Condenser Microphones===
Condenser microphones work through two thin metallic plates with a potential difference between them forming a capacitor, one of these plates acts as a diaphragm to vibrate in sympathy with sound waves like the human ear drum. As the diaphragm vibrates it changes the distance between itself and the other plate, thus creating a current which is a representation of the original sound.

====Advantages====
* Generally more accurate representation of original sound
* Cover larger frequency range
* Can pick up sounds from further away, including groups of people

====Disadvantages====
* Picks up large amounts of background noise, even noise that you can't hear, such as low frequency rumblings through walls.
* Receptive to handling noise, if you grab or knock your microphone while using it, it will be very loud and noticeable.
* Require phantom power in order to operate, the microphone can be damaged if this is not done properly.

===Ribbon Microphones===
Ribbon Microphones were some of the earliest microphones used in a broadcasting context. They are quite rare to see these days outside of specialist music studios and orchestral concert recordings, but they are still produced, and can be found in a number of applications if you're into this sort of stuff.
====Advantages====
* They can produce a very nice coloured sound, reminiscent of the golden days of radio... if you're into that...
* They have a figure 8 pickup pattern with excellent noise rejection to the sides, this means they make a very good stereo microphone when used in pairs. This is useful to know exactly non of the time to you, but is very important for things like concert orchestra recordings.
====Disadvantages====
* They break *very* easily, like you don't even need to drop them, just give them a hard knock.
* They're usually very expensive, and if they're not, they're usually very crap.

==Pickup Patterns==
Microphones are in general directional. This is important to bear in mind while using them. You will always want the zone of the microphone that picks up the most noise directed towards the source of the sound that you want to record, (in this case, your voice). This is very important to bear in mind when you are doing your shows, you don't need to rigidly sit in the exact same spot but if your microphone is designed to only pick up things directly in front of it it is very easy to slowly drift out of this cone without noticing, especially when you are in the middle of a long link. One good tactic to deal with directional microphones in a home environment is either to keep a chair in a fixed position that you have already checked for good pickup, or if you are especially excitable, to keep your no-dominant hand on a desk in front of the microphone throughout the broadcast. If you practice doing this for a while you will get used to constraining your movement to within a certain cone where the microphone is at the right angle and distance to yourself.
<gallery widths="100px" heights="100px">
Image:Polar pattern omnidirectional.svg|<center>Omnidirectional</center>
Image:Polar pattern figure eight.svg|<center>Bi-directional or Figure of 8</center>
Image:Polar pattern subcardioid.svg|<center>Subcardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern cardioid.svg|<center>[[Cardioid]]</center>
Image:Polar pattern hypercardioid.svg|<center>Hypercardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern supercardioid.svg|<center>Supercardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern directional.svg|<center>Shotgun</center>
</gallery>

==Microphone Mounts==

===Microphone Arms===

One simple way to keep a microphone at the right distance and relative positioning to yourself is to use a mic arm like the ones we have in the studio. These can seem excessive, and certainly will increase the bulkiness of your setup as compared to a laptop and a desktop microphone. However they contribute to your final product by aiding a more natural delivery of your speech from a comfortable position and making it much easier to move the microphone to a good position.

Buying a mic arm and making yourself a small, vocal environment does not need to be complex or expensive. Cheap microphone arms that clamp to the edge of desks and use a standard 1/4" thread mount can be found on amazon for [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Neewer-Adjustable-Microphone-Suspension-Broadcasting/dp/B00DY1F2CS/ below £12].

===Shock Mounts===

Certain microphones react badly to being knocked or held while being used, particularly condenser and ribbon microphones, even when on the ends of a microphone arm or a headset. In order to prevent the nasty knocks and scrapes associated with handling being picked up in the final result on air the microphone must be isolated from the sources of these noises, a microphone connected rigidly to a desk receiving hard knocks will pick up the noises almost as well as if they were made to the microphone itself. This is why it is important to remove sources of vibrations and other external noise from your environment before recording.

One way of avoiding these handling noises is to use a shock mount, these suspend the microphone away from vibration conducting surfaces using elastic cords and a pair of elastic disks. It is important to ensure that once you have installed the shock mount, you only use it to move the microphone, and do not touch the microphone itself. Normally, dynamic microphones do not need shock mounts.

===Headset Microphones===

Headset microphones are mounted on to a pair of headphones or earbuds, usually in a position that makes them closer to the mouth of the user. They often come cheap or free with modern headphones as they are an integral part of the noise cancelling system. Having the microphone physically attached to the user is a great way of making sure they don't move to far from the microphone. They can be dynamic or condenser, with most consumer earbud microphones being electret condensers.

===Positioning===
When placing microphones the no.1 thing to consider is the position of the source that you are recording. Knowing the pickup pattern of your microphone, you want to be certain that the thing you want to record (i.e your voice) is in the centre of the zone that gets picked-up the easiest while ensuring that it is pointed away from any sources of background noise or reflective surfaces such as tiles or glass. A presenter must be kept at a comfortable distance from the microphone, and then processing set from that point, the human ear can very quickly get used to poor quality audio containing background artifacts or noise, but if the presenter is swaying backwards and forwards away from their sensitive microphone, this will rapidly distract the listener from the topic of conversation.

Speaking of room positioning, you want to be aware of what you voice will be bouncing off of in the room, as it can very easily go back into the microphone a second time and become distracting to listeners. You can prevent this either though personal positioning, placing the microphone in an area where the sound wave of your voice will dissipate and fragment before being picked up a second time i.e having the microphone and presenter in the middle of a room not in proximity to walls that can immediately reflect audio. Another way of preventing it is through soundproofing, this can be very simple, hanging a soft blanket on a wall on the opposite side of the microphone to the sound source can dampen reflective waves from the initial noise source, and is not difficult to do with sufficient amount of duct tape or some bed slats.

===Windshields===
When broadcasting outdoors (or even indoors in larger rooms subject to rising drafts), your microphones will pick up the sound of wind passing by and running over their edged surfaces as a low frequency rumble, this can be highly annoying and can making it impossible to hear the intended content. To combat this, windshields are used. They can be several times larger than the microphone and if they are 'hairy' will often be termed 'dead cats/kittens' depending on their size due to their fluffy nature and habit of being attacked by birds when walking in the open.

=='Plosives==
Plop, Pancake, Pizza, Poke, Pan, Pop....

Say that to yourself, the hard 'P' noise at the beginning of the word is called a 'Plosive. This is because it is a very loud low frequency noise at the beginning of the word, your human ape ears have gotten used to this, and you won't notice it often but compared to all noises you make in pronouncing a sentence, this will usually be the loudest, and your listeners don't necessarily need bleeding ears to enjoy your show.

It is however quite easy to mitigate plosives through three methods:

1. A pop shield, these have two layers of fine fabric close to each other that will reduce the amount of transmitted sound pressure, but not the frequency distribution or general vibration of the noise. You can make them from a crochet hoop and a pair of old tights!

2. A big mic muff, you can buy these for cheap of amazon, and so long as they are made out of a good kind of foam they will attenuate loud plosives admirably.

3. Complicated processing shit™, plosives are louder and bassier than their environment, often focused at 100Hz, if you are willing to mess around with multiband compressors, you can usually deal with them.
Don't.... it's not worth it.

==Sibilance==
Slithering sounds of sonorous symphonies.

That 'esss' sound is sibilance, it's annoying. Really annoying, it cuts through and hurts your ears. Worse there is no physical way of getting rid of it :/ . So you have 2 choices:

a. Get a de-esser and calibrate it towards where your specific sibilance frequencies are to be found. Annoyingly they are different for each person, and in quite distinctly different groups depending on if a person as a traditionally male or female voice. Mine is at 8Khz, which is towards the high end, but yours will be different, you can find yours by using a multiband analyser, and seeing what frequencies you produce when saying sibilant words, then using hardware or software, process it out. This is difficult, and wholly unnecessary, which is why only <s>Arseholes</s>Radio 3 and ClassicFM still invest in the technology to have individual processing for each presenter that tackles these noises.

b. Keep what your mouth is doing in mind as you say the sentence at the top of the section. Instead of curling your tongue to make the hissing noise through a small gap in your mouth, make a concious effort to force your tongue down. This will result in a softer more rolling ess sound, that won't hurt your listeners to hear. This is difficult to do at first, but after a few hours, it's pretty easy to get into. After my first term doing radio my mum noticed how much softer my voice was as a result.

==Proximity Effect==
As you get closer to a microphone, a thing called proximity effect occurs. This results in your voice sounding deeper and more rumbly. Some people like this and will use it for accentuation. Musicians with proper vocal training in particular can make great use of this effect in order to add more character to the song. In general though, it is to be avoided, as unless you sound like it all the time listeners may be distracted by the difference between your 'broadcast' and natural voice.

==Preamps==
A microphone preamplifier is a sound engineering device that prepares a microphone signal to be processed by other equipment. Microphone signals are usually too weak to be transmitted to units such as mixing consoles and recording devices with adequate quality. Preamplifiers increase a microphone signal to line level (i.e. the level of signal strength required by such devices) by providing stable gain while preventing induced noise that would otherwise distort the signal. Items like consumer headphone mics and laptop mics will handle this for you, but all pro broadcast microphones will require a device like this. A preamplifier might add coloration by adding a different characteristic than the audio mixer's built-in preamplifiers. Some microphones, for example condensers, should be used in conjunction with an impedance matching preamplifier to function properly.

===Low-End Roll-off===
In a room without proper soundproofing, low frequency rumbles may be transmitted through walls or normally noise dampening materials, and can make the noise picked up by the microphone sound muddy. Often, humans can not hear these noises, but they still have an effect by reducing the 'headroom' (range between nominal silence and the most powerful signal that can be accurately represented). Ideally to stop this, these low frequencies should be eliminated as early on in the chain as possible. If your microphone or preamp has a low-freq rolloff button or switch it will nearly always be worth using them in order to create the best quality vocals for your show.

==Levels and why we sosig==
There are any number of things that can increase or decrease your relative volume to the listener. We have loudness standards for making sure that the audio content produced sounds about right to the end listeners. However any number of reasons including changes in positioning or even atmospheric changes in a room can make the produced audio sound off as the output from the microphone varies in volume across a wide range. This range is called the headroom of the microphone, the difference between the quietest sound it can accurately represent to the loudest, before it begins to distort. Microphones with lots of headroom can be highly desirable, and often very expensive. However for most spoken word applications this headroom is not desirable beyond the on the bare minimum needed to make the audio sound natural. In order to reduce this dynamic range without losing desirable features of the microphone such as its frequency response and accurate voice reproduction we process the audio produced by the microphone through what is known as a compressor. The topic of compressors and audio dynamics in general is discussed more in our guide to audio dynamics and you should be aware that it is not necessary how to use a compressor in all speech applications. indeed in the world of TV where lavalier mics are more common for live applications it is very rare to use compressors at all. But if you are pre-recording speech for a show you should consider asking our audio resources team how they recommend processing your voice in order to get the nicest sounding output, which will likely involve the usage of compressors within your DAW.

User:11090/Microphone Technique

2020-04-27T23:52:45Z

10693: /* Vocal Exercises */

[[Working From Home Resources|back to hub]]

If you have arrived at this page, you likely want to know how to get more out of your auditory capture device so that your listeners can admire the smoothness of your dulcet tones.

==Types of Microphone==
This is one of the most important ones in terms of handling and address. The Shure SM58 dynamic mic can be, (and from the look of some of ours, has been) dropped out of a helicopter and still used for a respectable gig at the other end. However there are some high-end ribbon mics used for voice over that you can damage simply by shouting at them.

===Dynamic Microphones===
These microphones are some of the more common around and are at the time of writing used by URY in our studios with our SM7Bs and in OBs with our SM58 microphones. They work due to an induction coil attached to the diaphragm moving in response to changes in sound pressure within a magnetic field, this generates a current proportional to the original noise.

====Advantages====
* Better rejection of background noise
* Usually has more directional pickup pattern
* Does not require Phantom Power
* Less sensitive to physical handling

====Disadvantages====
* Non-uniform frequency response
* Struggles with far away sounds

===Condenser Microphones===
Condenser microphones work through two thin metallic plates with a potential difference between them forming a capacitor, one of these plates acts as a diaphragm to vibrate in sympathy with sound waves like the human ear drum. As the diaphragm vibrates it changes the distance between itself and the other plate, thus creating a current which is a representation of the original sound.

====Advantages====
* Generally more accurate representation of original sound
* Cover larger frequency range
* Can pick up sounds from further away, including groups of people

====Disadvantages====
* Picks up large amounts of background noise, even noise that you can't hear, such as low frequency rumblings through walls.
* Receptive to handling noise, if you grab or knock your microphone while using it, it will be very loud and noticeable.
* Require phantom power in order to operate, the microphone can be damaged if this is not done properly.

===Ribbon Microphones===
Ribbon Microphones were some of the earliest microphones used in a broadcasting context. They are quite rare to see these days outside of specialist music studios and orchestral concert recordings, but they are still produced, and can be found in a number of applications if you're into this sort of stuff.
====Advantages====
* They can produce a very nice coloured sound, reminiscent of the golden days of radio... if you're into that...
* They have a figure 8 pickup pattern with excellent noise rejection to the sides, this means they make a very good stereo microphone when used in pairs. This is useful to know exactly non of the time to you, but is very important for things like concert orchestra recordings.
====Disadvantages====
* They break *very* easily, like you don't even need to drop them, just give them a hard knock.
* They're usually very expensive, and if they're not, they're usually very crap.

==Pickup Patterns==
Microphones are in general directional. This is important to bear in mind while using them. You will always want the zone of the microphone that picks up the most noise directed towards the source of the sound that you want to record, (in this case, your voice). This is very important to bear in mind when you are doing your shows, you don't need to rigidly sit in the exact same spot but if your microphone is designed to only pick up things directly in front of it it is very easy to slowly drift out of this cone without noticing, especially when you are in the middle of a long link. One good tactic to deal with directional microphones in a home environment is either to keep a chair in a fixed position that you have already checked for good pickup, or if you are especially excitable, to keep your no-dominant hand on a desk in front of the microphone throughout the broadcast. If you practice doing this for a while you will get used to constraining your movement to within a certain cone where the microphone is at the right angle and distance to yourself.
<gallery widths="100px" heights="100px">
Image:Polar pattern omnidirectional.svg|<center>Omnidirectional</center>
Image:Polar pattern figure eight.svg|<center>Bi-directional or Figure of 8</center>
Image:Polar pattern subcardioid.svg|<center>Subcardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern cardioid.svg|<center>[[Cardioid]]</center>
Image:Polar pattern hypercardioid.svg|<center>Hypercardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern supercardioid.svg|<center>Supercardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern directional.svg|<center>Shotgun</center>
</gallery>

==Microphone Mounts==

===Microphone Arms===

One simple way to keep a microphone at the right distance and relative positioning to yourself is to use a mic arm like the ones we have in the studio. These can seem excessive, and certainly will increase the bulkiness of your setup as compared to a laptop and a desktop microphone. However they contribute to your final product by aiding a more natural delivery of your speech from a comfortable position and making it much easier to move the microphone to a good position.

Buying a mic arm and making yourself a small, vocal environment does not need to be complex or expensive. Cheap microphone arms that clamp to the edge of desks and use a standard 1/4" thread mount can be found on amazon for [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Neewer-Adjustable-Microphone-Suspension-Broadcasting/dp/B00DY1F2CS/ below £12].

===Shock Mounts===

Certain microphones react badly to being knocked or held while being used, particularly condenser and ribbon microphones, even when on the ends of a microphone arm or a headset. In order to prevent the nasty knocks and scrapes associated with handling being picked up in the final result on air the microphone must be isolated from the sources of these noises, a microphone connected rigidly to a desk receiving hard knocks will pick up the noises almost as well as if they were made to the microphone itself. This is why it is important to remove sources of vibrations and other external noise from your environment before recording.

One way of avoiding these handling noises is to use a shock mount, these suspend the microphone away from vibration conducting surfaces using elastic cords and a pair of elastic disks. It is important to ensure that once you have installed the shock mount, you only use it to move the microphone, and do not touch the microphone itself. Normally, dynamic microphones do not need shock mounts.

===Headset Microphones===

Headset microphones are mounted on to a pair of headphones or earbuds, usually in a position that makes them closer to the mouth of the user. They often come cheap or free with modern headphones as they are an integral part of the noise cancelling system. Having the microphone physically attached to the user is a great way of making sure they don't move to far from the microphone. They can be dynamic or condenser, with most consumer earbud microphones being electret condensers.

===Positioning===
When placing microphones the no.1 thing to consider is the position of the source that you are recording. Knowing the pickup pattern of your microphone, you want to be certain that the thing you want to record (i.e your voice) is in the centre of the zone that gets picked-up the easiest while ensuring that it is pointed away from any sources of background noise or reflective surfaces such as tiles or glass. A presenter must be kept at a comfortable distance from the microphone, and then processing set from that point, the human ear can very quickly get used to poor quality audio containing background artifacts or noise, but if the presenter is swaying backwards and forwards away from their sensitive microphone, this will rapidly distract the listener from the topic of conversation.

Speaking of room positioning, you want to be aware of what you voice will be bouncing off of in the room, as it can very easily go back into the microphone a second time and become distracting to listeners. You can prevent this either though personal positioning, placing the microphone in an area where the sound wave of your voice will dissipate and fragment before being picked up a second time i.e having the microphone and presenter in the middle of a room not in proximity to walls that can immediately reflect audio. Another way of preventing it is through soundproofing, this can be very simple, hanging a soft blanket on a wall on the opposite side of the microphone to the sound source can dampen reflective waves from the initial noise source, and is not difficult to do with sufficient amount of duct tape or some bed slats.

===Windshields===
When broadcasting outdoors (or even indoors in larger rooms subject to rising drafts), your microphones will pick up the sound of wind passing by and running over their edged surfaces as a low frequency rumble, this can be highly annoying and can making it impossible to hear the intended content. To combat this, windshields are used. They can be several times larger than the microphone and if they are 'hairy' will often be termed 'dead cats/kittens' depending on their size due to their fluffy nature and habit of being attacked by birds when walking in the open.

=='Plosives==
Plop, Pancake, Pizza, Poke, Pan, Pop....

Say that to yourself, the hard 'P' noise at the beginning of the word is called a 'Plosive. This is because it is a very loud low frequency noise at the beginning of the word, your human ape ears have gotten used to this, and you won't notice it often but compared to all noises you make in pronouncing a sentence, this will usually be the loudest, and your listeners don't necessarily need bleeding ears to enjoy your show.

It is however quite easy to mitigate plosives through three methods:

1. A pop shield, these have two layers of fine fabric close to each other that will reduce the amount of transmitted sound pressure, but not the frequency distribution or general vibration of the noise. You can make them from a crochet hoop and a pair of old tights!

2. A big mic muff, you can buy these for cheap of amazon, and so long as they are made out of a good kind of foam they will attenuate loud plosives admirably.

3. Complicated processing shit™, plosives are louder and bassier than their environment, often focused at 100Hz, if you are willing to mess around with multiband compressors, you can usually deal with them.
Don't.... it's not worth it.

==Sibilance==
Slithering sounds of sonorous symphonies.

