How to Add Microphones to a Home Recording Studio: Part 3

Video Transcript

"Hi! I'm Arie Pytel for Expert Village. We are continuing our talk about home studio and how to design it. A little bit more about microphones. Generally microphones have three types; omni-directional, bi-directional and cardioid microphones are the three types of microphones that you will generally find. Omni-directional microphones pick up sounds from all directions. Bi-directional sounds pick up sound from either side of the microphone. Cardioid named after the heart, like cardiac, cardioid microphones take sound and what looks almost like a heart shape and we will see this on the microphone that we have here take it from basically one direction and takes some sound from the edges but generally have a sweet spot. Other things to start to look for for your microphones, you are going to definitely need to get yourself a mike stand, some XLR cables which is a three pin cable that also delivers what is called phantom power to the microphone. Almost all microphones used for studio recording requires phantom power. For that reason, we need a preamp. Now preamps are something that you can spend a lot of money on or very little depending on your budget and your needs. Some control interfaces have preamps in them such as protools, interfaces, digital design inbox interfaces have those preamps. A lot of interfaces are designed to have a microphone preamped in them in order to record digital signal off of the computer. Also consider purchasing a pop filter or spit guard which protects your sound from being over driven by vocals that are too close to the microphone or too loud as well as protects it from saliva. Another thing to consider when using your microphone is to tilt it to do something which is called the ssing when a lot of people sing in the microphones you get the sound of ssing like I am trying to enunciate it now. The ss's which are a lisp comes from the angle which the microphone is to the person speaking or singing. "