Intro to Microphones AudioTech

Hi, Gospel Guitarist here. Today we're going to be talking about an introduction to microphones. I have a little display here of pretty much everything I own. I own more than one of some of these, but this is the different forces in my army right now. Going from my right to your right, in order to use any microphones you're going to want to use the right kind of cable. So we'll start here. This is referred to as an XLR cable and this is the female end where you'll have three holes in one end. It usually has a locking mechanism there and the male end which has the three prongs inside and very simple cable. This cable is used on virtually every kind of microphone that there is that requires a cable, excluding the wireless. So first off we have dynamic microphones. I have several dynamic ones here. This one here is a Sennheiser 835 mic. I usually use these on stage. I have several, four or five, and I like these a lot. They have a nice warm sound to them. They're a dynamic microphone, great for vocals. You can also use them for talking into and whatnot. This is the ever popular SM57 which you can use as a vocal mic. You can use it for what it's most popular for which is like snare drums, toms, guitar cabinets. This is extremely popular in recording studio. If you have a home recording studio or a plan on doing any live, this is just a simple must-have. That's an SM57. What a lot of people don't seem to know is that you can get a windscreen for the SM57 and that's what this is. You may have seen ads where they talk about this being the president's mic for however many decades it is now. That's funny, it doesn't look like that mic, but when you put this on there, now it does look like the president's microphone, doesn't it? And that's why. So they usually run two of these in case one fails, they got another one back up. So these I use live. This is another form of a dynamic microphone which many people think is a condenser microphone because of its size. You don't always go by size, but this is a Sennheiser 421, which is a really, really popular microphone in any professional recording studio. And I finally got my hands on one. They're not super expensive, but they're several hundred dollars for one, but they're really nice used for a lot of different things. And so that's the dynamic group that I have here. And any of these you can use in the studio or live. Another type of microphone that we have are condenser microphones. Now this is a kind of a weird looking microphone. A lot of people are like, what is that? Well, this is a highly specialized type of microphone that's used for real-time analysis. So when you set up your PA system, if you have a speaker system, a piece of rack component, you would plug this into it and it will sense the response of a room very, very accurately so that you can adjust your equalizer on the room so you can get your sound system to sound really, really good. But you can use these for other things. It's not like you can't use them for the recording studio. I have heard where people have used them. I haven't, but it can be used that way. I hear they can be used on an acoustic guitar and they're really sweet for that. I haven't tried it yet. This one, however, I have tried. This is an inexpensive Behringer. Both of these are Behringer mics and I've been happy with these little C2s. They're just a little tiny, what a lot of people call a choir microphone, an overhead choir mic. If you go into your churches, you'll see these hanging down from the ceiling over wherever your choir would be. So they've kind of coined the name choir microphone, but that's not an accurate name, but they can be used for that. But these are good. They do require phantom power as well. That's the difference. Before I go further with the condenser mics, all types of condenser mics require power and it's a 48 volt phantom power that you need to have on your mixer or a separate box that comes with some microphones to supply that power to the mic in order for it to work. Dynamic microphones, no matter, even if they're these big guys, they don't require any power from your system to work, to run. You just plug them in and go. These, you need to plug these in and make sure you have these plugged in first and then turn on your 48 volt phantom power. It's not a real good idea to take one of these, plug them in with the 48 volts already active on the line. That little jolt can damage the microphone. This is one of my favorites here. It's another one. It's not terribly expensive, but it's one of the best out there. It's one of the quietest in the world. That's why I bought it, but it's a very nice home recording mic. It's a Rode NT1-A. The A there, I guess, stands for anniversary because it's the anniversary model. I don't know what the difference is there. It looks just like the other ones, but this is a larger condenser microphone. It's got a big diaphragm in there underneath the screen versus this one, which has a little tiny diaphragm, but they both need 48 volt power to run. This one's even got a smaller diaphragm. They come in different sizes, different configurations, but they all run on 48 volts. Any condenser microphone is going to have to have that power supply. Dynamics, again, do not need that power supply. Now, over here, set aside, I also have another condenser microphone of a different type. This is an AT. I want to make sure I get the number right. It's an Audio-Technica omnidirectional microphone. I think it's a 3355, I think. As you can see here, it's quite small. This is what I'm actually speaking into right now. I have one on. They're not real expensive, and they work real well for home recording, for your cameras and whatnot. I run everything that I'm doing. It doesn't plug into my camera. It actually plugs into a, I have a Tascam unit, but here you have a little battery compartment, so, and you're on off switch, so it runs on battery power to power this condenser microphone, so even these little guys, and these are really just nice little studio mics. They're just a lapel mic, and I have a couple of those. So, away from all of that, over here, I have yet another type of microphone, and this is a wireless system that I use. There are many, many wireless systems also on the market, so if you don't want a bunch of these things all over the place for bands, you can get away, in some cases, with a wireless system. This system that I