That 'esss' sound is sibilance, it's annoying. Really annoying, it cuts through and hurts your ears. Worse there is no physical way of getting rid of it :/ . So you have 2 choices:

a. Get a de-esser and calibrate it towards where your specific sibilance frequencies are to be found. Annoyingly they are different for each person, and in quite distinctly different groups depending on if a person as a traditionally male or female voice. Mine is at 8Khz, which is towards the high end, but yours will be different, you can find yours by using a multiband analyser, and seeing what frequencies you produce when saying sibilant words, then using hardware or software, process it out. This is difficult, and wholly unnecessary, which is why only <s>Arseholes</s>Radio 3 and ClassicFM still invest in the technology to have individual processing for each presenter that tackles these noises.

b. Keep what your mouth is doing in mind as you say the sentence at the top of the section. Instead of curling your tongue to make the hissing noise through a small gap in your mouth, make a concious effort to force your tongue down. This will result in a softer more rolling ess sound, that won't hurt your listeners to hear. This is difficult to do at first, but after a few hours, it's pretty easy to get into. After my first term doing radio my mum noticed how much softer my voice was as a result.

==Proximity Effect==
As you get closer to a microphone, a thing called proximity effect occurs. This results in your voice sounding deeper and more rumbly. Some people like this and will use it for accentuation. Musicians with proper vocal training in particular can make great use of this effect in order to add more character to the song. In general though, it is to be avoided, as unless you sound like it all the time listeners may be distracted by the difference between your 'broadcast' and natural voice.

==Preamps==
A microphone preamplifier is a sound engineering device that prepares a microphone signal to be processed by other equipment. Microphone signals are usually too weak to be transmitted to units such as mixing consoles and recording devices with adequate quality. Preamplifiers increase a microphone signal to line level (i.e. the level of signal strength required by such devices) by providing stable gain while preventing induced noise that would otherwise distort the signal. Items like consumer headphone mics and laptop mics will handle this for you, but all pro broadcast microphones will require a device like this. A preamplifier might add coloration by adding a different characteristic than the audio mixer's built-in preamplifiers. Some microphones, for example condensers, should be used in conjunction with an impedance matching preamplifier to function properly.

===Low-End Roll-off===
In a room without proper soundproofing, low frequency rumbles may be transmitted through walls or normally noise dampening materials, and can make the noise picked up by the microphone sound muddy. Often, humans can not hear these noises, but they still have an effect by reducing the 'headroom' (range between nominal silence and the most powerful signal that can be accurately represented). Ideally to stop this, these low frequencies should be eliminated as early on in the chain as possible. If your microphone or preamp has a low-freq rolloff button or switch it will nearly always be worth using them in order to create the best quality vocals for your show.

==Levels and why we sosig==
There are any number of things that can increase or decrease your relative volume to the listener. We have loudness standards for making sure that the audio content produced sounds about right to the end listeners. However any number of reasons including changes in positioning or even atmospheric changes in a room can make the produced audio sound off as the output from the microphone varies in volume across a wide range. This range is called the headroom of the microphone, the difference between the quietest sound it can accurately represent to the loudest, before it begins to distort. Microphones with lots of headroom can be highly desirable, and often very expensive. However for most spoken word applications this headroom is not desirable beyond the on the bare minimum needed to make the audio sound natural. In order to reduce this dynamic range without losing desirable features of the microphone such as its frequency response and accurate voice reproduction we process the audio produced by the microphone through what is known as a compressor. The topic of compressors and audio dynamics in general is discussed more in our guide to audio dynamics and you should be aware that it is not necessary how to use a compressor in all speech applications. indeed in the world of TV where lavalier mics are more common for live applications it is very rare to use compressors at all. But if you are pre-recording speech for a show you should consider asking our audio resources team how they recommend processing your voice in order to get the nicest sounding output, which will likely involve the usage of compressors within your DAW.

User:11090/Microphone Technique

2020-04-27T23:51:40Z

10693: /* Levels and why we sosig */

[[Working From Home Resources|back to hub]]

If you have arrived at this page, you likely want to know how to get more out of your auditory capture device so that your listeners can admire the smoothness of your dulcet tones.

==Types of Microphone==
This is one of the most important ones in terms of handling and address. The Shure SM58 dynamic mic can be, (and from the look of some of ours, has been) dropped out of a helicopter and still used for a respectable gig at the other end. However there are some high-end ribbon mics used for voice over that you can damage simply by shouting at them.

===Dynamic Microphones===
These microphones are some of the more common around and are at the time of writing used by URY in our studios with our SM7Bs and in OBs with our SM58 microphones. They work due to an induction coil attached to the diaphragm moving in response to changes in sound pressure within a magnetic field, this generates a current proportional to the original noise.

====Advantages====
* Better rejection of background noise
* Usually has more directional pickup pattern
* Does not require Phantom Power
* Less sensitive to physical handling

====Disadvantages====
* Non-uniform frequency response
* Struggles with far away sounds

===Condenser Microphones===
Condenser microphones work through two thin metallic plates with a potential difference between them forming a capacitor, one of these plates acts as a diaphragm to vibrate in sympathy with sound waves like the human ear drum. As the diaphragm vibrates it changes the distance between itself and the other plate, thus creating a current which is a representation of the original sound.

====Advantages====
* Generally more accurate representation of original sound
* Cover larger frequency range
* Can pick up sounds from further away, including groups of people

====Disadvantages====
* Picks up large amounts of background noise, even noise that you can't hear, such as low frequency rumblings through walls.
* Receptive to handling noise, if you grab or knock your microphone while using it, it will be very loud and noticeable.
* Require phantom power in order to operate, the microphone can be damaged if this is not done properly.

===Ribbon Microphones===
Ribbon Microphones were some of the earliest microphones used in a broadcasting context. They are quite rare to see these days outside of specialist music studios and orchestral concert recordings, but they are still produced, and can be found in a number of applications if you're into this sort of stuff.
====Advantages====
* They can produce a very nice coloured sound, reminiscent of the golden days of radio... if you're into that...
* They have a figure 8 pickup pattern with excellent noise rejection to the sides, this means they make a very good stereo microphone when used in pairs. This is useful to know exactly non of the time to you, but is very important for things like concert orchestra recordings.
====Disadvantages====
* They break *very* easily, like you don't even need to drop them, just give them a hard knock.
* They're usually very expensive, and if they're not, they're usually very crap.

==Pickup Patterns==
Microphones are in general directional. This is important to bear in mind while using them. You will always want the zone of the microphone that picks up the most noise directed towards the source of the sound that you want to record, (in this case, your voice). This is very important to bear in mind when you are doing your shows, you don't need to rigidly sit in the exact same spot but if your microphone is designed to only pick up things directly in front of it it is very easy to slowly drift out of this cone without noticing, especially when you are in the middle of a long link. One good tactic to deal with directional microphones in a home environment is either to keep a chair in a fixed position that you have already checked for good pickup, or if you are especially excitable, to keep your no-dominant hand on a desk in front of the microphone throughout the broadcast. If you practice doing this for a while you will get used to constraining your movement to within a certain cone where the microphone is at the right angle and distance to yourself.
<gallery widths="100px" heights="100px">
Image:Polar pattern omnidirectional.svg|<center>Omnidirectional</center>
Image:Polar pattern figure eight.svg|<center>Bi-directional or Figure of 8</center>
Image:Polar pattern subcardioid.svg|<center>Subcardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern cardioid.svg|<center>[[Cardioid]]</center>
Image:Polar pattern hypercardioid.svg|<center>Hypercardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern supercardioid.svg|<center>Supercardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern directional.svg|<center>Shotgun</center>
</gallery>

==Microphone Mounts==

===Microphone Arms===

One simple way to keep a microphone at the right distance and relative positioning to yourself is to use a mic arm like the ones we have in the studio. These can seem excessive, and certainly will increase the bulkiness of your setup as compared to a laptop and a desktop microphone. However they contribute to your final product by aiding a more natural delivery of your speech from a comfortable position and making it much easier to move the microphone to a good position.

Buying a mic arm and making yourself a small, vocal environment does not need to be complex or expensive. Cheap microphone arms that clamp to the edge of desks and use a standard 1/4" thread mount can be found on amazon for [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Neewer-Adjustable-Microphone-Suspension-Broadcasting/dp/B00DY1F2CS/ below £12].

===Shock Mounts===

Certain microphones react badly to being knocked or held while being used, particularly condenser and ribbon microphones, even when on the ends of a microphone arm or a headset. In order to prevent the nasty knocks and scrapes associated with handling being picked up in the final result on air the microphone must be isolated from the sources of these noises, a microphone connected rigidly to a desk receiving hard knocks will pick up the noises almost as well as if they were made to the microphone itself. This is why it is important to remove sources of vibrations and other external noise from your environment before recording.

One way of avoiding these handling noises is to use a shock mount, these suspend the microphone away from vibration conducting surfaces using elastic cords and a pair of elastic disks. It is important to ensure that once you have installed the shock mount, you only use it to move the microphone, and do not touch the microphone itself. Normally, dynamic microphones do not need shock mounts.

===Headset Microphones===

Headset microphones are mounted on to a pair of headphones or earbuds, usually in a position that makes them closer to the mouth of the user. They often come cheap or free with modern headphones as they are an integral part of the noise cancelling system. Having the microphone physically attached to the user is a great way of making sure they don't move to far from the microphone. They can be dynamic or condenser, with most consumer earbud microphones being electret condensers.

===Positioning===
When placing microphones the no.1 thing to consider is the position of the source that you are recording. Knowing the pickup pattern of your microphone, you want to be certain that the thing you want to record (i.e your voice) is in the centre of the zone that gets picked-up the easiest while ensuring that it is pointed away from any sources of background noise or reflective surfaces such as tiles or glass. A presenter must be kept at a comfortable distance from the microphone, and then processing set from that point, the human ear can very quickly get used to poor quality audio containing background artifacts or noise, but if the presenter is swaying backwards and forwards away from their sensitive microphone, this will rapidly distract the listener from the topic of conversation.

Speaking of room positioning, you want to be aware of what you voice will be bouncing off of in the room, as it can very easily go back into the microphone a second time and become distracting to listeners. You can prevent this either though personal positioning, placing the microphone in an area where the sound wave of your voice will dissipate and fragment before being picked up a second time i.e having the microphone and presenter in the middle of a room not in proximity to walls that can immediately reflect audio. Another way of preventing it is through soundproofing, this can be very simple, hanging a soft blanket on a wall on the opposite side of the microphone to the sound source can dampen reflective waves from the initial noise source, and is not difficult to do with sufficient amount of duct tape or some bed slats.

===Windshields===
When broadcasting outdoors (or even indoors in larger rooms subject to rising drafts), your microphones will pick up the sound of wind passing by and running over their edged surfaces as a low frequency rumble, this can be highly annoying and can making it impossible to hear the intended content. To combat this, windshields are used. They can be several times larger than the microphone and if they are 'hairy' will often be termed 'dead cats/kittens' depending on their size due to their fluffy nature and habit of being attacked by birds when walking in the open.

=='Plosives==
Plop, Pancake, Pizza, Poke, Pan, Pop....

Say that to yourself, the hard 'P' noise at the beginning of the word is called a 'Plosive. This is because it is a very loud low frequency noise at the beginning of the word, your human ape ears have gotten used to this, and you won't notice it often but compared to all noises you make in pronouncing a sentence, this will usually be the loudest, and your listeners don't necessarily need bleeding ears to enjoy your show.

It is however quite easy to mitigate plosives through three methods:

1. A pop shield, these have two layers of fine fabric close to each other that will reduce the amount of transmitted sound pressure, but not the frequency distribution or general vibration of the noise. You can make them from a crochet hoop and a pair of old tights!

2. A big mic muff, you can buy these for cheap of amazon, and so long as they are made out of a good kind of foam they will attenuate loud plosives admirably.

3. Complicated processing shit™, plosives are louder and bassier than their environment, often focused at 100Hz, if you are willing to mess around with multiband compressors, you can usually deal with them.
Don't.... it's not worth it.

==Sibilance==
Slithering sounds of sonorous symphonies.

That 'esss' sound is sibilance, it's annoying. Really annoying, it cuts through and hurts your ears. Worse there is no physical way of getting rid of it :/ . So you have 2 choices:

a. Get a de-esser and calibrate it towards where your specific sibilance frequencies are to be found. Annoyingly they are different for each person, and in quite distinctly different groups depending on if a person as a traditionally male or female voice. Mine is at 8Khz, which is towards the high end, but yours will be different, you can find yours by using a multiband analyser, and seeing what frequencies you produce when saying sibilant words, then using hardware or software, process it out. This is difficult, and wholly unnecessary, which is why only <s>Arseholes</s>Radio 3 and ClassicFM still invest in the technology to have individual processing for each presenter that tackles these noises.

b. Keep what your mouth is doing in mind as you say the sentence at the top of the section. Instead of curling your tongue to make the hissing noise through a small gap in your mouth, make a concious effort to force your tongue down. This will result in a softer more rolling ess sound, that won't hurt your listeners to hear. This is difficult to do at first, but after a few hours, it's pretty easy to get into. After my first term doing radio my mum noticed how much softer my voice was as a result.

==Proximity Effect==
As you get closer to a microphone, a thing called proximity effect occurs. This results in your voice sounding deeper and more rumbly. Some people like this and will use it for accentuation. Musicians with proper vocal training in particular can make great use of this effect in order to add more character to the song. In general though, it is to be avoided, as unless you sound like it all the time listeners may be distracted by the difference between your 'broadcast' and natural voice.

==Preamps==
A microphone preamplifier is a sound engineering device that prepares a microphone signal to be processed by other equipment. Microphone signals are usually too weak to be transmitted to units such as mixing consoles and recording devices with adequate quality. Preamplifiers increase a microphone signal to line level (i.e. the level of signal strength required by such devices) by providing stable gain while preventing induced noise that would otherwise distort the signal. Items like consumer headphone mics and laptop mics will handle this for you, but all pro broadcast microphones will require a device like this. A preamplifier might add coloration by adding a different characteristic than the audio mixer's built-in preamplifiers. Some microphones, for example condensers, should be used in conjunction with an impedance matching preamplifier to function properly.

===Low-End Roll-off===
In a room without proper soundproofing, low frequency rumbles may be transmitted through walls or normally noise dampening materials, and can make the noise picked up by the microphone sound muddy. Often, humans can not hear these noises, but they still have an effect by reducing the 'headroom' (range between nominal silence and the most powerful signal that can be accurately represented). Ideally to stop this, these low frequencies should be eliminated as early on in the chain as possible. If your microphone or preamp has a low-freq rolloff button or switch it will nearly always be worth using them in order to create the best quality vocals for your show.

==Levels and why we sosig==
There are any number of things that can increase or decrease your relative volume to the listener. We have loudness standards for making sure that the audio content produced sounds about right to the end listeners. However any number of reasons including changes in positioning or even atmospheric changes in a room can make the produced audio sound off as the output from the microphone varies in volume across a wide range. This range is called the headroom of the microphone, the difference between the quietest sound it can accurately represent to the loudest, before it begins to distort. Microphones with lots of headroom can be highly desirable, and often very expensive. However for most spoken word applications this headroom is not desirable beyond the on the bare minimum needed to make the audio sound natural. In order to reduce this dynamic range without losing desirable features of the microphone such as its frequency response and accurate voice reproduction we process the audio produced by the microphone through what is known as a compressor. The topic of compressors and audio dynamics in general is discussed more in our guide to audio dynamics and you should be aware that it is not necessary how to use a compressor in all speech applications. indeed in the world of TV where lavalier mics are more common for live applications it is very rare to use compressors at all. But if you are pre-recording speech for a show you should consider asking our audio resources team how they recommend processing your voice in order to get the nicest sounding output, which will likely involve the usage of compressors within your DAW.

==Vocal Exercises==

User:11090/Microphone Technique

2020-04-27T23:32:37Z

10693: /* Levels and why we sosig */

[[Working From Home Resources|back to hub]]

If you have arrived at this page, you likely want to know how to get more out of your auditory capture device so that your listeners can admire the smoothness of your dulcet tones.

==Types of Microphone==
This is one of the most important ones in terms of handling and address. The Shure SM58 dynamic mic can be, (and from the look of some of ours, has been) dropped out of a helicopter and still used for a respectable gig at the other end. However there are some high-end ribbon mics used for voice over that you can damage simply by shouting at them.

===Dynamic Microphones===
These microphones are some of the more common around and are at the time of writing used by URY in our studios with our SM7Bs and in OBs with our SM58 microphones. They work due to an induction coil attached to the diaphragm moving in response to changes in sound pressure within a magnetic field, this generates a current proportional to the original noise.

====Advantages====
* Better rejection of background noise
* Usually has more directional pickup pattern
* Does not require Phantom Power
* Less sensitive to physical handling

====Disadvantages====
* Non-uniform frequency response
* Struggles with far away sounds

===Condenser Microphones===
Condenser microphones work through two thin metallic plates with a potential difference between them forming a capacitor, one of these plates acts as a diaphragm to vibrate in sympathy with sound waves like the human ear drum. As the diaphragm vibrates it changes the distance between itself and the other plate, thus creating a current which is a representation of the original sound.

====Advantages====
* Generally more accurate representation of original sound
* Cover larger frequency range
* Can pick up sounds from further away, including groups of people

====Disadvantages====
* Picks up large amounts of background noise, even noise that you can't hear, such as low frequency rumblings through walls.
* Receptive to handling noise, if you grab or knock your microphone while using it, it will be very loud and noticeable.
* Require phantom power in order to operate, the microphone can be damaged if this is not done properly.

===Ribbon Microphones===
Ribbon Microphones were some of the earliest microphones used in a broadcasting context. They are quite rare to see these days outside of specialist music studios and orchestral concert recordings, but they are still produced, and can be found in a number of applications if you're into this sort of stuff.
====Advantages====
* They can produce a very nice coloured sound, reminiscent of the golden days of radio... if you're into that...
* They have a figure 8 pickup pattern with excellent noise rejection to the sides, this means they make a very good stereo microphone when used in pairs. This is useful to know exactly non of the time to you, but is very important for things like concert orchestra recordings.
====Disadvantages====
* They break *very* easily, like you don't even need to drop them, just give them a hard knock.
* They're usually very expensive, and if they're not, they're usually very crap.

==Pickup Patterns==
Microphones are in general directional. This is important to bear in mind while using them. You will always want the zone of the microphone that picks up the most noise directed towards the source of the sound that you want to record, (in this case, your voice). This is very important to bear in mind when you are doing your shows, you don't need to rigidly sit in the exact same spot but if your microphone is designed to only pick up things directly in front of it it is very easy to slowly drift out of this cone without noticing, especially when you are in the middle of a long link. One good tactic to deal with directional microphones in a home environment is either to keep a chair in a fixed position that you have already checked for good pickup, or if you are especially excitable, to keep your no-dominant hand on a desk in front of the microphone throughout the broadcast. If you practice doing this for a while you will get used to constraining your movement to within a certain cone where the microphone is at the right angle and distance to yourself.
<gallery widths="100px" heights="100px">
Image:Polar pattern omnidirectional.svg|<center>Omnidirectional</center>
Image:Polar pattern figure eight.svg|<center>Bi-directional or Figure of 8</center>
Image:Polar pattern subcardioid.svg|<center>Subcardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern cardioid.svg|<center>[[Cardioid]]</center>
Image:Polar pattern hypercardioid.svg|<center>Hypercardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern supercardioid.svg|<center>Supercardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern directional.svg|<center>Shotgun</center>
</gallery>

==Microphone Mounts==

===Microphone Arms===

One simple way to keep a microphone at the right distance and relative positioning to yourself is to use a mic arm like the ones we have in the studio. These can seem excessive, and certainly will increase the bulkiness of your setup as compared to a laptop and a desktop microphone. However they contribute to your final product by aiding a more natural delivery of your speech from a comfortable position and making it much easier to move the microphone to a good position.

