Newbie Question

distortedrumble said:
unless the newbie is between 5 and 12 years old....just smack them on the back of the head
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If I take a speaker and plug it into a mixing board can I use that as a microphone?
 
masteringhouse said:
If I take a speaker and plug it into a mixing board can I use that as a microphone?
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Didn't Sir George Martin (or one of his assistants) do something like that on one of the Beatle's recording?
 
Speakers and mics are both transducers. They can both convert electrical energy into sonic energy, and vice versa.

When I was a kid, the headphones on our 3-in-1 stereo broke, and I used a mic in the headphone jack to listen to records. It was pretty clear too
 
masteringhouse said:
If I take a speaker and plug it into a mixing board can I use that as a microphone?
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You should use a Peavey Backstage guitar amp with the saturation full on as a studio monitor. It's mono but a good mix will sum to mono anyway. Use the footswitch to A/B the clean & distortion channels. Put the mic that came with your computer in front of the cab to record the master mixdown.
 
dachay2tnr said:
Didn't Sir George Martin (or one of his assistants) do something like that on one of the Beatle's recording?
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Geof Emerick, he used headphones on stringed instruments to mic them.
People have also used NS-10s to mic kick drums.

My question was initally facetious, I'm just trying to get people on the BBS to start thinking outside of the box. Even stupid questions can be profound sometimes.

Any other interesting "mic" techniques people have come across?
 
masteringhouse said:
If I take a speaker and plug it into a mixing board can I use that as a microphone?
Click to expand...

Sure... its common way nowdays to mic a kick drum or for reamping a snare. Michael Wagener uses it quite often. Make sure its at least a 10 inch diaphagm though :)

I reamped a solo'd kick drum into a home stereo speaker in a live room onto new track.

Another cool mic technique is to put a mic on a lazy susan with a string attached and rotate it back and forth like a washing machine's agitator. How about mic'ing the strings of an electric guitar with a sdc to pick up the slight bright edgy sound of the instrument being played.

Put a wireless mic on a electric train and have it go around the drum set while tracking.

Don't forget about mic'ing childrens toys.


SoMm
 
Son of Mixerman said:
Another cool mic technique is to put a mic on a lazy susan with a string attached and rotate it back and forth like a washing machine's agitator. How about mic'ing the strings of an electric guitar with a sdc to pick up the slight bright edgy sound of the instrument being played.

Put a wireless mic on a electric train and have it go around the drum set while tracking.

Don't forget about mic'ing childrens toys.


SoMm
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Very cool, one time I had someone sing through a spinning vacuum cleaner hose. Another idea (I think it was Geoff Emerick) was to put a mic in a plastic bag and submerge it in water.
 
A microphone is a device that is OK by itself but in the wrong hands it has led to the destruction of culture and what passes for civilization. Too many well-meaning Brittney Spears and 'N'Syncs have gotten their hands on these things and the result? Turn on the radio, if you can stand it.
 
masteringhouse said:
Geof Emerick, he used headphones on stringed instruments to mic them.
People have also used NS-10s to mic kick drums.

My question was initally facetious, I'm just trying to get people on the BBS to start thinking outside of the box. Even stupid questions can be profound sometimes.

Any other interesting "mic" techniques people have come across?
Click to expand...


I got a pretty good sound on an old spinet piano I was recording years ago by hanging a set of phones inside it.
 
Bulls Hit said:
Speakers and mics are both transducers. They can both convert electrical energy into sonic energy, and vice versa.
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Technically you are right they are transducers, but artistically they are more than that. They are the lens with which we view the sonic landscape. Sometimes we view this through rose colored glass, sometimes through scratched and distorted glass, and yet at other times through supreme clarity and acuracy.

What other mechanisms could be used for audio to electromagnetic (or digital) transduction? I'd be curious to see if anyone has come up with an optical method yet. I would guess that this would be prone to the least amount of resistance and be the most accurate of all.
 
masteringhouse said:
What other mechanisms could be used for audio to electromagnetic (or digital) transduction? I'd be curious to see if anyone has come up with an optical method yet. I would guess that this would be prone to the least amount of resistance and be the most accurate of all.
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Aren't your meters and software programs transducers and an optical view of your sound?
 
NYMorningstar said:
Aren't your meters and software programs transducers and an optical view of your sound?
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I was thinking of it more in terms of the other direction. All of the microphones that I know of convert sound energy electromagnetically into current. I was curious if anyone has heard of a way of converting sound energy via light into current.

Apparently someone has though of this at least 5 years ago:

http://www.kenwood.com/i/news/microphone.html
 
MIC - Music Into Cacophany, oh wait you spelled it out.... Microphone - a very, very small phone.
 
mshilarious said:
Hold the mic by its cable and swing it over the musician's head..
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I had the opportunity to mix a live performance of The Who. While Daltrey wasn't singing into the mike at the time he was swinging it around, it created a really wild leslie type effect from the bleed on the drums that sounded pretty cool. Unfortunately the effect was pretty unnappropriate for a live mix, so I had to mute it out.
 
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