Recording Engineering

Noise weighting compensates for the fact that the human ear does not have a flat frequency response. The variation in noise weighting curves can be confusing.

Oct 28, 2009 - Richard Mudhar

Cheap electret capsules like the WM61A can perform well with a battery box. This article describes how to power them with P48 phantom power balanced inputs instead.

Sep 19, 2009 - Richard Mudhar

Recorder plug-in-power is poorly specified and often too low to power the microphone properly on loud sounds leading to distortion on sounds like rock concerts.

Aug 19, 2009 - Richard Mudhar

Most mixers and audio inputs are single-channel 3-pin XLR sockets. A simple Y cable breaks out one stereo XLR 5 pin socket to two 3-pin plugs.

Jun 5, 2009 - Richard Mudhar

Plug-in-power was introduced in the 1990s with MiniDisc, but poorly matched microphones and recorders can deliver poor results, particularly with loud sounds like music.

Apr 28, 2009 - Richard Mudhar

A microphone in the open makes a visual statement, not always ideal. Binaural mics look just like in-ear headphones, reducing impact for field and urban recording.

Apr 26, 2009 - Richard Mudhar

Microphones used in wildife sound recording have more in common with the types used for outside broadcast and film/TV sound rather than music recording.

Mar 6, 2009 - Richard Mudhar

The tiny Panasonic WM61electret microphone has a response extending to around 60kHz. Some manufacuturers of bat detectors use these capsule for low cost bat detectors.

Feb 18, 2009 - Richard Mudhar

Professional mics are often remote powered using P48 phantom power along the cable from a mixer. They offer better quality and more of pickup patterns than consumer mics.

Aug 12, 2008 - Richard Mudhar

Using a professional microphone to record audio gives a significant boost in sound quality and the choice of directionality patterns to suit the subject.

Aug 11, 2008 - Richard Mudhar