Buying a mic arm and making yourself a small, vocal environment does not need to be complex or expensive. Cheap microphone arms that clamp to the edge of desks and use a standard 1/4" thread mount can be found on amazon for [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Neewer-Adjustable-Microphone-Suspension-Broadcasting/dp/B00DY1F2CS/ below £12].

===Shock Mounts===

Certain microphones react badly to being knocked or held while being used, particularly condenser and ribbon microphones, even when on the ends of a microphone arm or a headset. In order to prevent the nasty knocks and scrapes associated with handling being picked up in the final result on air the microphone must be isolated from the sources of these noises, a microphone connected rigidly to a desk receiving hard knocks will pick up the noises almost as well as if they were made to the microphone itself. This is why it is important to remove sources of vibrations and other external noise from your environment before recording.

One way of avoiding these handling noises is to use a shock mount, these suspend the microphone away from vibration conducting surfaces using elastic cords and a pair of elastic disks. It is important to ensure that once you have installed the shock mount, you only use it to move the microphone, and do not touch the microphone itself. Normally, dynamic microphones do not need shock mounts.

===Headset Microphones===

Headset microphones are mounted on to a pair of headphones or earbuds, usually in a position that makes them closer to the mouth of the user. They often come cheap or free with modern headphones as they are an integral part of the noise cancelling system. Having the microphone physically attached to the user is a great way of making sure they don't move to far from the microphone. They can be dynamic or condenser, with most consumer earbud microphones being electret condensers.

===Positioning===
When placing microphones the no.1 thing to consider is the position of the source that you are recording. Knowing the pickup pattern of your microphone, you want to be certain that the thing you want to record (i.e your voice) is in the centre of the zone that gets picked-up the easiest while ensuring that it is pointed away from any sources of background noise or reflective surfaces such as tiles or glass. A presenter must be kept at a comfortable distance from the microphone, and then processing set from that point, the human ear can very quickly get used to poor quality audio containing background artifacts or noise, but if the presenter is swaying backwards and forwards away from their sensitive microphone, this will rapidly distract the listener from the topic of conversation.

Speaking of room positioning, you want to be aware of what you voice will be bouncing off of in the room, as it can very easily go back into the microphone a second time and become distracting to listeners. You can prevent this either though personal positioning, placing the microphone in an area where the sound wave of your voice will dissipate and fragment before being picked up a second time i.e having the microphone and presenter in the middle of a room not in proximity to walls that can immediately reflect audio. Another way of preventing it is through soundproofing, this can be very simple, hanging a soft blanket on a wall on the opposite side of the microphone to the sound source can dampen reflective waves from the initial noise source, and is not difficult to do with sufficient amount of duct tape or some bed slats.

===Windshields===
When broadcasting outdoors (or even indoors in larger rooms subject to rising drafts), your microphones will pick up the sound of wind passing by and running over their edged surfaces as a low frequency rumble, this can be highly annoying and can making it impossible to hear the intended content. To combat this, windshields are used. They can be several times larger than the microphone and if they are 'hairy' will often be termed 'dead cats/kittens' depending on their size due to their fluffy nature and habit of being attacked by birds when walking in the open.

=='Plosives==
Plop, Pancake, Pizza, Poke, Pan, Pop....

Say that to yourself, the hard 'P' noise at the beginning of the word is called a 'Plosive. This is because it is a very loud low frequency noise at the beginning of the word, your human ape ears have gotten used to this, and you won't notice it often but compared to all noises you make in pronouncing a sentence, this will usually be the loudest, and your listeners don't necessarily need bleeding ears to enjoy your show.

It is however quite easy to mitigate plosives through three methods:

1. A pop shield, these have two layers of fine fabric close to each other that will reduce the amount of transmitted sound pressure, but not the frequency distribution or general vibration of the noise. You can make them from a crochet hoop and a pair of old tights!

2. A big mic muff, you can buy these for cheap of amazon, and so long as they are made out of a good kind of foam they will attenuate loud plosives admirably.

3. Complicated processing shit™, plosives are louder and bassier than their environment, often focused at 100Hz, if you are willing to mess around with multiband compressors, you can usually deal with them.
Don't.... it's not worth it.

==Sibilance==
Slithering sounds of sonorous symphonies.

That 'esss' sound is sibilance, it's annoying. Really annoying, it cuts through and hurts your ears. Worse there is no physical way of getting rid of it :/ . So you have 2 choices:

a. Get a de-esser and calibrate it towards where your specific sibilance frequencies are to be found. Annoyingly they are different for each person, and in quite distinctly different groups depending on if a person as a traditionally male or female voice. Mine is at 8Khz, which is towards the high end, but yours will be different, you can find yours by using a multiband analyser, and seeing what frequencies you produce when saying sibilant words, then using hardware or software, process it out. This is difficult, and wholly unnecessary, which is why only <s>Arseholes</s>Radio 3 and ClassicFM still invest in the technology to have individual processing for each presenter that tackles these noises.

b. Keep what your mouth is doing in mind as you say the sentence at the top of the section. Instead of curling your tongue to make the hissing noise through a small gap in your mouth, make a concious effort to force your tongue down. This will result in a softer more rolling ess sound, that won't hurt your listeners to hear. This is difficult to do at first, but after a few hours, it's pretty easy to get into. After my first term doing radio my mum noticed how much softer my voice was as a result.

==Proximity Effect==
As you get closer to a microphone, a thing called proximity effect occurs. This results in your voice sounding deeper and more rumbly. Some people like this and will use it for accentuation. Musicians with proper vocal training in particular can make great use of this effect in order to add more character to the song. In general though, it is to be avoided, as unless you sound like it all the time listeners may be distracted by the difference between your 'broadcast' and natural voice.

==Preamps==
A microphone preamplifier is a sound engineering device that prepares a microphone signal to be processed by other equipment. Microphone signals are usually too weak to be transmitted to units such as mixing consoles and recording devices with adequate quality. Preamplifiers increase a microphone signal to line level (i.e. the level of signal strength required by such devices) by providing stable gain while preventing induced noise that would otherwise distort the signal. Items like consumer headphone mics and laptop mics will handle this for you, but all pro broadcast microphones will require a device like this. A preamplifier might add coloration by adding a different characteristic than the audio mixer's built-in preamplifiers. Some microphones, for example condensers, should be used in conjunction with an impedance matching preamplifier to function properly.

===Low-End Roll-off===
In a room without proper soundproofing, low frequency rumbles may be transmitted through walls or normally noise dampening materials, and can make the noise picked up by the microphone sound muddy. Often, humans can not hear these noises, but they still have an effect by reducing the 'headroom' (range between nominal silence and the most powerful signal that can be accurately represented). Ideally to stop this, these low frequencies should be eliminated as early on in the chain as possible. If your microphone or preamp has a low-freq rolloff button or switch it will nearly always be worth using them in order to create the best quality vocals for your show.

==Levels and why we sosig==
There are any number of things that can increase or decrease your relative volume to the listener. We have loudness standards for making sure that the audio content produced

==Vocal Exercises==

User:10693

2020-04-20T23:43:30Z

10693: /* Isaac-ism's */

Current Computing team member since 2017. Endowed with a stunning ability to MacGyver assorted pieces of audio equipment, paperclips and unwilling bystanders into a semi-functional broadcast system.

==Skills==
* Knows everyone.
* Can get anything.
* Willingness to break laws.
* Brute Strength.
* Dedication to do the earliest show in the schedule by 2 hours at 7am in the morning for 5 terms.

==Memorable Moments==
* During technical issues during Darts night Roses 2018, pressurized Lancaster IT into letting him into the comms room and promptly force-restarted the troublesome interface by power cycling a PoE injector.
* During Freshers week 2018, the great hard-drive dedening happened, where 4 different servers with incomplete backups went down multiple times requiring rebuilding and re-routing of critical systems around them. During this week Isaac managed only 16 hours of sleep between Saturday and Friday, and once the final disk was resilvered and the backup system restored on bup0 at 11am on the Friday, promptly fell asleep on the floor of stores for 10 hours.
* Following the Jordan Cameron "Knee incident", with Daniel Roberts dramatically ran out of a POPL lecture in Piazza Building and made the 1.3 mile sprint with a heavy laptop bag to the station in just under 10 minutes between the first silence email to bursting into stores, arriving shortly before Danny who had taken the same route on a bike.
* Along with Jacob Dicker + Tom Lee and Edwin Barnes of YSTV drove over the Pennines to Lancaster before Roses. Also in a different incident dropped LA:1's £Insane 8K camera in it's flightcase.
* Being rang by BailriggFM's engineer for advice on how their transmitter works.

==Isaac-ism's==
* "OK, so this is cursed as fuck, but what if we...."
* "So I got really pissed last night, and I had the stupid idea of...." [6 months later implemented by Marks Polakovs]
* "Last night I went on eBay, and I found this!"

User:10693

2020-04-20T23:34:09Z

10693: /* Skills */

User:10693

2020-04-20T23:33:52Z

10693: /* Memorable Moments */

Current Computing team member since 2017. Endowed with a stunning ability to MacGyver assorted pieces of audio equipment, paperclips and unwilling bystanders into a semi-functional broadcast system.

==Skills==
- Knows everyone.
- Can get anything.
- Willingness to break laws.
- Brute Strength.
- Dedication to do the earliest show in the schedule by 2 hours at 7am in the morning for 5 terms.

==Memorable Moments==
* During technical issues during Darts night Roses 2018, pressurized Lancaster IT into letting him into the comms room and promptly force-restarted the troublesome interface by power cycling a PoE injector.
* During Freshers week 2018, the great hard-drive dedening happened, where 4 different servers with incomplete backups went down multiple times requiring rebuilding and re-routing of critical systems around them. During this week Isaac managed only 16 hours of sleep between Saturday and Friday, and once the final disk was resilvered and the backup system restored on bup0 at 11am on the Friday, promptly fell asleep on the floor of stores for 10 hours.
* Following the Jordan Cameron "Knee incident", with Daniel Roberts dramatically ran out of a POPL lecture in Piazza Building and made the 1.3 mile sprint with a heavy laptop bag to the station in just under 10 minutes between the first silence email to bursting into stores, arriving shortly before Danny who had taken the same route on a bike.
* Along with Jacob Dicker + Tom Lee and Edwin Barnes of YSTV drove over the Pennines to Lancaster before Roses. Also in a different incident dropped LA:1's £Insane 8K camera in it's flightcase.
* Being rang by BailriggFM's engineer for advice on how their transmitter works.

==Isaac-ism's==
* "OK, so this is cursed as fuck, but what if we...."
* "So I got really pissed last night, and I had the stupid idea of...." [6 months later implemented by Marks Polakovs]

User:10693

2020-04-20T23:33:32Z

10693: /* Isaac-ism's */

Current Computing team member since 2017. Endowed with a stunning ability to MacGyver assorted pieces of audio equipment, paperclips and unwilling bystanders into a semi-functional broadcast system.

==Skills==
- Knows everyone.
- Can get anything.
- Willingness to break laws.
- Brute Strength.
- Dedication to do the earliest show in the schedule by 2 hours at 7am in the morning for 5 terms.

==Memorable Moments==
- During technical issues during Darts night Roses 2018, pressurized Lancaster IT into letting him into the comms room and promptly force-restarted the troublesome interface by power cycling a PoE injector.
- During Freshers week 2018, the great hard-drive dedening happened, where 4 different servers with incomplete backups went down multiple times requiring rebuilding and re-routing of critical systems around them. During this week Isaac managed only 16 hours of sleep between Saturday and Friday, and once the final disk was resilvered and the backup system restored on bup0 at 11am on the Friday, promptly fell asleep on the floor of stores for 10 hours.
- Following the Jordan Cameron "Knee incident", with Daniel Roberts dramatically ran out of a POPL lecture in Piazza Building and made the 1.3 mile sprint with a heavy laptop bag to the station in just under 10 minutes between the first silence email to bursting into stores, arriving shortly before Danny who had taken the same route on a bike.
- Along with Jacob Dicker + Tom Lee and Edwin Barnes of YSTV drove over the Pennines to Lancaster before Roses. Also in a different incident dropped LA:1's £Insane 8K camera in it's flightcase.
- Being rang by BailriggFM's engineer for advice on how their transmitter works.

==Isaac-ism's==
* "OK, so this is cursed as fuck, but what if we...."
* "So I got really pissed last night, and I had the stupid idea of...." [6 months later implemented by Marks Polakovs]

User:10693

2020-04-20T23:33:23Z

10693: /* Isaac-ism's */

Current Computing team member since 2017. Endowed with a stunning ability to MacGyver assorted pieces of audio equipment, paperclips and unwilling bystanders into a semi-functional broadcast system.

==Skills==
- Knows everyone.
- Can get anything.
- Willingness to break laws.
- Brute Strength.
- Dedication to do the earliest show in the schedule by 2 hours at 7am in the morning for 5 terms.

==Memorable Moments==
- During technical issues during Darts night Roses 2018, pressurized Lancaster IT into letting him into the comms room and promptly force-restarted the troublesome interface by power cycling a PoE injector.
- During Freshers week 2018, the great hard-drive dedening happened, where 4 different servers with incomplete backups went down multiple times requiring rebuilding and re-routing of critical systems around them. During this week Isaac managed only 16 hours of sleep between Saturday and Friday, and once the final disk was resilvered and the backup system restored on bup0 at 11am on the Friday, promptly fell asleep on the floor of stores for 10 hours.
- Following the Jordan Cameron "Knee incident", with Daniel Roberts dramatically ran out of a POPL lecture in Piazza Building and made the 1.3 mile sprint with a heavy laptop bag to the station in just under 10 minutes between the first silence email to bursting into stores, arriving shortly before Danny who had taken the same route on a bike.
- Along with Jacob Dicker + Tom Lee and Edwin Barnes of YSTV drove over the Pennines to Lancaster before Roses. Also in a different incident dropped LA:1's £Insane 8K camera in it's flightcase.
- Being rang by BailriggFM's engineer for advice on how their transmitter works.

==Isaac-ism's==
* "OK, so this is cursed as fuck, but what if we...."
* "So I got really pissed last night, and I had the stupid idea of.... [6 months later implemented by Marks Polakovs]

User:10693

2020-04-20T23:31:18Z

10693: Created page with "Current Computing team member since 2017. Endowed with a stunning ability to MacGyver assorted pieces of audio equipment, paperclips and unwilling bystanders into a semi-funct..."

Current Computing team member since 2017. Endowed with a stunning ability to MacGyver assorted pieces of audio equipment, paperclips and unwilling bystanders into a semi-functional broadcast system.

==Skills==
- Knows everyone.
- Can get anything.
- Willingness to break laws.
- Brute Strength.
- Dedication to do the earliest show in the schedule by 2 hours at 7am in the morning for 5 terms.

==Memorable Moments==
- During technical issues during Darts night Roses 2018, pressurized Lancaster IT into letting him into the comms room and promptly force-restarted the troublesome interface by power cycling a PoE injector.
- During Freshers week 2018, the great hard-drive dedening happened, where 4 different servers with incomplete backups went down multiple times requiring rebuilding and re-routing of critical systems around them. During this week Isaac managed only 16 hours of sleep between Saturday and Friday, and once the final disk was resilvered and the backup system restored on bup0 at 11am on the Friday, promptly fell asleep on the floor of stores for 10 hours.
- Following the Jordan Cameron "Knee incident", with Daniel Roberts dramatically ran out of a POPL lecture in Piazza Building and made the 1.3 mile sprint with a heavy laptop bag to the station in just under 10 minutes between the first silence email to bursting into stores, arriving shortly before Danny who had taken the same route on a bike.
- Along with Jacob Dicker + Tom Lee and Edwin Barnes of YSTV drove over the Pennines to Lancaster before Roses. Also in a different incident dropped LA:1's £Insane 8K camera in it's flightcase.
- Being rang by BailriggFM's engineer for advice on how their transmitter works.

==Isaac-ism's==
- "OK, so this is cursed as fuck, but what if we...."

User:11090/Microphone Technique

2020-04-17T17:20:56Z

10693: /* Preamps */

[[Working From Home Resources|back to hub]]

If you have arrived at this page, you likely want to know how to get more out of your auditory capture device so that your listeners can admire the smoothness of your dulcet tones.

==Types of Microphone==
This is one of the most important ones in terms of handling and address. The Shure SM58 dynamic mic can be, (and from the look of some of ours, has been) dropped out of a helicopter and still used for a respectable gig at the other end. However there are some high-end ribbon mics used for voice over that you can damage simply by shouting at them.

===Dynamic Microphones===
These microphones are some of the more common around and are at the time of writing used by URY in our studios with our SM7Bs and in OBs with our SM58 microphones. They work due to an induction coil attached to the diaphragm moving in response to changes in sound pressure within a magnetic field, this generates a current proportional to the original noise.

====Advantages====
* Better rejection of background noise
* Usually has more directional pickup pattern
* Does not require Phantom Power
* Less sensitive to physical handling

====Disadvantages====
* Non-uniform frequency response
* Struggles with far away sounds

===Condenser Microphones===
Condenser microphones work through two thin metallic plates with a potential difference between them forming a capacitor, one of these plates acts as a diaphragm to vibrate in sympathy with sound waves like the human ear drum. As the diaphragm vibrates it changes the distance between itself and the other plate, thus creating a current which is a representation of the original sound.

====Advantages====
* Generally more accurate representation of original sound
* Cover larger frequency range
* Can pick up sounds from further away, including groups of people

====Disadvantages====
* Picks up large amounts of background noise, even noise that you can't hear, such as low frequency rumblings through walls.
* Receptive to handling noise, if you grab or knock your microphone while using it, it will be very loud and noticeable.
* Require phantom power in order to operate, the microphone can be damaged if this is not done properly.

===Ribbon Microphones===
Ribbon Microphones were some of the earliest microphones used in a broadcasting context. They are quite rare to see these days outside of specialist music studios and orchestral concert recordings, but they are still produced, and can be found in a number of applications if you're into this sort of stuff.
====Advantages====
* They can produce a very nice coloured sound, reminiscent of the golden days of radio... if you're into that...
* They have a figure 8 pickup pattern with excellent noise rejection to the sides, this means they make a very good stereo microphone when used in pairs. This is useful to know exactly non of the time to you, but is very important for things like concert orchestra recordings.
====Disadvantages====
* They break *very* easily, like you don't even need to drop them, just give them a hard knock.
* They're usually very expensive, and if they're not, they're usually very crap.

