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User:11090/Microphone Technique (view source)
Revision as of 01:10, 28 April 2020
, 01:10, 28 April 2020→Summary
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.
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==
==Types of Microphone==
==Proximity Effect==
==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==
==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===
===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==
==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.