have will come with a wireless microphone. It usually, they have the same type of head as a normal microphone, but they're equipped with their own radio transmitter inside, and you just open them up, whatever it requires. Put your battery in here, set your frequency to whatever you need, and they usually have an on off and mute function, which is what I like about this one. It's extremely simple for church pilk. Also paired with this system, the handheld feeds this handheld, which I label handheld side. Then it came with a lapel system, which you will have to have a little pocket transmitter here that you just strap to your belt or whatever. Again, its controls are on the inside, so you can set up the radio frequencies. Runs on nine volt battery. Some of these will run on AA batteries and whatnot. Now it's a matter of what do you plug into your transmitter right here, and there's a couple choices that you have. What it came with was your standard lapel. In a sound environment, in a live sound environment, I really don't like these. They just give a whole lot of problems. They're great for studio work, TV and stuff like that. Boy, there's a whole slew of problems that come along with one of these, and so I bought one of these. You see how popular these are. This just mounts right next to your mouth, and they are harder to see on camera, but they blend in and they sound really good. You can turn your head and move all around, and the sound doesn't fluctuate like it does with these lapel mics here. When you point your head down, you can talk right into the thing, and it gets really loud and boomy, and then when you lift your head up talking to the audience, all of a sudden you're chasing them with your gain and everything. So these are really, really recommended for live use. I really recommend getting these. This is a Samson kit here, and it was like $200, and it's really, really worth it. Comes with all the different adapters for different kinds of transmitters, so it doesn't matter. You don't have to have... I'm running a Shure PG88. It's not exactly a real expensive system. It was just under $600 for this, and some system, lapel systems, will run you that just for the mic. So this is all done by radio, so you need to have one of these units by your mixer, and you would run your cable out the back into the channel that you want your microphone to come through. So for me in ministry work, usually I would have this go to the main speaker, and then this is just a microphone that would be available on stage for introductions and things like that, and then all of this armament over here would cover the musical performances. So I'm pretty well covered on all the side of the spectrum on stage, and eliminating the wire from the speaker. They really like that. So wireless is the way to go if you're doing evangelism. It's not always the way to go for like guitars and things. It's always been a problem for us guitar players trying different wireless systems and running into all kinds of problems, but here we have a small selection of dynamic, condenser, and wireless types of microphones. You have to do your own research on these to figure out which mics you like. A lot of people like a Shure 57 instead of this Sennheiser. I prefer the Sennheiser. If it was a rock band, I would probably go with an SM58 instead of the Sennheiser, but since we're doing like really mellow, warm kind of Christian singing vocal parts, not the heavy rock stuff, I prefer this type of mic way more than a SM58. But I've spent enough time in the rock and roll business to know an SM58 sounds better for that. So it's all personal preference, and keep the task at hand when you're picking out a microphone. If you're trying to build a home studio, like I say, the 57 is a must. A condenser of some type for vocals is a must, and maybe just a different type of condenser available would be good. You can get away with, you know, under a grand for your own home for a home recording studio, but if you're doing live, you're looking at a lot of money. To cover all this stuff live, it gets pricey, but you can get good sound without spending a whole ton of money. SM58 is the most popular guitar amp mic in the thousands of dollars, but why do that when you can do it with an SM57? Yeah, so it's your own thing. You have to go out, try different microphones, find out what you like, listen to other people out there, go check out other live venues, see what they're using. I got turned on to the Sennheisers because my church uses them, and I thought, wow, that sounds really nice. What is that? So use your ears, get around town, find out what people are using, and listen to how they're using it, and see, you know, do you like that mic in that specific use? You can use mics for anything. I mean, this can be used on a guitar amp, to drums, to vocals, and it does all of them well, where this one here, vocals, yeah, I don't think I'd put it anywhere else, and they're at about the same amount of money. So it's experimentation and experience that will help you to decide what type of condenser mics you want, what type of dynamic mics you want, okay? This is just really quick introduction to the field of microphones and the different types of styles that are out there. So I hope this helps you to at least get an overview of what the differences are. I know I didn't go in depth here, but this is just an introduction video. Hopefully later I can get into exactly what kind of applications you can use microphones of different types for, but that would be later. So I hope you found this video helpful. Please click the share button, link to it, subscribe to me for further videos that are coming out. I kind of just make a new video every week along the audio spectrum of things, and I hope that these videos are helpful to you, and if they are, please leave a comment. I can try to answer questions on any of my videos in the audio or the guitar world, but I don't know everything, okay? I know what you see basically in my videos. So a lot of it's personal preference. The way a microphone sounds over another will change from singer to singer, okay? I might like singing on this one. You might like singing on this one. So it's all personal preference. Never forget that. But quality is a must. If you want good sound, you have to have good microphones, okay? Don't take the cheapest thing out there, okay? So thank you for watching, and I'll see you next week.