==Pickup Patterns==
Microphones are in general directional. This is important to bear in mind while using them. You will always want the zone of the microphone that picks up the most noise directed towards the source of the sound that you want to record, (in this case, your voice). This is very important to bear in mind when you are doing your shows, you don't need to rigidly sit in the exact same spot but if your microphone is designed to only pick up things directly in front of it it is very easy to slowly drift out of this cone without noticing, especially when you are in the middle of a long link. One good tactic to deal with directional microphones in a home environment is either to keep a chair in a fixed position that you have already checked for good pickup, or if you are especially excitable, to keep your no-dominant hand on a desk in front of the microphone throughout the broadcast. If you practice doing this for a while you will get used to constraining your movement to within a certain cone where the microphone is at the right angle and distance to yourself.
<gallery widths="100px" heights="100px">
Image:Polar pattern omnidirectional.svg|<center>Omnidirectional</center>
Image:Polar pattern figure eight.svg|<center>Bi-directional or Figure of 8</center>
Image:Polar pattern subcardioid.svg|<center>Subcardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern cardioid.svg|<center>[[Cardioid]]</center>
Image:Polar pattern hypercardioid.svg|<center>Hypercardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern supercardioid.svg|<center>Supercardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern directional.svg|<center>Shotgun</center>
</gallery>

==Microphone Mounts==

===Microphone Arms===

One simple way to keep a microphone at the right distance and relative positioning to yourself is to use a mic arm like the ones we have in the studio. These can seem excessive, and certainly will increase the bulkiness of your setup as compared to a laptop and a desktop microphone. However they contribute to your final product by aiding a more natural delivery of your speech from a comfortable position and making it much easier to move the microphone to a good position.

Buying a mic arm and making yourself a small, vocal environment does not need to be complex or expensive. Cheap microphone arms that clamp to the edge of desks and use a standard 1/4" thread mount can be found on amazon for [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Neewer-Adjustable-Microphone-Suspension-Broadcasting/dp/B00DY1F2CS/ below £12].

===Shock Mounts===

Certain microphones react badly to being knocked or held while being used, particularly condenser and ribbon microphones, even when on the ends of a microphone arm or a headset. In order to prevent the nasty knocks and scrapes associated with handling being picked up in the final result on air the microphone must be isolated from the sources of these noises, a microphone connected rigidly to a desk receiving hard knocks will pick up the noises almost as well as if they were made to the microphone itself. This is why it is important to remove sources of vibrations and other external noise from your environment before recording.

One way of avoiding these handling noises is to use a shock mount, these suspend the microphone away from vibration conducting surfaces using elastic cords and a pair of elastic disks. It is important to ensure that once you have installed the shock mount, you only use it to move the microphone, and do not touch the microphone itself. Normally, dynamic microphones do not need shock mounts.

===Headset Microphones===

Headset microphones are mounted on to a pair of headphones or earbuds, usually in a position that makes them closer to the mouth of the user. They often come cheap or free with modern headphones as they are an integral part of the noise cancelling system. Having the microphone physically attached to the user is a great way of making sure they don't move to far from the microphone. They can be dynamic or condenser, with most consumer earbud microphones being electret condensers.

===Positioning===
When placing microphones the no.1 thing to consider is the position of the source that you are recording. Knowing the pickup pattern of your microphone, you want to be certain that the thing you want to record (i.e your voice) is in the centre of the zone that gets picked-up the easiest while ensuring that it is pointed away from any sources of background noise or reflective surfaces such as tiles or glass. A presenter must be kept at a comfortable distance from the microphone, and then processing set from that point, the human ear can very quickly get used to poor quality audio containing background artifacts or noise, but if the presenter is swaying backwards and forwards away from their sensitive microphone, this will rapidly distract the listener from the topic of conversation.

Speaking of room positioning, you want to be aware of what you voice will be bouncing off of in the room, as it can very easily go back into the microphone a second time and become distracting to listeners. You can prevent this either though personal positioning, placing the microphone in an area where the sound wave of your voice will dissipate and fragment before being picked up a second time i.e having the microphone and presenter in the middle of a room not in proximity to walls that can immediately reflect audio. Another way of preventing it is through soundproofing, this can be very simple, hanging a soft blanket on a wall on the opposite side of the microphone to the sound source can dampen reflective waves from the initial noise source, and is not difficult to do with sufficient amount of duct tape or some bed slats.

===Windshields===
When broadcasting outdoors (or even indoors in larger rooms subject to rising drafts), your microphones will pick up the sound of wind passing by and running over their edged surfaces as a low frequency rumble, this can be highly annoying and can making it impossible to hear the intended content. To combat this, windshields are used. They can be several times larger than the microphone and if they are 'hairy' will often be termed 'dead cats/kittens' depending on their size due to their fluffy nature and habit of being attacked by birds when walking in the open.

=='Plosives==
Plop, Pancake, Pizza, Poke, Pan, Pop....

Say that to yourself, the hard 'P' noise at the beginning of the word is called a 'Plosive. This is because it is a very loud low frequency noise at the beginning of the word, your human ape ears have gotten used to this, and you won't notice it often but compared to all noises you make in pronouncing a sentence, this will usually be the loudest, and your listeners don't necessarily need bleeding ears to enjoy your show.

It is however quite easy to mitigate plosives through three methods:

1. A pop shield, these have two layers of fine fabric close to each other that will reduce the amount of transmitted sound pressure, but not the frequency distribution or general vibration of the noise. You can make them from a crochet hoop and a pair of old tights!

2. A big mic muff, you can buy these for cheap of amazon, and so long as they are made out of a good kind of foam they will attenuate loud plosives admirably.

3. Complicated processing shit™, plosives are louder and bassier than their environment, often focused at 100Hz, if you are willing to mess around with multiband compressors, you can usually deal with them.
Don't.... it's not worth it.

==Sibilance==
Slithering sounds of sonorous symphonies.

That 'esss' sound is sibilance, it's annoying. Really annoying, it cuts through and hurts your ears. Worse there is no physical way of getting rid of it :/ . So you have 2 choices:

a. Get a de-esser and calibrate it towards where your specific sibilance frequencies are to be found. Annoyingly they are different for each person, and in quite distinctly different groups depending on if a person as a traditionally male or female voice. Mine is at 8Khz, which is towards the high end, but yours will be different, you can find yours by using a multiband analyser, and seeing what frequencies you produce when saying sibilant words, then using hardware or software, process it out. This is difficult, and wholly unnecessary, which is why only <s>Arseholes</s>Radio 3 and ClassicFM still invest in the technology to have individual processing for each presenter that tackles these noises.

b. Keep what your mouth is doing in mind as you say the sentence at the top of the section. Instead of curling your tongue to make the hissing noise through a small gap in your mouth, make a concious effort to force your tongue down. This will result in a softer more rolling ess sound, that won't hurt your listeners to hear. This is difficult to do at first, but after a few hours, it's pretty easy to get into. After my first term doing radio my mum noticed how much softer my voice was as a result.

==Proximity Effect==
As you get closer to a microphone, a thing called proximity effect occurs. This results in your voice sounding deeper and more rumbly. Some people like this and will use it for accentuation. Musicians with proper vocal training in particular can make great use of this effect in order to add more character to the song. In general though, it is to be avoided, as unless you sound like it all the time listeners may be distracted by the difference between your 'broadcast' and natural voice.

==Preamps==
A microphone preamplifier is a sound engineering device that prepares a microphone signal to be processed by other equipment. Microphone signals are usually too weak to be transmitted to units such as mixing consoles and recording devices with adequate quality. Preamplifiers increase a microphone signal to line level (i.e. the level of signal strength required by such devices) by providing stable gain while preventing induced noise that would otherwise distort the signal. Items like consumer headphone mics and laptop mics will handle this for you, but all pro broadcast microphones will require a device like this. A preamplifier might add coloration by adding a different characteristic than the audio mixer's built-in preamplifiers. Some microphones, for example condensers, should be used in conjunction with an impedance matching preamplifier to function properly.

===Low-End Roll-off===
In a room without proper soundproofing, low frequency rumbles may be transmitted through walls or normally noise dampening materials, and can make the noise picked up by the microphone sound muddy. Often, humans can not hear these noises, but they still have an effect by reducing the 'headroom' (range between nominal silence and the most powerful signal that can be accurately represented). Ideally to stop this, these low frequencies should be eliminated as early on in the chain as possible. If your microphone or preamp has a low-freq rolloff button or switch it will nearly always be worth using them in order to create the best quality vocals for your show.

==Levels and why we sosig==

==Vocal Exercises==

User:11090/Microphone Technique

2020-04-17T17:12:15Z

10693: /* Proximity Effect */

[[Working From Home Resources|back to hub]]

If you have arrived at this page, you likely want to know how to get more out of your auditory capture device so that your listeners can admire the smoothness of your dulcet tones.

==Types of Microphone==
This is one of the most important ones in terms of handling and address. The Shure SM58 dynamic mic can be, (and from the look of some of ours, has been) dropped out of a helicopter and still used for a respectable gig at the other end. However there are some high-end ribbon mics used for voice over that you can damage simply by shouting at them.

===Dynamic Microphones===
These microphones are some of the more common around and are at the time of writing used by URY in our studios with our SM7Bs and in OBs with our SM58 microphones. They work due to an induction coil attached to the diaphragm moving in response to changes in sound pressure within a magnetic field, this generates a current proportional to the original noise.

====Advantages====
* Better rejection of background noise
* Usually has more directional pickup pattern
* Does not require Phantom Power
* Less sensitive to physical handling

====Disadvantages====
* Non-uniform frequency response
* Struggles with far away sounds

===Condenser Microphones===
Condenser microphones work through two thin metallic plates with a potential difference between them forming a capacitor, one of these plates acts as a diaphragm to vibrate in sympathy with sound waves like the human ear drum. As the diaphragm vibrates it changes the distance between itself and the other plate, thus creating a current which is a representation of the original sound.

====Advantages====
* Generally more accurate representation of original sound
* Cover larger frequency range
* Can pick up sounds from further away, including groups of people

====Disadvantages====
* Picks up large amounts of background noise, even noise that you can't hear, such as low frequency rumblings through walls.
* Receptive to handling noise, if you grab or knock your microphone while using it, it will be very loud and noticeable.
* Require phantom power in order to operate, the microphone can be damaged if this is not done properly.

===Ribbon Microphones===
Ribbon Microphones were some of the earliest microphones used in a broadcasting context. They are quite rare to see these days outside of specialist music studios and orchestral concert recordings, but they are still produced, and can be found in a number of applications if you're into this sort of stuff.
====Advantages====
* They can produce a very nice coloured sound, reminiscent of the golden days of radio... if you're into that...
* They have a figure 8 pickup pattern with excellent noise rejection to the sides, this means they make a very good stereo microphone when used in pairs. This is useful to know exactly non of the time to you, but is very important for things like concert orchestra recordings.
====Disadvantages====
* They break *very* easily, like you don't even need to drop them, just give them a hard knock.
* They're usually very expensive, and if they're not, they're usually very crap.

==Pickup Patterns==
Microphones are in general directional. This is important to bear in mind while using them. You will always want the zone of the microphone that picks up the most noise directed towards the source of the sound that you want to record, (in this case, your voice). This is very important to bear in mind when you are doing your shows, you don't need to rigidly sit in the exact same spot but if your microphone is designed to only pick up things directly in front of it it is very easy to slowly drift out of this cone without noticing, especially when you are in the middle of a long link. One good tactic to deal with directional microphones in a home environment is either to keep a chair in a fixed position that you have already checked for good pickup, or if you are especially excitable, to keep your no-dominant hand on a desk in front of the microphone throughout the broadcast. If you practice doing this for a while you will get used to constraining your movement to within a certain cone where the microphone is at the right angle and distance to yourself.
<gallery widths="100px" heights="100px">
Image:Polar pattern omnidirectional.svg|<center>Omnidirectional</center>
Image:Polar pattern figure eight.svg|<center>Bi-directional or Figure of 8</center>
Image:Polar pattern subcardioid.svg|<center>Subcardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern cardioid.svg|<center>[[Cardioid]]</center>
Image:Polar pattern hypercardioid.svg|<center>Hypercardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern supercardioid.svg|<center>Supercardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern directional.svg|<center>Shotgun</center>
</gallery>

==Microphone Mounts==

===Microphone Arms===

One simple way to keep a microphone at the right distance and relative positioning to yourself is to use a mic arm like the ones we have in the studio. These can seem excessive, and certainly will increase the bulkiness of your setup as compared to a laptop and a desktop microphone. However they contribute to your final product by aiding a more natural delivery of your speech from a comfortable position and making it much easier to move the microphone to a good position.

Buying a mic arm and making yourself a small, vocal environment does not need to be complex or expensive. Cheap microphone arms that clamp to the edge of desks and use a standard 1/4" thread mount can be found on amazon for [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Neewer-Adjustable-Microphone-Suspension-Broadcasting/dp/B00DY1F2CS/ below £12].

===Shock Mounts===

Certain microphones react badly to being knocked or held while being used, particularly condenser and ribbon microphones, even when on the ends of a microphone arm or a headset. In order to prevent the nasty knocks and scrapes associated with handling being picked up in the final result on air the microphone must be isolated from the sources of these noises, a microphone connected rigidly to a desk receiving hard knocks will pick up the noises almost as well as if they were made to the microphone itself. This is why it is important to remove sources of vibrations and other external noise from your environment before recording.

One way of avoiding these handling noises is to use a shock mount, these suspend the microphone away from vibration conducting surfaces using elastic cords and a pair of elastic disks. It is important to ensure that once you have installed the shock mount, you only use it to move the microphone, and do not touch the microphone itself. Normally, dynamic microphones do not need shock mounts.

===Headset Microphones===

Headset microphones are mounted on to a pair of headphones or earbuds, usually in a position that makes them closer to the mouth of the user. They often come cheap or free with modern headphones as they are an integral part of the noise cancelling system. Having the microphone physically attached to the user is a great way of making sure they don't move to far from the microphone. They can be dynamic or condenser, with most consumer earbud microphones being electret condensers.

===Positioning===
When placing microphones the no.1 thing to consider is the position of the source that you are recording. Knowing the pickup pattern of your microphone, you want to be certain that the thing you want to record (i.e your voice) is in the centre of the zone that gets picked-up the easiest while ensuring that it is pointed away from any sources of background noise or reflective surfaces such as tiles or glass. A presenter must be kept at a comfortable distance from the microphone, and then processing set from that point, the human ear can very quickly get used to poor quality audio containing background artifacts or noise, but if the presenter is swaying backwards and forwards away from their sensitive microphone, this will rapidly distract the listener from the topic of conversation.

Speaking of room positioning, you want to be aware of what you voice will be bouncing off of in the room, as it can very easily go back into the microphone a second time and become distracting to listeners. You can prevent this either though personal positioning, placing the microphone in an area where the sound wave of your voice will dissipate and fragment before being picked up a second time i.e having the microphone and presenter in the middle of a room not in proximity to walls that can immediately reflect audio. Another way of preventing it is through soundproofing, this can be very simple, hanging a soft blanket on a wall on the opposite side of the microphone to the sound source can dampen reflective waves from the initial noise source, and is not difficult to do with sufficient amount of duct tape or some bed slats.

===Windshields===
When broadcasting outdoors (or even indoors in larger rooms subject to rising drafts), your microphones will pick up the sound of wind passing by and running over their edged surfaces as a low frequency rumble, this can be highly annoying and can making it impossible to hear the intended content. To combat this, windshields are used. They can be several times larger than the microphone and if they are 'hairy' will often be termed 'dead cats/kittens' depending on their size due to their fluffy nature and habit of being attacked by birds when walking in the open.

=='Plosives==
Plop, Pancake, Pizza, Poke, Pan, Pop....

Say that to yourself, the hard 'P' noise at the beginning of the word is called a 'Plosive. This is because it is a very loud low frequency noise at the beginning of the word, your human ape ears have gotten used to this, and you won't notice it often but compared to all noises you make in pronouncing a sentence, this will usually be the loudest, and your listeners don't necessarily need bleeding ears to enjoy your show.

It is however quite easy to mitigate plosives through three methods:

1. A pop shield, these have two layers of fine fabric close to each other that will reduce the amount of transmitted sound pressure, but not the frequency distribution or general vibration of the noise. You can make them from a crochet hoop and a pair of old tights!

2. A big mic muff, you can buy these for cheap of amazon, and so long as they are made out of a good kind of foam they will attenuate loud plosives admirably.

3. Complicated processing shit™, plosives are louder and bassier than their environment, often focused at 100Hz, if you are willing to mess around with multiband compressors, you can usually deal with them.
Don't.... it's not worth it.

==Sibilance==
Slithering sounds of sonorous symphonies.

That 'esss' sound is sibilance, it's annoying. Really annoying, it cuts through and hurts your ears. Worse there is no physical way of getting rid of it :/ . So you have 2 choices:

a. Get a de-esser and calibrate it towards where your specific sibilance frequencies are to be found. Annoyingly they are different for each person, and in quite distinctly different groups depending on if a person as a traditionally male or female voice. Mine is at 8Khz, which is towards the high end, but yours will be different, you can find yours by using a multiband analyser, and seeing what frequencies you produce when saying sibilant words, then using hardware or software, process it out. This is difficult, and wholly unnecessary, which is why only <s>Arseholes</s>Radio 3 and ClassicFM still invest in the technology to have individual processing for each presenter that tackles these noises.

b. Keep what your mouth is doing in mind as you say the sentence at the top of the section. Instead of curling your tongue to make the hissing noise through a small gap in your mouth, make a concious effort to force your tongue down. This will result in a softer more rolling ess sound, that won't hurt your listeners to hear. This is difficult to do at first, but after a few hours, it's pretty easy to get into. After my first term doing radio my mum noticed how much softer my voice was as a result.

==Proximity Effect==
As you get closer to a microphone, a thing called proximity effect occurs. This results in your voice sounding deeper and more rumbly. Some people like this and will use it for accentuation. Musicians with proper vocal training in particular can make great use of this effect in order to add more character to the song. In general though, it is to be avoided, as unless you sound like it all the time listeners may be distracted by the difference between your 'broadcast' and natural voice.

==Preamps==

===Low-End Roll-off===

==Levels and why we sosig==

==Vocal Exercises==

User:11090/Microphone Technique

2020-04-17T17:08:53Z

10693: /* Sibilance */

[[Working From Home Resources|back to hub]]

If you have arrived at this page, you likely want to know how to get more out of your auditory capture device so that your listeners can admire the smoothness of your dulcet tones.

==Types of Microphone==
This is one of the most important ones in terms of handling and address. The Shure SM58 dynamic mic can be, (and from the look of some of ours, has been) dropped out of a helicopter and still used for a respectable gig at the other end. However there are some high-end ribbon mics used for voice over that you can damage simply by shouting at them.

===Dynamic Microphones===
These microphones are some of the more common around and are at the time of writing used by URY in our studios with our SM7Bs and in OBs with our SM58 microphones. They work due to an induction coil attached to the diaphragm moving in response to changes in sound pressure within a magnetic field, this generates a current proportional to the original noise.

====Advantages====
* Better rejection of background noise
* Usually has more directional pickup pattern
* Does not require Phantom Power
* Less sensitive to physical handling

====Disadvantages====
* Non-uniform frequency response
* Struggles with far away sounds

===Condenser Microphones===
Condenser microphones work through two thin metallic plates with a potential difference between them forming a capacitor, one of these plates acts as a diaphragm to vibrate in sympathy with sound waves like the human ear drum. As the diaphragm vibrates it changes the distance between itself and the other plate, thus creating a current which is a representation of the original sound.

