Different Types of Microphones

Hello!

Today we had a lesson into the different types of microphones there are and why they are all different.

A microphone is a transducer, it works by taking air pressure levels (sound) and turning them into electric energy. It then gets reversed back into sound as we listen to it through the speakers.

The two types of microphones there are in the industry are Condenser and Dynamic.

(The microphones in these pictures are an Aries condenser and a SM58 dynamic microphone)

The reason why they're both so different is because:

• Dynamic microphones has a moving coil which is placed just behind the wind screen. This only works when air pressure levels passes through the wind screen and comes into contact with the diaphragm. The diaphragm then vibrates moving the coil within the magnetic field that produces electric energy.

• Condenser microphones (capacitor) has the diaphragm placed on a gold plate because it has the least resistance than any other substance. The plate is placed within the wind screen which allows sound to pass through and come into contact with the diaphragm. The diaphragm vibrates and produces electric energy. Condenser also need Phantom Power (48v) to create more charge for the diaprhagm to work.

We also learnt that condenser microphones have special settings known as Polar Response Patterns. The reason why they have these patterns is so that they can be able to cope in different frequency levels. Polar Response Patterns also dictate the directions to which the microphone picks it's sound.

After learning about the types of microphones there are, we then began to produce a 30 second edit on ProTools of our vox pops about the Grand Pier that we recorded last week.