Microphone techniques + Placement. Presenting you by Lily Priestley and Robert Simpson.

Introduction. This PowerPoint will be telling you about the microphone techniques and their placement. Microphones can shut out background noise and can localize sources of sound precisely. Microphones are often described as the extended ears of sound engineer. The microphone is best regarded as a device for converting sound vibrations into alternating currents.

Placement for microphones for instruments. If you have a mic placed at a certain distance from an instrument. If you move the mic left, right up, or down, you change the recorded tone quality. A musical instrument radiates a different tone quality in each direction. For example to place your microphone in front of a guitar, you need two bi directional microphones at a 90 degrees angle to capture signals in front and behind them. So that the room sound can play a special factor in sound.

Placement for microphones for voices. (acting, voice over etc) The human voice is an extremely complex instrument. The best way to capture clear sound from a voice is to position the microphone further from the mouth and avoid speaking directly into the microphone by directing your voice just over the top of the capsule. If you’re wanting to be an actor or voice over you need to build your own audio recording room. This needs to be sound proof so all background noise is cut off, otherwise there will be interference.

Recordings for sound affects. In Jurassic Park, a baby dinosaur hatching out of an egg was in fact in ice cream cone being crumbled and a fruit being mushed. To capture a good recording, it is essential that your sound has sonic depth, width, and height. These spatial attributes are the difference between hi-fi and lo-fi recordings. Additionally, the distortion of the depth, width, and height can be minimized by incorporating sound diffusion and sound absorption to nullify the room boundaries.  Foley artists use many objects to achieve accurate sounds that the action/object would make. Microphone selection is crucial to making Foley audio fit with audio recorded on location. The placement of the microphone in relation to the source of sound greatly affects how the Foley is recorded. Close-up shots may require closer microphone placement, or put distance between the mic and sound source if you desire more room sound. 

A sound Track. In a movie they use a sound track which is a audio recording created or used in film production or post-production. The dialogue, sound effects, and music in a film each has its own separate track and these are mixed together to make what is called the composite track, which is heard in the film.  The Disney animation of snow white and the seven dwarfs was the first commercially issued film soundtrack. Before a soundtrack was created in the old silent movies one track of music was played.