====Advantages====
* Generally more accurate representation of original sound
* Cover larger frequency range
* Can pick up sounds from further away, including groups of people

====Disadvantages====
* Picks up large amounts of background noise, even noise that you can't hear, such as low frequency rumblings through walls.
* Receptive to handling noise, if you grab or knock your microphone while using it, it will be very loud and noticeable.
* Require phantom power in order to operate, the microphone can be damaged if this is not done properly.

===Ribbon Microphones===
Ribbon Microphones were some of the earliest microphones used in a broadcasting context. They are quite rare to see these days outside of specialist music studios and orchestral concert recordings, but they are still produced, and can be found in a number of applications if you're into this sort of stuff.
====Advantages====
* They can produce a very nice coloured sound, reminiscent of the golden days of radio... if you're into that...
* They have a figure 8 pickup pattern with excellent noise rejection to the sides, this means they make a very good stereo microphone when used in pairs. This is useful to know exactly non of the time to you, but is very important for things like concert orchestra recordings.
====Disadvantages====
* They break *very* easily, like you don't even need to drop them, just give them a hard knock.
* They're usually very expensive, and if they're not, they're usually very crap.

==Pickup Patterns==
Microphones are in general directional. This is important to bear in mind while using them. You will always want the zone of the microphone that picks up the most noise directed towards the source of the sound that you want to record, (in this case, your voice). This is very important to bear in mind when you are doing your shows, you don't need to rigidly sit in the exact same spot but if your microphone is designed to only pick up things directly in front of it it is very easy to slowly drift out of this cone without noticing, especially when you are in the middle of a long link. One good tactic to deal with directional microphones in a home environment is either to keep a chair in a fixed position that you have already checked for good pickup, or if you are especially excitable, to keep your no-dominant hand on a desk in front of the microphone throughout the broadcast. If you practice doing this for a while you will get used to constraining your movement to within a certain cone where the microphone is at the right angle and distance to yourself.
<gallery widths="100px" heights="100px">
Image:Polar pattern omnidirectional.svg|<center>Omnidirectional</center>
Image:Polar pattern figure eight.svg|<center>Bi-directional or Figure of 8</center>
Image:Polar pattern subcardioid.svg|<center>Subcardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern cardioid.svg|<center>[[Cardioid]]</center>
Image:Polar pattern hypercardioid.svg|<center>Hypercardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern supercardioid.svg|<center>Supercardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern directional.svg|<center>Shotgun</center>
</gallery>

==Microphone Mounts==

===Microphone Arms===

One simple way to keep a microphone at the right distance and relative positioning to yourself is to use a mic arm like the ones we have in the studio. These can seem excessive, and certainly will increase the bulkiness of your setup as compared to a laptop and a desktop microphone. However they contribute to your final product by aiding a more natural delivery of your speech from a comfortable position and making it much easier to move the microphone to a good position.

Buying a mic arm and making yourself a small, vocal environment does not need to be complex or expensive. Cheap microphone arms that clamp to the edge of desks and use a standard 1/4" thread mount can be found on amazon for [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Neewer-Adjustable-Microphone-Suspension-Broadcasting/dp/B00DY1F2CS/ below £12].

===Shock Mounts===

Certain microphones react badly to being knocked or held while being used, particularly condenser and ribbon microphones, even when on the ends of a microphone arm or a headset. In order to prevent the nasty knocks and scrapes associated with handling being picked up in the final result on air the microphone must be isolated from the sources of these noises, a microphone connected rigidly to a desk receiving hard knocks will pick up the noises almost as well as if they were made to the microphone itself. This is why it is important to remove sources of vibrations and other external noise from your environment before recording.

One way of avoiding these handling noises is to use a shock mount, these suspend the microphone away from vibration conducting surfaces using elastic cords and a pair of elastic disks. It is important to ensure that once you have installed the shock mount, you only use it to move the microphone, and do not touch the microphone itself. Normally, dynamic microphones do not need shock mounts.

===Headset Microphones===

Headset microphones are mounted on to a pair of headphones or earbuds, usually in a position that makes them closer to the mouth of the user. They often come cheap or free with modern headphones as they are an integral part of the noise cancelling system. Having the microphone physically attached to the user is a great way of making sure they don't move to far from the microphone. They can be dynamic or condenser, with most consumer earbud microphones being electret condensers.

===Positioning===
When placing microphones the no.1 thing to consider is the position of the source that you are recording. Knowing the pickup pattern of your microphone, you want to be certain that the thing you want to record (i.e your voice) is in the centre of the zone that gets picked-up the easiest while ensuring that it is pointed away from any sources of background noise or reflective surfaces such as tiles or glass. A presenter must be kept at a comfortable distance from the microphone, and then processing set from that point, the human ear can very quickly get used to poor quality audio containing background artifacts or noise, but if the presenter is swaying backwards and forwards away from their sensitive microphone, this will rapidly distract the listener from the topic of conversation.

Speaking of room positioning, you want to be aware of what you voice will be bouncing off of in the room, as it can very easily go back into the microphone a second time and become distracting to listeners. You can prevent this either though personal positioning, placing the microphone in an area where the sound wave of your voice will dissipate and fragment before being picked up a second time i.e having the microphone and presenter in the middle of a room not in proximity to walls that can immediately reflect audio. Another way of preventing it is through soundproofing, this can be very simple, hanging a soft blanket on a wall on the opposite side of the microphone to the sound source can dampen reflective waves from the initial noise source, and is not difficult to do with sufficient amount of duct tape or some bed slats.

===Windshields===
When broadcasting outdoors (or even indoors in larger rooms subject to rising drafts), your microphones will pick up the sound of wind passing by and running over their edged surfaces as a low frequency rumble, this can be highly annoying and can making it impossible to hear the intended content. To combat this, windshields are used. They can be several times larger than the microphone and if they are 'hairy' will often be termed 'dead cats/kittens' depending on their size due to their fluffy nature and habit of being attacked by birds when walking in the open.

=='Plosives==
Plop, Pancake, Pizza, Poke, Pan, Pop....

Say that to yourself, the hard 'P' noise at the beginning of the word is called a 'Plosive. This is because it is a very loud low frequency noise at the beginning of the word, your human ape ears have gotten used to this, and you won't notice it often but compared to all noises you make in pronouncing a sentence, this will usually be the loudest, and your listeners don't necessarily need bleeding ears to enjoy your show.

It is however quite easy to mitigate plosives through three methods:

1. A pop shield, these have two layers of fine fabric close to each other that will reduce the amount of transmitted sound pressure, but not the frequency distribution or general vibration of the noise. You can make them from a crochet hoop and a pair of old tights!

2. A big mic muff, you can buy these for cheap of amazon, and so long as they are made out of a good kind of foam they will attenuate loud plosives admirably.

3. Complicated processing shit™, plosives are louder and bassier than their environment, often focused at 100Hz, if you are willing to mess around with multiband compressors, you can usually deal with them.
Don't.... it's not worth it.

==Sibilance==
Slithering sounds of sonorous symphonies.

That 'esss' sound is sibilance, it's annoying. Really annoying, it cuts through and hurts your ears. Worse there is no physical way of getting rid of it :/ . So you have 2 choices:

a. Get a de-esser and calibrate it towards where your specific sibilance frequencies are to be found. Annoyingly they are different for each person, and in quite distinctly different groups depending on if a person as a traditionally male or female voice. Mine is at 8Khz, which is towards the high end, but yours will be different, you can find yours by using a multiband analyser, and seeing what frequencies you produce when saying sibilant words, then using hardware or software, process it out. This is difficult, and wholly unnecessary, which is why only <s>Arseholes</s>Radio 3 and ClassicFM still invest in the technology to have individual processing for each presenter that tackles these noises.

b. Keep what your mouth is doing in mind as you say the sentence at the top of the section. Instead of curling your tongue to make the hissing noise through a small gap in your mouth, make a concious effort to force your tongue down. This will result in a softer more rolling ess sound, that won't hurt your listeners to hear. This is difficult to do at first, but after a few hours, it's pretty easy to get into. After my first term doing radio my mum noticed how much softer my voice was as a result.

==Proximity Effect==

==Preamps==

===Low-End Roll-off===

==Levels and why we sosig==

==Vocal Exercises==

User:11090/Microphone Technique

2020-04-17T17:06:58Z

10693: /* Sibilance */

[[Working From Home Resources|back to hub]]

If you have arrived at this page, you likely want to know how to get more out of your auditory capture device so that your listeners can admire the smoothness of your dulcet tones.

==Types of Microphone==
This is one of the most important ones in terms of handling and address. The Shure SM58 dynamic mic can be, (and from the look of some of ours, has been) dropped out of a helicopter and still used for a respectable gig at the other end. However there are some high-end ribbon mics used for voice over that you can damage simply by shouting at them.

===Dynamic Microphones===
These microphones are some of the more common around and are at the time of writing used by URY in our studios with our SM7Bs and in OBs with our SM58 microphones. They work due to an induction coil attached to the diaphragm moving in response to changes in sound pressure within a magnetic field, this generates a current proportional to the original noise.

====Advantages====
* Better rejection of background noise
* Usually has more directional pickup pattern
* Does not require Phantom Power
* Less sensitive to physical handling

====Disadvantages====
* Non-uniform frequency response
* Struggles with far away sounds

===Condenser Microphones===
Condenser microphones work through two thin metallic plates with a potential difference between them forming a capacitor, one of these plates acts as a diaphragm to vibrate in sympathy with sound waves like the human ear drum. As the diaphragm vibrates it changes the distance between itself and the other plate, thus creating a current which is a representation of the original sound.

====Advantages====
* Generally more accurate representation of original sound
* Cover larger frequency range
* Can pick up sounds from further away, including groups of people

====Disadvantages====
* Picks up large amounts of background noise, even noise that you can't hear, such as low frequency rumblings through walls.
* Receptive to handling noise, if you grab or knock your microphone while using it, it will be very loud and noticeable.
* Require phantom power in order to operate, the microphone can be damaged if this is not done properly.

===Ribbon Microphones===
Ribbon Microphones were some of the earliest microphones used in a broadcasting context. They are quite rare to see these days outside of specialist music studios and orchestral concert recordings, but they are still produced, and can be found in a number of applications if you're into this sort of stuff.
====Advantages====
* They can produce a very nice coloured sound, reminiscent of the golden days of radio... if you're into that...
* They have a figure 8 pickup pattern with excellent noise rejection to the sides, this means they make a very good stereo microphone when used in pairs. This is useful to know exactly non of the time to you, but is very important for things like concert orchestra recordings.
====Disadvantages====
* They break *very* easily, like you don't even need to drop them, just give them a hard knock.
* They're usually very expensive, and if they're not, they're usually very crap.

==Pickup Patterns==
Microphones are in general directional. This is important to bear in mind while using them. You will always want the zone of the microphone that picks up the most noise directed towards the source of the sound that you want to record, (in this case, your voice). This is very important to bear in mind when you are doing your shows, you don't need to rigidly sit in the exact same spot but if your microphone is designed to only pick up things directly in front of it it is very easy to slowly drift out of this cone without noticing, especially when you are in the middle of a long link. One good tactic to deal with directional microphones in a home environment is either to keep a chair in a fixed position that you have already checked for good pickup, or if you are especially excitable, to keep your no-dominant hand on a desk in front of the microphone throughout the broadcast. If you practice doing this for a while you will get used to constraining your movement to within a certain cone where the microphone is at the right angle and distance to yourself.
<gallery widths="100px" heights="100px">
Image:Polar pattern omnidirectional.svg|<center>Omnidirectional</center>
Image:Polar pattern figure eight.svg|<center>Bi-directional or Figure of 8</center>
Image:Polar pattern subcardioid.svg|<center>Subcardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern cardioid.svg|<center>[[Cardioid]]</center>
Image:Polar pattern hypercardioid.svg|<center>Hypercardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern supercardioid.svg|<center>Supercardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern directional.svg|<center>Shotgun</center>
</gallery>

==Microphone Mounts==

===Microphone Arms===

One simple way to keep a microphone at the right distance and relative positioning to yourself is to use a mic arm like the ones we have in the studio. These can seem excessive, and certainly will increase the bulkiness of your setup as compared to a laptop and a desktop microphone. However they contribute to your final product by aiding a more natural delivery of your speech from a comfortable position and making it much easier to move the microphone to a good position.

Buying a mic arm and making yourself a small, vocal environment does not need to be complex or expensive. Cheap microphone arms that clamp to the edge of desks and use a standard 1/4" thread mount can be found on amazon for [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Neewer-Adjustable-Microphone-Suspension-Broadcasting/dp/B00DY1F2CS/ below £12].

===Shock Mounts===

Certain microphones react badly to being knocked or held while being used, particularly condenser and ribbon microphones, even when on the ends of a microphone arm or a headset. In order to prevent the nasty knocks and scrapes associated with handling being picked up in the final result on air the microphone must be isolated from the sources of these noises, a microphone connected rigidly to a desk receiving hard knocks will pick up the noises almost as well as if they were made to the microphone itself. This is why it is important to remove sources of vibrations and other external noise from your environment before recording.

One way of avoiding these handling noises is to use a shock mount, these suspend the microphone away from vibration conducting surfaces using elastic cords and a pair of elastic disks. It is important to ensure that once you have installed the shock mount, you only use it to move the microphone, and do not touch the microphone itself. Normally, dynamic microphones do not need shock mounts.

===Headset Microphones===

Headset microphones are mounted on to a pair of headphones or earbuds, usually in a position that makes them closer to the mouth of the user. They often come cheap or free with modern headphones as they are an integral part of the noise cancelling system. Having the microphone physically attached to the user is a great way of making sure they don't move to far from the microphone. They can be dynamic or condenser, with most consumer earbud microphones being electret condensers.

===Positioning===
When placing microphones the no.1 thing to consider is the position of the source that you are recording. Knowing the pickup pattern of your microphone, you want to be certain that the thing you want to record (i.e your voice) is in the centre of the zone that gets picked-up the easiest while ensuring that it is pointed away from any sources of background noise or reflective surfaces such as tiles or glass. A presenter must be kept at a comfortable distance from the microphone, and then processing set from that point, the human ear can very quickly get used to poor quality audio containing background artifacts or noise, but if the presenter is swaying backwards and forwards away from their sensitive microphone, this will rapidly distract the listener from the topic of conversation.

Speaking of room positioning, you want to be aware of what you voice will be bouncing off of in the room, as it can very easily go back into the microphone a second time and become distracting to listeners. You can prevent this either though personal positioning, placing the microphone in an area where the sound wave of your voice will dissipate and fragment before being picked up a second time i.e having the microphone and presenter in the middle of a room not in proximity to walls that can immediately reflect audio. Another way of preventing it is through soundproofing, this can be very simple, hanging a soft blanket on a wall on the opposite side of the microphone to the sound source can dampen reflective waves from the initial noise source, and is not difficult to do with sufficient amount of duct tape or some bed slats.

===Windshields===
When broadcasting outdoors (or even indoors in larger rooms subject to rising drafts), your microphones will pick up the sound of wind passing by and running over their edged surfaces as a low frequency rumble, this can be highly annoying and can making it impossible to hear the intended content. To combat this, windshields are used. They can be several times larger than the microphone and if they are 'hairy' will often be termed 'dead cats/kittens' depending on their size due to their fluffy nature and habit of being attacked by birds when walking in the open.

=='Plosives==
Plop, Pancake, Pizza, Poke, Pan, Pop....

Say that to yourself, the hard 'P' noise at the beginning of the word is called a 'Plosive. This is because it is a very loud low frequency noise at the beginning of the word, your human ape ears have gotten used to this, and you won't notice it often but compared to all noises you make in pronouncing a sentence, this will usually be the loudest, and your listeners don't necessarily need bleeding ears to enjoy your show.

It is however quite easy to mitigate plosives through three methods:

1. A pop shield, these have two layers of fine fabric close to each other that will reduce the amount of transmitted sound pressure, but not the frequency distribution or general vibration of the noise. You can make them from a crochet hoop and a pair of old tights!

2. A big mic muff, you can buy these for cheap of amazon, and so long as they are made out of a good kind of foam they will attenuate loud plosives admirably.

3. Complicated processing shit™, plosives are louder and bassier than their environment, often focused at 100Hz, if you are willing to mess around with multiband compressors, you can usually deal with them.
Don't.... it's not worth it.

==Sibilance==
Slithering sounds of sonorous symphonies.

That 'esss' sound is sibilance, it's annoying. Really annoying, it cuts through and hurts your ears. Worse there is no physical way of getting rid of it :/ . So you have 2 choices:

a. Get a de-esser and calibrate it towards where your specific sibilance frequencies are to be found. Annoyingly they are different for each person, and in quite distinctly different groups depending on if a person as a traditionally male or female voice. Mine is at 8Khz, which is towards the high end, but yours will be different, you can find yours by using a multiband analyser, and seeing what frequencies you produce when saying sibilant words, then using hardware or software, process it out. This is difficult, and wholly unnecessary, which is why only {{strikethrough|Arseholes}}Radio 3 and ClassicFM still invest in the technology to have individual processing for each presenter that tackles these noises.

b. Keep what your mouth is doing in mind as you say the sentence at the top of the section. Instead of curling your tongue to make the hissing noise through a small gap in your mouth, make a concious effort to force your tongue down. This will result in a softer more rolling ess sound, that won't hurt your listeners to hear. This is difficult to do at first, but after a few hours, it's pretty easy to get into. After my first term doing radio my mum noticed how much softer my voice was as a result.

==Proximity Effect==

==Preamps==

===Low-End Roll-off===

==Levels and why we sosig==

==Vocal Exercises==

User:11090/Microphone Technique

2020-04-17T16:54:51Z

10693: /* 'Plosives */

[[Working From Home Resources|back to hub]]

If you have arrived at this page, you likely want to know how to get more out of your auditory capture device so that your listeners can admire the smoothness of your dulcet tones.

==Types of Microphone==
This is one of the most important ones in terms of handling and address. The Shure SM58 dynamic mic can be, (and from the look of some of ours, has been) dropped out of a helicopter and still used for a respectable gig at the other end. However there are some high-end ribbon mics used for voice over that you can damage simply by shouting at them.

===Dynamic Microphones===
These microphones are some of the more common around and are at the time of writing used by URY in our studios with our SM7Bs and in OBs with our SM58 microphones. They work due to an induction coil attached to the diaphragm moving in response to changes in sound pressure within a magnetic field, this generates a current proportional to the original noise.

====Advantages====
* Better rejection of background noise
* Usually has more directional pickup pattern
* Does not require Phantom Power
* Less sensitive to physical handling

====Disadvantages====
* Non-uniform frequency response
* Struggles with far away sounds

===Condenser Microphones===
Condenser microphones work through two thin metallic plates with a potential difference between them forming a capacitor, one of these plates acts as a diaphragm to vibrate in sympathy with sound waves like the human ear drum. As the diaphragm vibrates it changes the distance between itself and the other plate, thus creating a current which is a representation of the original sound.

====Advantages====
* Generally more accurate representation of original sound
* Cover larger frequency range
* Can pick up sounds from further away, including groups of people

====Disadvantages====
* Picks up large amounts of background noise, even noise that you can't hear, such as low frequency rumblings through walls.
* Receptive to handling noise, if you grab or knock your microphone while using it, it will be very loud and noticeable.
* Require phantom power in order to operate, the microphone can be damaged if this is not done properly.

