Sound Tutorial

In this week’s Production Skills seminar we got a chance use some audio

equipment and play around with a few different microphones to see which one records the best sound in different situations. The piece of equipment we used was a Samson Zoom H4n. This handheld audio device already had a built in mic, which meant that we could start recording without having to add on an external microphone. There are 2 microphones located on the top of the H4n, which cross over at either a 90° or 120° angle. This makes the mic more versatile for different recording situations. I found that this mic would be best to use if I needed to record the audio of a place where there are lots of sounds (background noise e.g. a crowd, train station etc.) as oppose to recording somebody talking or a specific sound.

To do this I would use an external microphone which would fit the XLR/Hi-Z Input Jacks at the bottom of the H4n. This was good for recording a specific sound as the mic just picked up sound that was close of it, therefore the closer you got to the object making the sound, the better the audio.

 The third microphone that we used was a H2a-HLR Hydrophone. This mic allowed us to record underwater, which I found very interesting as we got to take the equipment out and test it so I got to hear what this sounds like. This mic also records vibration if you put what we referred to as an ‘egg cup’ on the end of the microphone. If you put this against a hard object and then hit the surface, this will make an interesting sound as the mic will pick up all the little vibrations that go through the object.