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    The Microphone Book Notes

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    dsteinhardt1
    Microphones were first developed in the 19th century for telephony. Various microphone designs were created throughout the 20th century, including the ribbon microphone, moving coil microphone, and the breakthrough of the permanently polarized electret capacitor microphone. There are two main types of microphones - pressure microphones which react to sound pressure, and pressure gradient microphones which sense the difference in pressure between the front and back of the diaphragm. Directional microphones use a combination of pressure and gradient components to create cardioid and other pickup patterns. Microphone measurements include frequency response, self noise, and distortion specifications.

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    The Microphone Book Notes

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    dsteinhardt1
    195 views4 pages
    Microphones were first developed in the 19th century for telephony. Various microphone designs were created throughout the 20th century, including the ribbon microphone, moving coil microphone, and the breakthrough of the permanently polarized electret capacitor microphone. There are two main types of microphones - pressure microphones which react to sound pressure, and pressure gradient microphones which sense the difference in pressure between the front and back of the diaphragm. Directional microphones use a combination of pressure and gradient components to create cardioid and other pickup patterns. Microphone measurements include frequency response, self noise, and distortion specifications.

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    Microphones were first developed in the 19th century for telephony. Various microphone designs were created throughout the 20th century, including the ribbon microphone, moving coil microphone, and the breakthrough of the permanently polarized electret capacitor microphone. There are two main types of microphones - pressure microphones which react to sound pressure, and pressure gradient microphones which sense the difference in pressure between the front and back of the diaphragm. Directional microphones use a combination of pressure and gradient components to create cardioid and other pickup patterns. Microphone measurements include frequency response, self noise, and distortion specifications.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    195 views4 pages

    The Microphone Book Notes

    Uploaded by

    dsteinhardt1
    Microphones were first developed in the 19th century for telephony. Various microphone designs were created throughout the 20th century, including the ribbon microphone, moving coil microphone, and the breakthrough of the permanently polarized electret capacitor microphone. There are two main types of microphones - pressure microphones which react to sound pressure, and pressure gradient microphones which sense the difference in pressure between the front and back of the diaphragm. Directional microphones use a combination of pressure and gradient components to create cardioid and other pickup patterns. Microphone measurements include frequency response, self noise, and distortion specifications.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
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    The Microphone Book Notes

    Brief History
     Microphones first developed in the 19th century for telephony
     Commercial broadcasting began in early 1920s, Western Electric responded to
    microphone needs by developing electrostatic (capacitor) and electrodynamic
    microphones
     RCA was responsible for the development of ribbon microphones during the 30s/40s
     In the 1920s, Shure and Electrovoice made significant contributions to microphone
    engineering producing moving coil microphones: commercial development of capacitor
    microphones was not possible due to the cumbersome external polarization voltage
     1940s: capacitor microphones dominate studio recording when German and Austrian
    manufactures came into the scene
     1960s: breakthrough of capacitor microphone. Development of permanently polarized
    dielectric material (electret) between diaphragm and back plate of microphone which
    replaced external polarization voltage

    Basic Sound Transmission and Operational Forces on Microphones


    Speed of sound= 344 meters per second
    Speed= frequency times wavelength
    Unit of pressure is 1 Pascal: huge range of pressures within acoustics from 20 micropascals to
    100 PA, which is why the decibel system was created in order to provide a more convenient
    scale
    1 Pascal= 94 decibels
    Power is stated in Watts, driven by the multiplication of an intensive and extensive variable.
    -Acoustical system: watts= pressure times volume velocity
    -electrical system: watts= voltage times current
    free field=outdoor conditions: no reverberation
    Indoors we deal with the interaction of a direct field and reverberant field
    Critical distance: direct and reverberant fields are equal
    Low humidity: can cause HF loss at large distances (moist air is less dense than dry air which has
    higher absorption)
    Diffraction: bending of sound waves as they encounter objects whose dimensions are a
    significant portion of a wavelength.
    -microphones are small and have minimal effect on the sound field until higher frequencies due
    to smaller wavelengths measuring similar dimension of the microphone. This is why smaller
    diaphragms have more accurate off-axis responses