===Ribbon Microphones===
Ribbon Microphones were some of the earliest microphones used in a broadcasting context. They are quite rare to see these days outside of specialist music studios and orchestral concert recordings, but they are still produced, and can be found in a number of applications if you're into this sort of stuff.
====Advantages====
* They can produce a very nice coloured sound, reminiscent of the golden days of radio... if you're into that...
* They have a figure 8 pickup pattern with excellent noise rejection to the sides, this means they make a very good stereo microphone when used in pairs. This is useful to know exactly non of the time to you, but is very important for things like concert orchestra recordings.
====Disadvantages====
* They break *very* easily, like you don't even need to drop them, just give them a hard knock.
* They're usually very expensive, and if they're not, they're usually very crap.

==Pickup Patterns==
Microphones are in general directional. This is important to bear in mind while using them. You will always want the zone of the microphone that picks up the most noise directed towards the source of the sound that you want to record, (in this case, your voice). This is very important to bear in mind when you are doing your shows, you don't need to rigidly sit in the exact same spot but if your microphone is designed to only pick up things directly in front of it it is very easy to slowly drift out of this cone without noticing, especially when you are in the middle of a long link. One good tactic to deal with directional microphones in a home environment is either to keep a chair in a fixed position that you have already checked for good pickup, or if you are especially excitable, to keep your no-dominant hand on a desk in front of the microphone throughout the broadcast. If you practice doing this for a while you will get used to constraining your movement to within a certain cone where the microphone is at the right angle and distance to yourself.
<gallery widths="100px" heights="100px">
Image:Polar pattern omnidirectional.svg|<center>Omnidirectional</center>
Image:Polar pattern figure eight.svg|<center>Bi-directional or Figure of 8</center>
Image:Polar pattern subcardioid.svg|<center>Subcardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern cardioid.svg|<center>[[Cardioid]]</center>
Image:Polar pattern hypercardioid.svg|<center>Hypercardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern supercardioid.svg|<center>Supercardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern directional.svg|<center>Shotgun</center>
</gallery>

==Microphone Mounts==

===Microphone Arms===

One simple way to keep a microphone at the right distance and relative positioning to yourself is to use a mic arm like the ones we have in the studio. These can seem excessive, and certainly will increase the bulkiness of your setup as compared to a laptop and a desktop microphone. However they contribute to your final product by aiding a more natural delivery of your speech from a comfortable position and making it much easier to move the microphone to a good position.

Buying a mic arm and making yourself a small, vocal environment does not need to be complex or expensive. Cheap microphone arms that clamp to the edge of desks and use a standard 1/4" thread mount can be found on amazon for [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Neewer-Adjustable-Microphone-Suspension-Broadcasting/dp/B00DY1F2CS/ below £12].

===Shock Mounts===

Certain microphones react badly to being knocked or held while being used, particularly condenser and ribbon microphones, even when on the ends of a microphone arm or a headset. In order to prevent the nasty knocks and scrapes associated with handling being picked up in the final result on air the microphone must be isolated from the sources of these noises, a microphone connected rigidly to a desk receiving hard knocks will pick up the noises almost as well as if they were made to the microphone itself. This is why it is important to remove sources of vibrations and other external noise from your environment before recording.

One way of avoiding these handling noises is to use a shock mount, these suspend the microphone away from vibration conducting surfaces using elastic cords and a pair of elastic disks. It is important to ensure that once you have installed the shock mount, you only use it to move the microphone, and do not touch the microphone itself. Normally, dynamic microphones do not need shock mounts.

===Headset Microphones===

Headset microphones are mounted on to a pair of headphones or earbuds, usually in a position that makes them closer to the mouth of the user. They often come cheap or free with modern headphones as they are an integral part of the noise cancelling system. Having the microphone physically attached to the user is a great way of making sure they don't move to far from the microphone. They can be dynamic or condenser, with most consumer earbud microphones being electret condensers.

===Positioning===
When placing microphones the no.1 thing to consider is the position of the source that you are recording. Knowing the pickup pattern of your microphone, you want to be certain that the thing you want to record (i.e your voice) is in the centre of the zone that gets picked-up the easiest while ensuring that it is pointed away from any sources of background noise or reflective surfaces such as tiles or glass. A presenter must be kept at a comfortable distance from the microphone, and then processing set from that point, the human ear can very quickly get used to poor quality audio containing background artifacts or noise, but if the presenter is swaying backwards and forwards away from their sensitive microphone, this will rapidly distract the listener from the topic of conversation.

Speaking of room positioning, you want to be aware of what you voice will be bouncing off of in the room, as it can very easily go back into the microphone a second time and become distracting to listeners. You can prevent this either though personal positioning, placing the microphone in an area where the sound wave of your voice will dissipate and fragment before being picked up a second time i.e having the microphone and presenter in the middle of a room not in proximity to walls that can immediately reflect audio. Another way of preventing it is through soundproofing, this can be very simple, hanging a soft blanket on a wall on the opposite side of the microphone to the sound source can dampen reflective waves from the initial noise source, and is not difficult to do with sufficient amount of duct tape or some bed slats.

===Windshields===
When broadcasting outdoors (or even indoors in larger rooms subject to rising drafts), your microphones will pick up the sound of wind passing by and running over their edged surfaces as a low frequency rumble, this can be highly annoying and can making it impossible to hear the intended content. To combat this, windshields are used. They can be several times larger than the microphone and if they are 'hairy' will often be termed 'dead cats/kittens' depending on their size due to their fluffy nature and habit of being attacked by birds when walking in the open.

=='Plosives==
Plop, Pancake, Pizza, Poke, Pan, Pop....

Say that to yourself, the hard 'P' noise at the beginning of the word is called a 'Plosive. This is because it is a very loud low frequency noise at the beginning of the word, your human ape ears have gotten used to this, and you won't notice it often but compared to all noises you make in pronouncing a sentence, this will usually be the loudest, and your listeners don't necessarily need bleeding ears to enjoy your show.

It is however quite easy to mitigate plosives through three methods:

1. A pop shield, these have two layers of fine fabric close to each other that will reduce the amount of transmitted sound pressure, but not the frequency distribution or general vibration of the noise. You can make them from a crochet hoop and a pair of old tights!

2. A big mic muff, you can buy these for cheap of amazon, and so long as they are made out of a good kind of foam they will attenuate loud plosives admirably.

3. Complicated processing shit™, plosives are louder and bassier than their environment, often focused at 100Hz, if you are willing to mess around with multiband compressors, you can usually deal with them.
Don't.... it's not worth it.

==Sibilance==

==Proximity Effect==

==Preamps==

===Low-End Roll-off===

==Levels and why we sosig==

==Vocal Exercises==

User:11090/Microphone Technique

2020-04-17T16:42:19Z

10693: /* Windshields */

[[Working From Home Resources|back to hub]]

If you have arrived at this page, you likely want to know how to get more out of your auditory capture device so that your listeners can admire the smoothness of your dulcet tones.

==Types of Microphone==
This is one of the most important ones in terms of handling and address. The Shure SM58 dynamic mic can be, (and from the look of some of ours, has been) dropped out of a helicopter and still used for a respectable gig at the other end. However there are some high-end ribbon mics used for voice over that you can damage simply by shouting at them.

===Dynamic Microphones===
These microphones are some of the more common around and are at the time of writing used by URY in our studios with our SM7Bs and in OBs with our SM58 microphones. They work due to an induction coil attached to the diaphragm moving in response to changes in sound pressure within a magnetic field, this generates a current proportional to the original noise.

====Advantages====
* Better rejection of background noise
* Usually has more directional pickup pattern
* Does not require Phantom Power
* Less sensitive to physical handling

====Disadvantages====
* Non-uniform frequency response
* Struggles with far away sounds

===Condenser Microphones===
Condenser microphones work through two thin metallic plates with a potential difference between them forming a capacitor, one of these plates acts as a diaphragm to vibrate in sympathy with sound waves like the human ear drum. As the diaphragm vibrates it changes the distance between itself and the other plate, thus creating a current which is a representation of the original sound.

====Advantages====
* Generally more accurate representation of original sound
* Cover larger frequency range
* Can pick up sounds from further away, including groups of people

====Disadvantages====
* Picks up large amounts of background noise, even noise that you can't hear, such as low frequency rumblings through walls.
* Receptive to handling noise, if you grab or knock your microphone while using it, it will be very loud and noticeable.
* Require phantom power in order to operate, the microphone can be damaged if this is not done properly.

===Ribbon Microphones===
Ribbon Microphones were some of the earliest microphones used in a broadcasting context. They are quite rare to see these days outside of specialist music studios and orchestral concert recordings, but they are still produced, and can be found in a number of applications if you're into this sort of stuff.
====Advantages====
* They can produce a very nice coloured sound, reminiscent of the golden days of radio... if you're into that...
* They have a figure 8 pickup pattern with excellent noise rejection to the sides, this means they make a very good stereo microphone when used in pairs. This is useful to know exactly non of the time to you, but is very important for things like concert orchestra recordings.
====Disadvantages====
* They break *very* easily, like you don't even need to drop them, just give them a hard knock.
* They're usually very expensive, and if they're not, they're usually very crap.

==Pickup Patterns==
Microphones are in general directional. This is important to bear in mind while using them. You will always want the zone of the microphone that picks up the most noise directed towards the source of the sound that you want to record, (in this case, your voice). This is very important to bear in mind when you are doing your shows, you don't need to rigidly sit in the exact same spot but if your microphone is designed to only pick up things directly in front of it it is very easy to slowly drift out of this cone without noticing, especially when you are in the middle of a long link. One good tactic to deal with directional microphones in a home environment is either to keep a chair in a fixed position that you have already checked for good pickup, or if you are especially excitable, to keep your no-dominant hand on a desk in front of the microphone throughout the broadcast. If you practice doing this for a while you will get used to constraining your movement to within a certain cone where the microphone is at the right angle and distance to yourself.
<gallery widths="100px" heights="100px">
Image:Polar pattern omnidirectional.svg|<center>Omnidirectional</center>
Image:Polar pattern figure eight.svg|<center>Bi-directional or Figure of 8</center>
Image:Polar pattern subcardioid.svg|<center>Subcardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern cardioid.svg|<center>[[Cardioid]]</center>
Image:Polar pattern hypercardioid.svg|<center>Hypercardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern supercardioid.svg|<center>Supercardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern directional.svg|<center>Shotgun</center>
</gallery>

==Microphone Mounts==

===Microphone Arms===

One simple way to keep a microphone at the right distance and relative positioning to yourself is to use a mic arm like the ones we have in the studio. These can seem excessive, and certainly will increase the bulkiness of your setup as compared to a laptop and a desktop microphone. However they contribute to your final product by aiding a more natural delivery of your speech from a comfortable position and making it much easier to move the microphone to a good position.

Buying a mic arm and making yourself a small, vocal environment does not need to be complex or expensive. Cheap microphone arms that clamp to the edge of desks and use a standard 1/4" thread mount can be found on amazon for [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Neewer-Adjustable-Microphone-Suspension-Broadcasting/dp/B00DY1F2CS/ below £12].

===Shock Mounts===

Certain microphones react badly to being knocked or held while being used, particularly condenser and ribbon microphones, even when on the ends of a microphone arm or a headset. In order to prevent the nasty knocks and scrapes associated with handling being picked up in the final result on air the microphone must be isolated from the sources of these noises, a microphone connected rigidly to a desk receiving hard knocks will pick up the noises almost as well as if they were made to the microphone itself. This is why it is important to remove sources of vibrations and other external noise from your environment before recording.

One way of avoiding these handling noises is to use a shock mount, these suspend the microphone away from vibration conducting surfaces using elastic cords and a pair of elastic disks. It is important to ensure that once you have installed the shock mount, you only use it to move the microphone, and do not touch the microphone itself. Normally, dynamic microphones do not need shock mounts.

===Headset Microphones===

Headset microphones are mounted on to a pair of headphones or earbuds, usually in a position that makes them closer to the mouth of the user. They often come cheap or free with modern headphones as they are an integral part of the noise cancelling system. Having the microphone physically attached to the user is a great way of making sure they don't move to far from the microphone. They can be dynamic or condenser, with most consumer earbud microphones being electret condensers.

===Positioning===
When placing microphones the no.1 thing to consider is the position of the source that you are recording. Knowing the pickup pattern of your microphone, you want to be certain that the thing you want to record (i.e your voice) is in the centre of the zone that gets picked-up the easiest while ensuring that it is pointed away from any sources of background noise or reflective surfaces such as tiles or glass. A presenter must be kept at a comfortable distance from the microphone, and then processing set from that point, the human ear can very quickly get used to poor quality audio containing background artifacts or noise, but if the presenter is swaying backwards and forwards away from their sensitive microphone, this will rapidly distract the listener from the topic of conversation.

Speaking of room positioning, you want to be aware of what you voice will be bouncing off of in the room, as it can very easily go back into the microphone a second time and become distracting to listeners. You can prevent this either though personal positioning, placing the microphone in an area where the sound wave of your voice will dissipate and fragment before being picked up a second time i.e having the microphone and presenter in the middle of a room not in proximity to walls that can immediately reflect audio. Another way of preventing it is through soundproofing, this can be very simple, hanging a soft blanket on a wall on the opposite side of the microphone to the sound source can dampen reflective waves from the initial noise source, and is not difficult to do with sufficient amount of duct tape or some bed slats.

===Windshields===
When broadcasting outdoors (or even indoors in larger rooms subject to rising drafts), your microphones will pick up the sound of wind passing by and running over their edged surfaces as a low frequency rumble, this can be highly annoying and can making it impossible to hear the intended content. To combat this, windshields are used. They can be several times larger than the microphone and if they are 'hairy' will often be termed 'dead cats/kittens' depending on their size due to their fluffy nature and habit of being attacked by birds when walking in the open.

=='Plosives==

==Sibilance==

==Proximity Effect==

==Preamps==

===Low-End Roll-off===

==Levels and why we sosig==

==Vocal Exercises==

User:11090/Microphone Technique

2020-04-17T16:36:23Z

10693: /* Positioning */

[[Working From Home Resources|back to hub]]

If you have arrived at this page, you likely want to know how to get more out of your auditory capture device so that your listeners can admire the smoothness of your dulcet tones.

==Types of Microphone==
This is one of the most important ones in terms of handling and address. The Shure SM58 dynamic mic can be, (and from the look of some of ours, has been) dropped out of a helicopter and still used for a respectable gig at the other end. However there are some high-end ribbon mics used for voice over that you can damage simply by shouting at them.

===Dynamic Microphones===
These microphones are some of the more common around and are at the time of writing used by URY in our studios with our SM7Bs and in OBs with our SM58 microphones. They work due to an induction coil attached to the diaphragm moving in response to changes in sound pressure within a magnetic field, this generates a current proportional to the original noise.

====Advantages====
* Better rejection of background noise
* Usually has more directional pickup pattern
* Does not require Phantom Power
* Less sensitive to physical handling

====Disadvantages====
* Non-uniform frequency response
* Struggles with far away sounds

===Condenser Microphones===
Condenser microphones work through two thin metallic plates with a potential difference between them forming a capacitor, one of these plates acts as a diaphragm to vibrate in sympathy with sound waves like the human ear drum. As the diaphragm vibrates it changes the distance between itself and the other plate, thus creating a current which is a representation of the original sound.

====Advantages====
* Generally more accurate representation of original sound
* Cover larger frequency range
* Can pick up sounds from further away, including groups of people

====Disadvantages====
* Picks up large amounts of background noise, even noise that you can't hear, such as low frequency rumblings through walls.
* Receptive to handling noise, if you grab or knock your microphone while using it, it will be very loud and noticeable.
* Require phantom power in order to operate, the microphone can be damaged if this is not done properly.

===Ribbon Microphones===
Ribbon Microphones were some of the earliest microphones used in a broadcasting context. They are quite rare to see these days outside of specialist music studios and orchestral concert recordings, but they are still produced, and can be found in a number of applications if you're into this sort of stuff.
====Advantages====
* They can produce a very nice coloured sound, reminiscent of the golden days of radio... if you're into that...
* They have a figure 8 pickup pattern with excellent noise rejection to the sides, this means they make a very good stereo microphone when used in pairs. This is useful to know exactly non of the time to you, but is very important for things like concert orchestra recordings.
====Disadvantages====
* They break *very* easily, like you don't even need to drop them, just give them a hard knock.
* They're usually very expensive, and if they're not, they're usually very crap.

==Pickup Patterns==
Microphones are in general directional. This is important to bear in mind while using them. You will always want the zone of the microphone that picks up the most noise directed towards the source of the sound that you want to record, (in this case, your voice). This is very important to bear in mind when you are doing your shows, you don't need to rigidly sit in the exact same spot but if your microphone is designed to only pick up things directly in front of it it is very easy to slowly drift out of this cone without noticing, especially when you are in the middle of a long link. One good tactic to deal with directional microphones in a home environment is either to keep a chair in a fixed position that you have already checked for good pickup, or if you are especially excitable, to keep your no-dominant hand on a desk in front of the microphone throughout the broadcast. If you practice doing this for a while you will get used to constraining your movement to within a certain cone where the microphone is at the right angle and distance to yourself.
<gallery widths="100px" heights="100px">
Image:Polar pattern omnidirectional.svg|<center>Omnidirectional</center>
Image:Polar pattern figure eight.svg|<center>Bi-directional or Figure of 8</center>
Image:Polar pattern subcardioid.svg|<center>Subcardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern cardioid.svg|<center>[[Cardioid]]</center>
Image:Polar pattern hypercardioid.svg|<center>Hypercardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern supercardioid.svg|<center>Supercardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern directional.svg|<center>Shotgun</center>
</gallery>

==Microphone Mounts==

===Microphone Arms===

One simple way to keep a microphone at the right distance and relative positioning to yourself is to use a mic arm like the ones we have in the studio. These can seem excessive, and certainly will increase the bulkiness of your setup as compared to a laptop and a desktop microphone. However they contribute to your final product by aiding a more natural delivery of your speech from a comfortable position and making it much easier to move the microphone to a good position.

Buying a mic arm and making yourself a small, vocal environment does not need to be complex or expensive. Cheap microphone arms that clamp to the edge of desks and use a standard 1/4" thread mount can be found on amazon for [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Neewer-Adjustable-Microphone-Suspension-Broadcasting/dp/B00DY1F2CS/ below £12].

===Shock Mounts===

Certain microphones react badly to being knocked or held while being used, particularly condenser and ribbon microphones, even when on the ends of a microphone arm or a headset. In order to prevent the nasty knocks and scrapes associated with handling being picked up in the final result on air the microphone must be isolated from the sources of these noises, a microphone connected rigidly to a desk receiving hard knocks will pick up the noises almost as well as if they were made to the microphone itself. This is why it is important to remove sources of vibrations and other external noise from your environment before recording.

One way of avoiding these handling noises is to use a shock mount, these suspend the microphone away from vibration conducting surfaces using elastic cords and a pair of elastic disks. It is important to ensure that once you have installed the shock mount, you only use it to move the microphone, and do not touch the microphone itself. Normally, dynamic microphones do not need shock mounts.

===Headset Microphones===

Headset microphones are mounted on to a pair of headphones or earbuds, usually in a position that makes them closer to the mouth of the user. They often come cheap or free with modern headphones as they are an integral part of the noise cancelling system. Having the microphone physically attached to the user is a great way of making sure they don't move to far from the microphone. They can be dynamic or condenser, with most consumer earbud microphones being electret condensers.

