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Sounds from the Apartment

Microphone Characteristics: Series Summary

· Nikos

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Microphone Characteristics Series Summary

Hello there and welcome once again to the Sounds From The Apartment blog and the closing article for these series!

As promised, here’s a summary of all the articles that discuss Microphone Characteristics in the order they were published!

This should give you a nice “map” on which order you can read the articles, allow you to revisit them easily and if you had any one of them missed, now is your chance to go back and read it!

So, let’s have a recap!

01 – Polar Patterns

On the first article of the series, we discussed Polar Patterns and how they can define the ability of a microphone to receive sound from different directions.

02 – Proximity Effect

The next article, about Proximity Effect, explained the reason behind this effect which allows the bass frequencies of the sound to be boosted depending on the sound source’s distance from the microphone.

03 – Frequency Response

Frequency response allows us to understand how a microphone behaves while frequencies across the audio spectrum.

04 – Top/Side Address

This article in regards to the Top and Side Address, focus more on the physical build of microphones and how that matters in the way we position them against the sound source we want to record.

05 – Signal to Noise Ratio and Self Noise

Moving a bit deeper in microphone characteristics, in this article we are exploring how the quality of the signal is affected in regards to the noise that the microphone, itself, produces and what that ratio is.

06 – Maximum SPL

Furthermore, we are looking onto Maximum SPL, and how it can affect our microphone choice when we want to record specific sources!

07 – Dynamic Range

Dynamic Range, briefly, tells us what are the lowest and highest SPL values a microphone can handle. Apart from the explanation, we are also discussing why it is important to research before buying a microphone that seems to have the same or similar characteristics with another one.

08 – Sensitivity

Near the end now, we are exploring how sensitive microphones are when capturing sound, what defines Sensitivity, and why it is important.

09 – Impedance

Just before the finale, we are discussing the 2 types of Impedance and how they can affect the preamp performance and, therefore, the signal chain!

10 –Microphone Types

The longest and final article of the series is all about the Microphone Types. You can find all you need to know in this article and merges everything you learned up to now together!

Conclusion

10 to get you into the magic world of microphones and their characteristics and abilities. Master them, and you will be confident every time you are using any microphone as long as you know its potential!

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Next week, we will be back with another interesting, but also a different (yes, again!) type of article! Till then, take care!