Headphone or speaker as a microphone

[grimtraveller]

Has anyone ever tried to use a headphone or speaker as a mic ? I'll often use a headphone when I want to quickly get an idea down and couldn't be bothered to go and set up the mic and cable. After all, I'll wipe it eventually.
But if one wants a deliberately trashy instrument sound, sometimes a headphone works wonders.

 

[Track Rat]

I made this sub kick. Along with a standard mic on kick it's not bad.

 

[R D Smith]

That's interesting. I never thought of using a headphone or speaker for a mic. I wonder how many have done it?

 

[Slouching Raymond]

A large speaker is often used as a mic, for recording Bass drums.

 

[RFR]

Sub kick mics made from a crap speaker have been quite common.

 

[bouldersoundguy]

Back in my early days of poverty and limited access to gear, we would sometimes clamp a pair of headphones to the lower bout of a stand-up bass, hanging the headband on the waist, and plug that into an amp or mixer.

 

[ashcat_lt]

Way back in the day, I used to run sound for a lot of rave parties. One time a DJ asked if I had a microphone, which nobody had ever asked for before, so of course I didn’t. He was like “ok, I’ll just use my spare headphones.” I was like “What? Oh! Ooohhhhh.”

Ever used a microphone as a speaker, though? For a while I had an ART Dual MP in a rack. Kept a dynamic plugged into one channel, thinking that if I plugged a guitar into the front panel DI input, it would like override it. It doesn’t. I’m not super sure how it’s wired, but those two inputs are definitely connected somehow. When I heard my guitar coming out of my microphone it scared me pretty badly. I don’t think it caused noticeable damage, but I think only accidentally.

A while back I saw a video where Albini was talking about a large diaphragm figure-8 dynamic that he likes to use in a kick drum. I bought a couple different little speakers to see if they would do something similar. Initial tests seemed to work, but I don’t record a lot of drums, and kind of got stuck on the actual physical manufacture of some way of mounting it…

 

[jamesperrett]

I like to use Sennheiser HD400 earpieces on guitar amps - they're not necessarily accurate but they are interesting.

A friend of mine used to take his portable minidisk machine to gigs so that he could listen to music on the way to the gig or between bands. One day I suggested that he plug the headphones into the mic input and hit record. He was amazed by the result and from then on used to record quite a few gigs that way. If a band was playing and his headphones were dangling around his neck I knew not to talk to him because he was in record mode.

 

[grimtraveller]

That's interesting. I never thought of using a headphone or speaker for a mic. I wonder how many have done it?

I first read about it circa '92 when I was reading about the recording of "Paperback Writer." The Beatles prior to '66 were forever complaining about the bass sound on their records compared to what was coming out of America. They thought the bass always sounded so wimpy and flaccid. So as they were in huge experimentation mode during the "Revolver" sessions, they were doing naughty things like close miking a kick drum and stuffing a jumper in it for some resonance-cancelling thud. They'd already won their battle to get guitars to go into the red on "Nowhere man" so they were just pushing it more and more and Geoff Emrick, I think it was, came up with the idea of using a speaker as a mic and boosting the bass that way. That was the bass sound of Revolver and Pepper.
Anyway, I thought it was a worthwhile experiment to try a headphone and I've used it a few times. As James said, it's not particularly "accurate" but for me, in music, accuracy isn't always the goal. Sometimes, a little trash gives a unique sound.

Ever used a microphone as a speaker, though? For a while I had an ART Dual MP in a rack. Kept a dynamic plugged into one channel, thinking that if I plugged a guitar into the front panel DI input, it would like override it. It doesn’t. I’m not super sure how it’s wired, but those two inputs are definitely connected somehow. When I heard my guitar coming out of my microphone it scared me pretty badly

You be doin' some serious weird voodoo shit there, man.

A large speaker is often used as a mic, for recording Bass drums.

Back in 2021, I unwittingly hit on a weird thing ~ I was listening to a click track that I'd recorded, making sure the tempo was OK and being a lazy so-and-so, I had a headphone plugged into one of the mic inputs to hum a guide melody and I happened to tap the side of the headphone and the sound was like a "pocky" bass drum. It went more like "pock" than "boom" or "boof" or even "pap" but I got to thinking that it could be an interesting bass drum sound. So I recorded the rest of the drums and then put on the headphone as both bass drum and mic. It actually did both jobs simultaneously.
It's not something I'd use every time but it's not something I'd not use again either.