===Positioning===
When placing microphones the no.1 thing to consider is the position of the source that you are recording. Knowing the pickup pattern of your microphone, you want to be certain that the thing you want to record (i.e your voice) is in the centre of the zone that gets picked-up the easiest while ensuring that it is pointed away from any sources of background noise or reflective surfaces such as tiles or glass. A presenter must be kept at a comfortable distance from the microphone, and then processing set from that point, the human ear can very quickly get used to poor quality audio containing background artifacts or noise, but if the presenter is swaying backwards and forwards away from their sensitive microphone, this will rapidly distract the listener from the topic of conversation.

Speaking of room positioning, you want to be aware of what you voice will be bouncing off of in the room, as it can very easily go back into the microphone a second time and become distracting to listeners. You can prevent this either though personal positioning, placing the microphone in an area where the sound wave of your voice will dissipate and fragment before being picked up a second time i.e having the microphone and presenter in the middle of a room not in proximity to walls that can immediately reflect audio. Another way of preventing it is through soundproofing, this can be very simple, hanging a soft blanket on a wall on the opposite side of the microphone to the sound source can dampen reflective waves from the initial noise source, and is not difficult to do with sufficient amount of duct tape or some bed slats.

===Windshields===

=='Plosives==

==Sibilance==

==Proximity Effect==

==Preamps==

===Low-End Roll-off===

==Levels and why we sosig==

==Vocal Exercises==

User:11090/Microphone Technique

2020-04-17T16:21:33Z

10693: /* Headset Microphones */

[[Working From Home Resources|back to hub]]

If you have arrived at this page, you likely want to know how to get more out of your auditory capture device so that your listeners can admire the smoothness of your dulcet tones.

==Types of Microphone==
This is one of the most important ones in terms of handling and address. The Shure SM58 dynamic mic can be, (and from the look of some of ours, has been) dropped out of a helicopter and still used for a respectable gig at the other end. However there are some high-end ribbon mics used for voice over that you can damage simply by shouting at them.

===Dynamic Microphones===
These microphones are some of the more common around and are at the time of writing used by URY in our studios with our SM7Bs and in OBs with our SM58 microphones. They work due to an induction coil attached to the diaphragm moving in response to changes in sound pressure within a magnetic field, this generates a current proportional to the original noise.

====Advantages====
* Better rejection of background noise
* Usually has more directional pickup pattern
* Does not require Phantom Power
* Less sensitive to physical handling

====Disadvantages====
* Non-uniform frequency response
* Struggles with far away sounds

===Condenser Microphones===
Condenser microphones work through two thin metallic plates with a potential difference between them forming a capacitor, one of these plates acts as a diaphragm to vibrate in sympathy with sound waves like the human ear drum. As the diaphragm vibrates it changes the distance between itself and the other plate, thus creating a current which is a representation of the original sound.

====Advantages====
* Generally more accurate representation of original sound
* Cover larger frequency range
* Can pick up sounds from further away, including groups of people

====Disadvantages====
* Picks up large amounts of background noise, even noise that you can't hear, such as low frequency rumblings through walls.
* Receptive to handling noise, if you grab or knock your microphone while using it, it will be very loud and noticeable.
* Require phantom power in order to operate, the microphone can be damaged if this is not done properly.

===Ribbon Microphones===
Ribbon Microphones were some of the earliest microphones used in a broadcasting context. They are quite rare to see these days outside of specialist music studios and orchestral concert recordings, but they are still produced, and can be found in a number of applications if you're into this sort of stuff.
====Advantages====
* They can produce a very nice coloured sound, reminiscent of the golden days of radio... if you're into that...
* They have a figure 8 pickup pattern with excellent noise rejection to the sides, this means they make a very good stereo microphone when used in pairs. This is useful to know exactly non of the time to you, but is very important for things like concert orchestra recordings.
====Disadvantages====
* They break *very* easily, like you don't even need to drop them, just give them a hard knock.
* They're usually very expensive, and if they're not, they're usually very crap.

==Pickup Patterns==
Microphones are in general directional. This is important to bear in mind while using them. You will always want the zone of the microphone that picks up the most noise directed towards the source of the sound that you want to record, (in this case, your voice). This is very important to bear in mind when you are doing your shows, you don't need to rigidly sit in the exact same spot but if your microphone is designed to only pick up things directly in front of it it is very easy to slowly drift out of this cone without noticing, especially when you are in the middle of a long link. One good tactic to deal with directional microphones in a home environment is either to keep a chair in a fixed position that you have already checked for good pickup, or if you are especially excitable, to keep your no-dominant hand on a desk in front of the microphone throughout the broadcast. If you practice doing this for a while you will get used to constraining your movement to within a certain cone where the microphone is at the right angle and distance to yourself.
<gallery widths="100px" heights="100px">
Image:Polar pattern omnidirectional.svg|<center>Omnidirectional</center>
Image:Polar pattern figure eight.svg|<center>Bi-directional or Figure of 8</center>
Image:Polar pattern subcardioid.svg|<center>Subcardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern cardioid.svg|<center>[[Cardioid]]</center>
Image:Polar pattern hypercardioid.svg|<center>Hypercardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern supercardioid.svg|<center>Supercardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern directional.svg|<center>Shotgun</center>
</gallery>

==Microphone Mounts==

===Microphone Arms===

One simple way to keep a microphone at the right distance and relative positioning to yourself is to use a mic arm like the ones we have in the studio. These can seem excessive, and certainly will increase the bulkiness of your setup as compared to a laptop and a desktop microphone. However they contribute to your final product by aiding a more natural delivery of your speech from a comfortable position and making it much easier to move the microphone to a good position.

Buying a mic arm and making yourself a small, vocal environment does not need to be complex or expensive. Cheap microphone arms that clamp to the edge of desks and use a standard 1/4" thread mount can be found on amazon for [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Neewer-Adjustable-Microphone-Suspension-Broadcasting/dp/B00DY1F2CS/ below £12].

===Shock Mounts===

Certain microphones react badly to being knocked or held while being used, particularly condenser and ribbon microphones, even when on the ends of a microphone arm or a headset. In order to prevent the nasty knocks and scrapes associated with handling being picked up in the final result on air the microphone must be isolated from the sources of these noises, a microphone connected rigidly to a desk receiving hard knocks will pick up the noises almost as well as if they were made to the microphone itself. This is why it is important to remove sources of vibrations and other external noise from your environment before recording.

One way of avoiding these handling noises is to use a shock mount, these suspend the microphone away from vibration conducting surfaces using elastic cords and a pair of elastic disks. It is important to ensure that once you have installed the shock mount, you only use it to move the microphone, and do not touch the microphone itself. Normally, dynamic microphones do not need shock mounts.

===Headset Microphones===

Headset microphones are mounted on to a pair of headphones or earbuds, usually in a position that makes them closer to the mouth of the user. They often come cheap or free with modern headphones as they are an integral part of the noise cancelling system. Having the microphone physically attached to the user is a great way of making sure they don't move to far from the microphone. They can be dynamic or condenser, with most consumer earbud microphones being electret condensers.

===Positioning===

===Windshields===

=='Plosives==

==Sibilance==

==Proximity Effect==

==Preamps==

===Low-End Roll-off===

==Levels and why we sosig==

==Vocal Exercises==

User:11090/Microphone Technique

2020-03-30T23:32:50Z

10693: /* Shock Mounts */

[[Working From Home Resources|back to hub]]

If you have arrived at this page, you likely want to know how to get more out of your auditory capture device so that your listeners can admire the smoothness of your dulcet tones.

==Types of Microphone==
This is one of the most important ones in terms of handling and address. The Shure SM58 dynamic mic can be, (and from the look of some of ours, has been) dropped out of a helicopter and still used for a respectable gig at the other end. However there are some high-end ribbon mics used for voice over that you can damage simply by shouting at them.

===Dynamic Microphones===
These microphones are some of the more common around and are at the time of writing used by URY in our studios with our SM7Bs and in OBs with our SM58 microphones. They work due to an induction coil attached to the diaphragm moving in response to changes in sound pressure within a magnetic field, this generates a current proportional to the original noise.

====Advantages====
* Better rejection of background noise
* Usually has more directional pickup pattern
* Does not require Phantom Power
* Less sensitive to physical handling

====Disadvantages====
* Non-uniform frequency response
* Struggles with far away sounds

===Condenser Microphones===
Condenser microphones work through two thin metallic plates with a potential difference between them forming a capacitor, one of these plates acts as a diaphragm to vibrate in sympathy with sound waves like the human ear drum. As the diaphragm vibrates it changes the distance between itself and the other plate, thus creating a current which is a representation of the original sound.

====Advantages====
* Generally more accurate representation of original sound
* Cover larger frequency range
* Can pick up sounds from further away, including groups of people

====Disadvantages====
* Picks up large amounts of background noise, even noise that you can't hear, such as low frequency rumblings through walls.
* Receptive to handling noise, if you grab or knock your microphone while using it, it will be very loud and noticeable.
* Require phantom power in order to operate, the microphone can be damaged if this is not done properly.

===Ribbon Microphones===
Ribbon Microphones were some of the earliest microphones used in a broadcasting context. They are quite rare to see these days outside of specialist music studios and orchestral concert recordings, but they are still produced, and can be found in a number of applications if you're into this sort of stuff.
====Advantages====
* They can produce a very nice coloured sound, reminiscent of the golden days of radio... if you're into that...
* They have a figure 8 pickup pattern with excellent noise rejection to the sides, this means they make a very good stereo microphone when used in pairs. This is useful to know exactly non of the time to you, but is very important for things like concert orchestra recordings.
====Disadvantages====
* They break *very* easily, like you don't even need to drop them, just give them a hard knock.
* They're usually very expensive, and if they're not, they're usually very crap.

==Pickup Patterns==
Microphones are in general directional. This is important to bear in mind while using them. You will always want the zone of the microphone that picks up the most noise directed towards the source of the sound that you want to record, (in this case, your voice). This is very important to bear in mind when you are doing your shows, you don't need to rigidly sit in the exact same spot but if your microphone is designed to only pick up things directly in front of it it is very easy to slowly drift out of this cone without noticing, especially when you are in the middle of a long link. One good tactic to deal with directional microphones in a home environment is either to keep a chair in a fixed position that you have already checked for good pickup, or if you are especially excitable, to keep your no-dominant hand on a desk in front of the microphone throughout the broadcast. If you practice doing this for a while you will get used to constraining your movement to within a certain cone where the microphone is at the right angle and distance to yourself.
<gallery widths="100px" heights="100px">
Image:Polar pattern omnidirectional.svg|<center>Omnidirectional</center>
Image:Polar pattern figure eight.svg|<center>Bi-directional or Figure of 8</center>
Image:Polar pattern subcardioid.svg|<center>Subcardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern cardioid.svg|<center>[[Cardioid]]</center>
Image:Polar pattern hypercardioid.svg|<center>Hypercardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern supercardioid.svg|<center>Supercardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern directional.svg|<center>Shotgun</center>
</gallery>

==Microphone Mounts==

===Microphone Arms===

One simple way to keep a microphone at the right distance and relative positioning to yourself is to use a mic arm like the ones we have in the studio. These can seem excessive, and certainly will increase the bulkiness of your setup as compared to a laptop and a desktop microphone. However they contribute to your final product by aiding a more natural delivery of your speech from a comfortable position and making it much easier to move the microphone to a good position.

Buying a mic arm and making yourself a small, vocal environment does not need to be complex or expensive. Cheap microphone arms that clamp to the edge of desks and use a standard 1/4" thread mount can be found on amazon for [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Neewer-Adjustable-Microphone-Suspension-Broadcasting/dp/B00DY1F2CS/ below £12].

===Shock Mounts===

Certain microphones react badly to being knocked or held while being used, particularly condenser and ribbon microphones, even when on the ends of a microphone arm or a headset. In order to prevent the nasty knocks and scrapes associated with handling being picked up in the final result on air the microphone must be isolated from the sources of these noises, a microphone connected rigidly to a desk receiving hard knocks will pick up the noises almost as well as if they were made to the microphone itself. This is why it is important to remove sources of vibrations and other external noise from your environment before recording.

One way of avoiding these handling noises is to use a shock mount, these suspend the microphone away from vibration conducting surfaces using elastic cords and a pair of elastic disks. It is important to ensure that once you have installed the shock mount, you only use it to move the microphone, and do not touch the microphone itself. Normally, dynamic microphones do not need shock mounts.

===Headset Microphones===

===Positioning===

===Windshields===

=='Plosives==

==Sibilance==

==Proximity Effect==

==Preamps==

===Low-End Roll-off===

==Levels and why we sosig==

==Vocal Exercises==

User:11090/Microphone Technique

2020-03-30T23:01:34Z

10693: /* Microphone Arms */

[[Working From Home Resources|back to hub]]

If you have arrived at this page, you likely want to know how to get more out of your auditory capture device so that your listeners can admire the smoothness of your dulcet tones.

==Types of Microphone==
This is one of the most important ones in terms of handling and address. The Shure SM58 dynamic mic can be, (and from the look of some of ours, has been) dropped out of a helicopter and still used for a respectable gig at the other end. However there are some high-end ribbon mics used for voice over that you can damage simply by shouting at them.

===Dynamic Microphones===
These microphones are some of the more common around and are at the time of writing used by URY in our studios with our SM7Bs and in OBs with our SM58 microphones. They work due to an induction coil attached to the diaphragm moving in response to changes in sound pressure within a magnetic field, this generates a current proportional to the original noise.

====Advantages====
* Better rejection of background noise
* Usually has more directional pickup pattern
* Does not require Phantom Power
* Less sensitive to physical handling

====Disadvantages====
* Non-uniform frequency response
* Struggles with far away sounds

===Condenser Microphones===
Condenser microphones work through two thin metallic plates with a potential difference between them forming a capacitor, one of these plates acts as a diaphragm to vibrate in sympathy with sound waves like the human ear drum. As the diaphragm vibrates it changes the distance between itself and the other plate, thus creating a current which is a representation of the original sound.

====Advantages====
* Generally more accurate representation of original sound
* Cover larger frequency range
* Can pick up sounds from further away, including groups of people

====Disadvantages====
* Picks up large amounts of background noise, even noise that you can't hear, such as low frequency rumblings through walls.
* Receptive to handling noise, if you grab or knock your microphone while using it, it will be very loud and noticeable.
* Require phantom power in order to operate, the microphone can be damaged if this is not done properly.

===Ribbon Microphones===
Ribbon Microphones were some of the earliest microphones used in a broadcasting context. They are quite rare to see these days outside of specialist music studios and orchestral concert recordings, but they are still produced, and can be found in a number of applications if you're into this sort of stuff.
====Advantages====
* They can produce a very nice coloured sound, reminiscent of the golden days of radio... if you're into that...
* They have a figure 8 pickup pattern with excellent noise rejection to the sides, this means they make a very good stereo microphone when used in pairs. This is useful to know exactly non of the time to you, but is very important for things like concert orchestra recordings.
====Disadvantages====
* They break *very* easily, like you don't even need to drop them, just give them a hard knock.
* They're usually very expensive, and if they're not, they're usually very crap.

==Pickup Patterns==
Microphones are in general directional. This is important to bear in mind while using them. You will always want the zone of the microphone that picks up the most noise directed towards the source of the sound that you want to record, (in this case, your voice). This is very important to bear in mind when you are doing your shows, you don't need to rigidly sit in the exact same spot but if your microphone is designed to only pick up things directly in front of it it is very easy to slowly drift out of this cone without noticing, especially when you are in the middle of a long link. One good tactic to deal with directional microphones in a home environment is either to keep a chair in a fixed position that you have already checked for good pickup, or if you are especially excitable, to keep your no-dominant hand on a desk in front of the microphone throughout the broadcast. If you practice doing this for a while you will get used to constraining your movement to within a certain cone where the microphone is at the right angle and distance to yourself.
<gallery widths="100px" heights="100px">
Image:Polar pattern omnidirectional.svg|<center>Omnidirectional</center>
Image:Polar pattern figure eight.svg|<center>Bi-directional or Figure of 8</center>
Image:Polar pattern subcardioid.svg|<center>Subcardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern cardioid.svg|<center>[[Cardioid]]</center>
Image:Polar pattern hypercardioid.svg|<center>Hypercardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern supercardioid.svg|<center>Supercardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern directional.svg|<center>Shotgun</center>
</gallery>

==Microphone Mounts==

===Microphone Arms===

One simple way to keep a microphone at the right distance and relative positioning to yourself is to use a mic arm like the ones we have in the studio. These can seem excessive, and certainly will increase the bulkiness of your setup as compared to a laptop and a desktop microphone. However they contribute to your final product by aiding a more natural delivery of your speech from a comfortable position and making it much easier to move the microphone to a good position.

Buying a mic arm and making yourself a small, vocal environment does not need to be complex or expensive. Cheap microphone arms that clamp to the edge of desks and use a standard 1/4" thread mount can be found on amazon for [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Neewer-Adjustable-Microphone-Suspension-Broadcasting/dp/B00DY1F2CS/ below £12].

===Shock Mounts===

===Headset Microphones===

===Positioning===

===Windshields===

=='Plosives==

==Sibilance==

==Proximity Effect==

==Preamps==

===Low-End Roll-off===

==Levels and why we sosig==

==Vocal Exercises==

Working From Home Resources/Microphone Recommendations

2020-03-30T22:37:35Z

10693: /* Where To Buy */

[[Working From Home Resources|back to hub]]

You can get surprisingly far with even a potato mic, as long as you use it properly. A proper one will always help, though. On this page you'll find recommendations for microphones in every price range.

When looking at a mic, make sure you take a careful look at its connectivity - if it has USB you'll be good to just plug it into your laptop, if it has only XLR you'll need an external audio interface as well. Most of the mics on this page will be USB unless otherwise indicated.

== Where To Buy ==

A good place to start will be Amazon, bearing in mind that they are prioritising essentials and so delivery times may be ''quite long indeed''.

If you're in the UK take a look at Gear4Music, if in continental Europe look on Thomann (they also ship to the UK, however it can get a bit costly).

Do not underestimate eBay, provided you are willing to shop around and investigate the quality of the gear you're purchasing, you can get very good deals with much shorter shipping times compared to normal shopfronts with the current climate.

A good source for reviews on microphones is [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvOU-zTlankT-JjN3ZzvuKA Podcastage], if you fancy shopping around.

== Budget Zero ==

You'd be surprised how good an earphone (e.g. EarPod) mic can sound, if you use it properly. ''TODO'' what does properly mean?

== <£40 ==

Samson Go ''TODO''

== <£75 ==

Samson Meteor ''TODO''

You'll see a lot of YouTubers and streamers using Blue Snowballs, and while they're ''fine'', if you can stretch the budget for a Meteor it'll sound much nicer for radio, so the Snowball is not recommended.

Working From Home Resources/Microphone Recommendations

2020-03-30T22:32:38Z

10693: /* Where To Buy */

[[Working From Home Resources|back to hub]]

You can get surprisingly far with even a potato mic, as long as you use it properly. A proper one will always help, though. On this page you'll find recommendations for microphones in every price range.

When looking at a mic, make sure you take a careful look at its connectivity - if it has USB you'll be good to just plug it into your laptop, if it has only XLR you'll need an external audio interface as well. Most of the mics on this page will be USB unless otherwise indicated.

