Just Call Me Mic.

Everybody knows what a microphone is.  Most of us use one every day in our phone, or at the drive-through, etc.  They are everywhere in our culture.
Some you grab and sing or talk into, some are on stands, some are in funny mounts, some look cool, some are small, some are big and clumsy.  Some are connected to an amplifier and speaker(s), some are used for speech only, some for music recording.  All shapes, sizes, colours(!) and costs.

In the next few posts, I will be looking at microphone types - how they are sorted/classified according to construction and operating principles, the most appropriate choice(s) of microphone for a particular purpose or situation, and a bit of background on each microphone type's design features.

The microphone is the electro-mechanical "ear" of the recording engineer.  The human ear is, in essence, also a mechanical and electrical device which sends electrical pulses to the brain from tiny hair-like nerve endings in the inner ear which have been stimulated by sound waves arriving from the ear drum, through tiny connecting bones to the inner ear "window" structure.  Incredible design for an audio transducer!
Microphones are all audio transducers, responding to sound waves around or in front of them, and converting (changing) them into electrical signals.
As a child, I remember using the telephone in our home - a rather large device, mounted on the

wall in the passage near the dining room.  To use it you had to lift the receiver off the "hook", and ask the operator to connect you to your number of choice.  I was never allowed to make 'phone calls, just on very rare occasions say "Hello" to Auntie Flo or whoever.
The microphone used in this wonderful device was a carbon type - adequate to convey speech signals over the telephone lines, but not very sensitive and certainly not able to respond to sounds either in the low or high parts of the audio spectrum.  It is a "fun" vocal microphone, but not used much today.

                                       Here's one from the twenties or thirties.  Cute, eh?

   This one is more modern, and as far as I know, still available new.
Should work O.K with a harmonica.







Next time we'll have a look at dynamic microphones, and see what "makes them tick"!