    Pressure Microphone
     reacts to sound pressure with no regard for directional bearing
     only front of diaphragm exposed to sound
     omnidirectional until approx. 8kHz
     microphone’s diaphragm motion is microscopic at normal sound levels
     Very small holes evenly distributed on a unfirom in the backplate. Back and forth motion
    of the diaphragm captures air. Diaphragm made of thin plastic material (Mylar)
    deposited on a molecular thin layer of metal. Tension of diaphragm and stiffness from
    the captured air behind diaphragm maintain a high resonance frequency of the
    diaphragm assembly. Very small tube connects interior air mass to outside to produce a
    slow leakage path so that static atmospheric pressure equalizes on both sides of the
    diaphragm
     High frequencies cause simply built rim supported diaphragm to move erratically, which
    is why there needs to be high diaphragm tension in order to obtain a flat frequency
    response.
     Polaraization voltage (including phantom power) charges the backplate, causing a slight
    electrostatic attraction, causing the diaphragm to be drawn very slightly towards the
    backplate
     Gold metal mesh screen separates the diaphragm assembly from the outside to provide
    necessary electricaostatic interference
     Most studio microphones have a resonance between 8-12 kHz, the resonance is fairly
    well damped to not cause a strong rise in response. Beyond the resonance, the overall
    response of the microphone begins to roll of at a rate of 12 dB per octave but the on
    axis response of the microphone tends to remain flat for about half an octave above the
    resonance due to diffraction effects
     Studio quality pressure microphones only see LF rolloff around 10 Hz.
     Temperature increase reduces diaphragm tension, causing increase of sensitivity (small
    change) and decrease of bandwidth (doesn’t have impact within indoor use
     Tube mic preamps require higher DC voltage, a pad can be achieved by lowering the
    voltage but causes diaphragm to move slightly further from the backplate, causing an
    alteration of the HF response.
     Smaller the diaphragm, the flater the high frequency response is due to smaller
    diffraction obstacle
     Nose cones can create even high frequency response from all pickup directions as they
    provide indirect access to the diaphragm
     Specialized protection grids can be used which produces less diaphragm damping,
    resulting in increased HF response
     Electret microphones use a prepolarized material eliminating the need for voltage but
    has a somewhat higher mass per unit in diaphragm materials, possibly compromising HF
    response
     Diaphragm: moves, backplate: stationary

    Pressure Gradient Microphones


     sense sound pressure at two very closely spaced points corresponding to the front and
    back of the diaphragm. The diaphragm is driven by the difference or gradient of the two
    pressures
     Front and back of diaphragm exposed
     Pressure microphones only produce positive charged voltage, gradient produce positive
    and negative (back of microphone) which has polarity opposition.
     Gradient increases with frequency, which means mic has to be equalized to achieve a
    flat response
     Ribbon gradient microphones: shorter ribbons have better behaving polar responses
    and HF performance. Have a natural LF resonance from ribbon element
     Capacitor gradient Use midband undamped resonance. Dampening to gain extended LF
    response causes degrading self noise and low sensitivity. Dampening is avoided so there
    is usually a LF rolloff which is partially compensated by proximity effect
     Proximity effect is a result of phase and amplitude differences between front and back
    of microphone
    First-Order Directional Microphones
     Cardioid is the combination of the pressure (omnidirectional) and gradient
    (bidirectional)component
     Sub Cardioid, cardioid, super cardioid, hyper cardioid
     Cardioid pattern has less proximity effect as bidirectional
    -Proximity effect not as strong off axis (non-existent 90 degrees)
     Single diaphragm microphones produce gradient with side opening (creates a delay path
    which cancels signal via phasing in regards to the front pickup)
    -multi pattern single diaphragm microphones generally trade-off HF response and pattern
    integrity
     Dual Diaphragm Multi Pattern: most common way of achieving multipatterns. Two
    diaphragms share a backplate in-between eachothe. The assembly is comprised of back
    to back cardioid microphones which can be made in combination to produce the family
    of first order cardioid patterns
     Two way microphones: one section of the microphone focuses on LF and the other on
    HF which helps solve directional inconsistency found a single diaphragm directional
    microphones
    Highly Directional Microphones
     Fall into three categories: interference microphones, focus of sound by means of
    reflectors/acoustical lenses, second and higher-order designs (use of multiple gradient
    elements)
     Shotgun microphones: use a long tube with multiple openings with diaphragm (often
    hyper cardioid) at the end, creates phase cancellations for of axis sounds. The longer the
    tube, the more directive for lower frequencies
     First order directional: response proportional to pressure gradient whereas second
    order design has response proportional to the gradient of the gradient
     Second order directional microphones: rarely used in recording studio, mainly for close-
    speaking and noise canceling operations. Proximity effect rises at a high rate of 12
    dB/octave
    Microphone Measurements, Standards, and Specifications
     Frequency response: if not noted, usually measured at 1 meter distance
     EIN of good preamplifier is often 10-12 dB quieter than a studio capacitor microphone:
    self noise of microphone dominates. In dynamics, EIN of preamp dominates as dynamic
    microphones are low noise and have lower sensitivity.
     Distortion: studio microphones shouldn’t hold more than .5% THD at 1kHz. Distortion is
    not a result from diaphragm assembly but electrical overload in the preamp stage
    Electrical Considerations and Electronic Interface
     Tube microphones: require higher voltage to heat the vacuum tube, provide plate
    voltage for the vacuum tube amplifier, and biasing the capsule
     Obsessively long XLR cable lengths may exhibit loss of HF. 60 meter cable (200 ohm
    source) will loose 1 dB of High frequency
     Phantom power stable over 100-meter cable lengths but there is risk of RF interference.
    Often stage microphones will be amplified to line level with onstage preamps: this
    provides stronger immunity to noise. Also common to convert to digital: no

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