Audio Visual Sound

This part of my blog is about sound I will be using various websites to research into what frequency and sound is, how it works and what the properties of sound are. I will also be looking at pick-up patterns and different types of microphones.

First of I wanted to find the properties of sound so I did a quick google search and found a website called http://www.mediacollege.com/audio/01/wave-properties.html which bought up the sound wave properties from this I learnt what sound wave properties are.



First of you have the wavelength, this is the distance between any point on a wave and the equivalent point on the next phase, it is literally the length of the wave.


Amplitude, is the strength or power of the wave signal. When viewed in a graph it is the height. Higher amplitudes and interepted as a higher volume. Which is were the name amplifier comes from.


Frequency is the number of times a wavelength occurs in one second. Frequency is measured in kilohertz. The faster the vibrations, the higher the frequency.


This pretty much sums up the properties of sound waves.

I was looking around for what types of microphone patterns there are that are out there and I found a very good website with quite a lot of information on there this website is http://homerecording.about.com/od/microphones101/bb/Mic_Patterns.htm

The first one I encountered was Cardiod.

Cardiod microphones are mainy for vocal applications, live taping/recording. Any anything else where the acoustics in the room are good.

Hypercardioid.

As you could probably guess the hypercardioid is a cardiod on steroids. A hypercardioid records from the front and rejects everything around 120 degress to the back of the microphone. You would mostly use a hypercardioid for on-stage vocals, to help monitor feedback.

Omnidirectional

Omnidirectional microphones pick up sound equally 360 degress around the microphone capsule. You would mostly use a Omnidirectional microphone within a recording studio to get the desired natural sound. Omnidirectional microphones are not preffered for live recording due to amount of feedback they are prone to.

Bidirectional

A bidirectional microphone picks up sounds equally  from both sides of the microphone diaphragm. It picks up sound similar to what a cardiod would but also picks up sound equally from the rear as it does sides.

These are all the pickup patterns for the microphones

There are all sorts of different microphones for example:

Dyanamic Microphones 

Dynamic microphones these are handy if the sound source is close and reasonably loud, and where the sound is predominatly bass of mid range.

Dynamic mics have the benefit of being tough and relatively inexpensive, and they don't require phantom power nor batteries.

Capcitor Mics

Capacitor mics work well in most situations and have sufficient sensitivity to pick up quieter or more distant sounds properly

Compared to dynamic microphones the cost for a capcitor microphone is a lot higher, they also rely on external and a susceptibility of some models to succumb to condensation.

Back-Electret Mics

The back electret mic has a permanant electric charge sealed into the