== Where To Buy ==

A good place to start will be Amazon, bearing in mind that they are prioritising essentials and so delivery times may be ''quite long indeed''.

If you're in the UK take a look at Gear4Music, if in continental Europe look on Thomann (they also ship to the UK, however it can get a bit costly).

Do not underestimate eBay, provided you are willing to shop around and investigate the quality of the gear you're purchasing, you can get very good deals with much shorter shipping times compared to normal shopfronts with the current climate.

== Budget Zero ==

You'd be surprised how good an earphone (e.g. EarPod) mic can sound, if you use it properly. ''TODO'' what does properly mean?

== <£40 ==

Samson Go ''TODO''

== <£75 ==

Samson Meteor ''TODO''

You'll see a lot of YouTubers and streamers using Blue Snowballs, and while they're ''fine'', if you can stretch the budget for a Meteor it'll sound much nicer for radio, so the Snowball is not recommended.

Working From Home Resources/Requirements

2020-03-26T12:33:48Z

10693:

[[Working From Home Resources|back to hub]]

On this page we'll summarise everything you need to start making radio from home.

== Computer ==

Obviously. You'll want a fairly fast one, just to make sure there's no issues, but anything bought in the last 5 years (and even a lot of older ones) will do just fine - if you're having performance problems close down all other programs before you start making radio. Any MacBook that still works will probably do, as should most Windows laptops made after 2015. Chromebooks may work, but you might start having issues with external microphones and such so we wouldn't recommend them unless you have no other option.

You'll need [https://www.google.com/chrome/ Google Chrome] installed. WebStudio MAY work in other browsers, but Computing won't support it - if you ask us for help using anything except Chrome our response might just be "try again in Chrome". While you're at it, make sure it's got the latest updates installed (usually it'll do this automatically).

Try to avoid any unnecessary programs running in the background, even programs like spotify and microsoft office can negatively impact the performance of the computer, and interfere with the stability of your connection to URY's servers.
If possible you should also disable your VPN while connecting to webstudio in order to improve connection latency and stability. You do '''not''' need the university VPN running in order to access webstudio.

Try to have your entire equipment setup and tested before you do your show, and not disturbed from a working configuration until needed. Even doing something as innocent as plugging a new set of headphones in has the potential to disturb the audio routing on your computer, which you may not have time to fix before you need to begin.

=== Using a phone ===

if you are not the presenter on a show, and do not need access to webstudio and other virtual studio features, consider using your phone with a set of headphones, most modern phones have respectable microphones built in, and are easily capable of accessing ury's recommended remote high quality audio line for studio guests [https://cleanfeed.net/ Cleanfeed.net], be sure to follow best practices on microphone usage and keep you battery well charged when doing this though!

== Internet connection ==

Hard-wire Ethernet is always preferable over WiFi, not for speed but for stability - WiFi has a bad habit of dropping packets (considering you are basically beaming sound on radio waves across several walls it's honestly impressive it manages as well as it does).

You'll also want a fairly fast connection - most home broadband should do, but go to [https://speedtest.net] to check your speed - you'll want at least a couple mbps on the upload line. If you're having issues, 4G may work better than home broadband, but that causes reliability issues, so broadband is always preferable. The line is only as good as it's stability, wifi may be fine when you first test it, but can you guarantee that will be the case when you are doing your show? A connection actively shared between 4 people is not 1/4 as good as one only you are using, it will be significantly less reliable. If you can't manage a wired connection, consider what time your show should be scheduled, or ask the people you share the internet with if they could curtail their usage for the period of your show.

== Headphones ==

Please, please, PLEASE do not try to do a radio show using laptop speakers. It will sound God-awful whenever you turn on your mic. You don't need high quality studio headphones like we have at York, even a pair of EarPods will do you just fine, but make sure you have some. (On that note, wired ones are preferable to Bluetooth, because Bluetooth introduces delay which can throw all your timings off. Bluetooth is, however, preferable over nothing at all.) Be aware that if you are using an external usb microphone, the direct monitoring port on the microphone may not also pass you audio from webstudio.

== Microphone ==

The tricky one. Take a look at our [[Working From Home Resources/Microphone Recommendations|microphone recommendations]] page and choose one that fits your budget. You don't need to splash out on a mic if you're only doing one show a week, as even an EarPod mic will sound ''okay'', but do think about it if you want to get more serious about making radio from home. There are best practices about how to setup your microphone and get the most out of equipment available to you on our [[Working From Home Resources/Microphone Technique|Microphone Technique]] page, this may also help you decide on what type of microphone may be best for you should you wish to purchase one.

Working From Home Resources/Requirements

2020-03-26T12:33:07Z

10693: Fleshed out for more scenarios, linked extra pages, added context to internet stability. Added VPN context to deal with issues flagged up on slack.

[[Working From Home Resources|back to hub]]

On this page we'll summarise everything you need to start making radio from home.

== Computer ==

Obviously. You'll want a fairly fast one, just to make sure there's no issues, but anything bought in the last 5 years (and even a lot of older ones) will do just fine - if you're having performance problems close down all other programs before you start making radio. Any MacBook that still works will probably do, as should most Windows laptops made after 2015. Chromebooks may work, but you might start having issues with external microphones and such so we wouldn't recommend them unless you have no other option.

You'll need [https://www.google.com/chrome/ Google Chrome] installed. WebStudio MAY work in other browsers, but Computing won't support it - if you ask us for help using anything except Chrome our response might just be "try again in Chrome". While you're at it, make sure it's got the latest updates installed (usually it'll do this automatically).

Try to avoid any unnecessary programs running in the background, even programs like spotify and microsoft office can negatively impact the performance of the computer, and interfere with the stability of your connection to URY's servers.
If possible you should also disable your VPN while connecting to webstudio in order to improve connection latency and stability. You do '''not''' need the university VPN running in order to access webstudio.

Try to have your entire equipment setup and tested before you do your show, and not disturbed from a working configuration until needed. Even doing something as innocent as plugging a new set of headphones in has the potential to disturb the audio routing on your computer, which you may not have time to fix before you need to begin.

=== Using a phone ===

if you are not the presenter on a show, and do not need access to webstudio and other virtual studio features, consider using your phone with a set of headphones, most modern phones have respectable microphones built in, and are easily capable of accessing ury's recommended remote high quality audio line for studio guests [[cleanfeed.net Cleanfeed.net]], be sure to follow best practices on microphone usage and keep you battery well charged when doing this though!

== Internet connection ==

Hard-wire Ethernet is always preferable over WiFi, not for speed but for stability - WiFi has a bad habit of dropping packets (considering you are basically beaming sound on radio waves across several walls it's honestly impressive it manages as well as it does).

You'll also want a fairly fast connection - most home broadband should do, but go to [https://speedtest.net] to check your speed - you'll want at least a couple mbps on the upload line. If you're having issues, 4G may work better than home broadband, but that causes reliability issues, so broadband is always preferable. The line is only as good as it's stability, wifi may be fine when you first test it, but can you guarantee that will be the case when you are doing your show? A connection actively shared between 4 people is not 1/4 as good as one only you are using, it will be significantly less reliable. If you can't manage a wired connection, consider what time your show should be scheduled, or ask the people you share the internet with if they could curtail their usage for the period of your show.

== Headphones ==

Please, please, PLEASE do not try to do a radio show using laptop speakers. It will sound God-awful whenever you turn on your mic. You don't need high quality studio headphones like we have at York, even a pair of EarPods will do you just fine, but make sure you have some. (On that note, wired ones are preferable to Bluetooth, because Bluetooth introduces delay which can throw all your timings off. Bluetooth is, however, preferable over nothing at all.) Be aware that if you are using an external usb microphone, the direct monitoring port on the microphone may not also pass you audio from webstudio.

== Microphone ==

The tricky one. Take a look at our [[Working From Home Resources/Microphone Recommendations|microphone recommendations]] page and choose one that fits your budget. You don't need to splash out on a mic if you're only doing one show a week, as even an EarPod mic will sound ''okay'', but do think about it if you want to get more serious about making radio from home. There are best practices about how to setup your microphone and get the most out of equipment available to you on our [[Working From Home Resources/Microphone Technique|Microphone Technique]] page, this may also help you decide on what type of microphone may be best for you should you wish to purchase one.

User:11090/Microphone Technique

2020-03-25T20:36:44Z

10693:

[[Working From Home Resources|back to hub]]

If you have arrived at this page, you likely want to know how to get more out of your auditory capture device so that your listeners can admire the smoothness of your dulcet tones.

==Types of Microphone==
This is one of the most important ones in terms of handling and address. The Shure SM58 dynamic mic can be, (and from the look of some of ours, has been) dropped out of a helicopter and still used for a respectable gig at the other end. However there are some high-end ribbon mics used for voice over that you can damage simply by shouting at them.

===Dynamic Microphones===
These microphones are some of the more common around and are at the time of writing used by URY in our studios with our SM7Bs and in OBs with our SM58 microphones. They work due to an induction coil attached to the diaphragm moving in response to changes in sound pressure within a magnetic field, this generates a current proportional to the original noise.

====Advantages====
* Better rejection of background noise
* Usually has more directional pickup pattern
* Does not require Phantom Power
* Less sensitive to physical handling

====Disadvantages====
* Non-uniform frequency response
* Struggles with far away sounds

===Condenser Microphones===
Condenser microphones work through two thin metallic plates with a potential difference between them forming a capacitor, one of these plates acts as a diaphragm to vibrate in sympathy with sound waves like the human ear drum. As the diaphragm vibrates it changes the distance between itself and the other plate, thus creating a current which is a representation of the original sound.

====Advantages====
* Generally more accurate representation of original sound
* Cover larger frequency range
* Can pick up sounds from further away, including groups of people

====Disadvantages====
* Picks up large amounts of background noise, even noise that you can't hear, such as low frequency rumblings through walls.
* Receptive to handling noise, if you grab or knock your microphone while using it, it will be very loud and noticeable.
* Require phantom power in order to operate, the microphone can be damaged if this is not done properly.

===Ribbon Microphones===
Ribbon Microphones were some of the earliest microphones used in a broadcasting context. They are quite rare to see these days outside of specialist music studios and orchestral concert recordings, but they are still produced, and can be found in a number of applications if you're into this sort of stuff.
====Advantages====
* They can produce a very nice coloured sound, reminiscent of the golden days of radio... if you're into that...
* They have a figure 8 pickup pattern with excellent noise rejection to the sides, this means they make a very good stereo microphone when used in pairs. This is useful to know exactly non of the time to you, but is very important for things like concert orchestra recordings.
====Disadvantages====
* They break *very* easily, like you don't even need to drop them, just give them a hard knock.
* They're usually very expensive, and if they're not, they're usually very crap.

==Pickup Patterns==
Microphones are in general directional. This is important to bear in mind while using them. You will always want the zone of the microphone that picks up the most noise directed towards the source of the sound that you want to record, (in this case, your voice). This is very important to bear in mind when you are doing your shows, you don't need to rigidly sit in the exact same spot but if your microphone is designed to only pick up things directly in front of it it is very easy to slowly drift out of this cone without noticing, especially when you are in the middle of a long link. One good tactic to deal with directional microphones in a home environment is either to keep a chair in a fixed position that you have already checked for good pickup, or if you are especially excitable, to keep your no-dominant hand on a desk in front of the microphone throughout the broadcast. If you practice doing this for a while you will get used to constraining your movement to within a certain cone where the microphone is at the right angle and distance to yourself.
<gallery widths="100px" heights="100px">
Image:Polar pattern omnidirectional.svg|<center>Omnidirectional</center>
Image:Polar pattern figure eight.svg|<center>Bi-directional or Figure of 8</center>
Image:Polar pattern subcardioid.svg|<center>Subcardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern cardioid.svg|<center>[[Cardioid]]</center>
Image:Polar pattern hypercardioid.svg|<center>Hypercardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern supercardioid.svg|<center>Supercardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern directional.svg|<center>Shotgun</center>
</gallery>

==Microphone Mounts==

===Microphone Arms===

===Shock Mounts===

===Headset Microphones===

===Positioning===

===Windshields===

=='Plosives==

==Sibilance==

==Proximity Effect==

==Preamps==

===Low-End Roll-off===

==Levels and why we sosig==

==Vocal Exercises==

File:Polar pattern figure eight.svg

2020-03-25T20:18:26Z

10693:

User:11090/Microphone Technique

2020-03-25T00:39:22Z

10693:

If you have arrived at this page, you likely want to know how to get more out of your auditory capture device so that your listeners can admire the smoothness of your dulcet tones.

==Types of Microphone==
This is one of the most important ones in terms of handling and address. The Shure SM58 dynamic mic can be, (and from the look of some of ours, has been) dropped out of a helicopter and still used for a respectable gig at the other end. However there are some high-end ribbon mics used for voice over that you can damage simply by shouting at them.

===Dynamic Microphones===
These microphones are some of the more common around and are at the time of writing used by URY in our studios with our SM7Bs and in OBs with our SM58 microphones. They work due to an induction coil attached to the diaphragm moving in response to changes in sound pressure within a magnetic field, this generates a current proportional to the original noise.

====Advantages====
* Better rejection of background noise
* Usually has more directional pickup pattern
* Does not require Phantom Power
* Less sensitive to physical handling

====Disadvantages=====
* Non-uniform frequency response
* Struggles with far away sounds

===Condenser Microphones===

====Advantages====

====Disadvantages====

===Ribbon Microphones===

====Advantages====

====Disadvantages====

===Electret Condenser Microphones===

====Advantages====

====Disadvantages====

==Pickup Patterns==
<gallery widths="100px" heights="100px">
Image:Polar pattern omnidirectional.svg|<center>Omnidirectional</center>
Image:Polar pattern figure eight.svg|<center>Bi-directional or Figure of 8</center>
Image:Polar pattern subcardioid.svg|<center>Subcardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern cardioid.svg|<center>[[Cardioid]]</center>
Image:Polar pattern hypercardioid.svg|<center>Hypercardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern supercardioid.svg|<center>Supercardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern directional.svg|<center>Shotgun</center>
</gallery>

==Microphone Mounts==

===Microphone Arms===

===Shock Mounts===

===Headset Microphones===

===Positioning===

===Windshields===

=='Plosives==

==Sibilance==

==Proximity Effect==

==Preamps==

===Low-End Roll-off===

==Levels and why we sosig==

==Vocal Exercises==

User:11090/Microphone Technique

2020-03-25T00:31:33Z

10693:

If you have arrived at this page, you likely want to know how to get more out of your auditory capture device so that your listeners can admire the smoothness of your dulcet tones.

==Types of Microphone==
This is one of the most important ones in terms of handling and address. The Shure SM58 dynamic mic can be, (and from the look of some of ours, has been) dropped out of a helicopter and still used for a respectable gig at the other end. However there are some high-end ribbon mics used for voice over that you can damage simply by shouting at them.

===Dynamic Microphones===
These microphones are some of the more common around and are at the time of writing used by URY in our studios with our SM7Bs and in OBs with our SM58 microphones. They work due to an induction coil attached to the diaphragm moving in response to changes in sound pressure within a magnetic field, this generates a current proportional to the original noise.

====Advantages====
* Better rejection of background noise
* Usually has more directional pickup pattern
* Does not require Phantom Power
* Less sensitive to physical handling

====Disadvantages=====
* Non-uniform frequency response
* Struggles with far away sounds

===Condenser Microphones===

====Advantages====

====Disadvantages====

===Ribbon Microphones===

====Advantages====

====Disadvantages====

===Electret Condenser Microphones===

====Advantages====

====Disadvantages====

==Pickup Patterns==
<gallery widths="100px" heights="100px">
Image:Polar pattern omnidirectional.svg|<center>Omnidirectional</center>
Image:Polar pattern figure eight.svg|<center>Bi-directional or Figure of 8</center>
Image:Polar pattern subcardioid.svg|<center>Subcardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern cardioid.svg|<center>[[Cardioid]]</center>
Image:Polar pattern hypercardioid.svg|<center>Hypercardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern supercardioid.svg|<center>Supercardioid</center>
Image:Polar pattern directional.svg|<center>Shotgun</center>
</gallery>

==Microphone Mounts==

===Microphone Arms===

===Shock Mounts===

===Headset Microphones===

===Positioning===

=='Plosives==

==Sibilance==

==Proximity Effect==

==Preamps==

===Low-End Roll-off===

==Levels and why we sosig==

==Vocal Exercises==

User:11090/Microphone Technique

2020-03-24T23:36:56Z

10693: How to get the most out of any audio capturing device available to you. Whether it be a £15K Neumann, or an a cup and string.

If you have arrived at this page, you likely want to know how to get more out of your auditory capture device so that your listeners can admire the smoothness of your dulcet tones.

URY Memes

2020-03-24T23:26:20Z

10693:

An in-definitive list of all URY Memes and in jokes.

{| class="wikitable"
|+[[URY Memes|Memes]]
|-
! Meme
! Explanation
|-
| Christmas on my Face (A terrible case of Xmas)
| A smash hit URY christmas single from 2008 written by Rob Watts and Steve Gardner [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVICvXorh-s]
|-
| [[Christmas Endeavours]] in general
| They are so numerous there's a whole page about them. Basically we embarrass ourselves every year in the name of Xmas
|-
| 'There's no News'
| [quoting Anthony Williams] 'Came from a Roses where the news fader had been re-purposed for something. Helen M came in to do handover to the OB (this is when you had to read out the news intro text yourself), and it went something like this... "*this* is URY News.... there's no news!"
|-
| Wives
| The name given for our roll up banners. Originally known as 'Station Manager's Wife' as it is the only thing an SM can be trusted with at an OB
|-
| DO YOU LIKE VANBRUGH JAZZ?
| From a failed OB of Vanbrugh Jazz in 2014 where Alex Light accosted innocent people
|-
| 'Black Christmas'
| At the same Vanbrugh Jazz OB as 'DO YOU LIKE VANBRUGH JAZZ' the jazz band decided to do a rendition of 'White Christmas' but reworked as 'Black Christmas'. It was a bit racist. We had to fade down the feed.
|-
| 'News is Happening'
| How every News and Sport update must begin at Station Meetings, started by George Lane.
|-
| Superb Owl
| Live coverage of Super Bowls, by people who do not know anything about American Football. Usually involves way too much nudity that is generally acceptable for radio.
|-
| Alex Light
| The biggest meme of all
|-
| Talkback
| Someone will finish this eight year old engineering project so we can talk to the office and studio 2 from studio 1 soon, I promise. In the meantime, mad, occasionally violent gesturing through the window will have to suffice.
|-
| Anthony William's Flute
| From an infamous Alex Light house party where Anthony consumed way too much alcohol through a flute.
|-
| Ainsley Harriot
| A station wide obsession instigated by Qumarth Jash. Ainsley's face would frequently appear as the background to guest pc and an emoji was even made for him when we made a ury slack.
|-
| Biscuit News
| How did this win an award?
|-
| Unbelievable Scenes
| A phrase constantly said by Joshua Kerr to describe sport, antics and anything happening at all, ever
|-
| Other [insert branded item here] are available
| We take impartiality very seriously here at URY
|-
| EWA (Engineers Without Attitude)
| When a band bailed on URY Sessions, Jed Fulwell, Marco Bolt, Peter Rogers and Sam Merryweather stepped up to the plate and performed arguably the worst/best session in URY history. They also returned for a surprisingly excellent come-back at the Cover Your Ears event.
|-
|}