Microphones are used in many applications such astelephones, tape recorders, hearing aids, motion picture production, live and recordedaudio engineering, in radio and television broadcasting and in computers for recording voice, VoIP, and for non acoustic purposes such as ultrasonic checking.

A microphone is a device made to capture waves in air, water or hard material and translate them into an electrical signal. The most common method is via a thin membrane producing some proportional electrical signal. Most microphones in use today for audio use electromagnetic generation are dynamic microphones, capacitance change condenser microphones or piezoelectric generation to produce the signal from mechanical vibration.

Uses of different kinds of microphones
Condenser microphones span the range from cheap instruments to high quality instruments. They generally produce a high quality audio signal and are now the popular choice in laboratory and studio recording applications. They require a power source, provided generally from microphone inputs from a small battery.

Professional microphones often sport an external power supply for reasons of quality perception. Power is necessary for establishing the capacitor plate voltage, and is also needed for internal amplification of the signal to a useful output level. Condenser microphones are also available with two diaphragms, the signals from which can be electrically connected such as to provide a range of polar patterns such as cardioid and omnidirectional.

Carbon microphone, formerly used in telephone handsets, is a capsule containing carbon granules pressed between two metal plates. The carbon microphone can also be used as a type of amplifier, using a small amount of sound energy to produce a larger amount of electric energy. Carbon microphones were used as early telephone repeaters, making long distance phone calls possible in the era before vacuum tubes.

Crystal microphones used to be commonly supplied with vacuum tube or valve equipment such as domestic tape recorders. Their high output impedance matched well to the high input impedance of the vacuum tube input stage. They were difficult to match to early transistor equipments and were quickly supplemented by dynamic microphones for a short while, and later small eletret condenser devices. The high impedance of the crystal microphone made it very susceptable to handling noise, partly from the microphone itself, but also from handling of the connecting cable.

Shotgun microphones are high directional microphones. They have small lobes of sensitivity to the left, right, and rear but are significantly more sensitive to the front. This results from placing the elements inside a tube with slots cut along the side and wave cancellation eliminates most of the off axis noise. Shotgun microphones are commonly used on TV and film sets, and for field recording of wildlife.

Conclusion
The microphone is a ubiquitous piece of equipment and comes in a number of models. Found in everything from telephones to computers to recording studios, microphones are part of our daily life. It is perhaps the most critical part of the audio chain. A good quality microphone will provide the basis for excellent audio, whereas a poor quality will mean poor quality audio, no matter how good the rest of the system is.

About the Author: Victor Epand is an expert consultant for music gear, speakers, and microphones. You can find the best marketplace for music gear, speakers, and microphones at these 3 sites: music gear, music equipment, speakers, and different microphone models.
Source: http://www.articlesbase.com

A studio is a place where we can have the avail facility of sound recordings. According to the type of studio we can record bands, artists, conduct voiceover for commercials, cartoons, shows, movies etc. And from this definition it is clear that microphones are an invincible part of the studio. A microphone is nothing but an acoustic to electric transducer or sensor that has the capability to convert sounds into electrical signal.

The microphones as we know it today started as a telephone transmitter that was developed by Graham Bells and Elisha Gray in the year 1876. The word microphone originally came from Greek that means small voice. Gradually with the revolution in technology microphones now comes with a wide variety and definitely with much more improved versions.

With increasing needs and demands for various kinds of recordings there are variety of studio microphones that are available in the market today. Some of the important types are discussed below in detail.

USB Microphone:
It is one of the latest developments in Usb mic that contains almost all the components of traditional microphone like capsule; diaphragm etc. has got two additional circuits. The Usb microphone is considered as the latest buzz in the world of mobile digital recording and hence has gained an important position in studio recordings.

Condenser Microphones:
It consists of almost no moving parts and supports a very simple mechanical system. In fact it is one of the oldest types of microphones that originated in the early 1900. The structure of the condenser microphone is simply a thin stretched conductive diaphragm held with a backplate, which is nothing but a metal disk. When the pressure of sound comes on diaphragm it slightly vibrates in order to generate the waveform. This causes the capacitance to vary in a like manner, which causes a variance in its output voltage. All the types of condenser microphones work on these basic principles. U87 by Neumann is one of the popular examples of condenser microphone.

Dynamic microphone:
It generates audio signal through the motion of a conductor inside the range of a magnetic field. The thin, light diaphragm moves in accordance to the sound pressure. These microphones sometimes have the capability to absorb or handle very high quality sound pressure levels and commonly used when live telecast are concerned. Musical instruments like electric guitars, drums etc. are recorded in studio through this dynamic microphone. Hand held SM58 by Shure is one of the examples of this type of microphone.

Ribbon Microphone:
It is a type of velocity microphone that responds to the velocity of air molecules by passing through it other than the sound pressure level, a characteristic that most of other microphones respond to. It works by a loose suspended small element, generally a corrugated strip of metal in a strong magnetic field. One interesting fact about this microphone is that they were the first commercially successful directional microphones. R121 of Royer is a popular ribbon microphone.

In the world of entertainment, studios play an important role because this is the only place where perfection in the sound field and music could become more and more melodious. So, studio microphones have got important roles to play today and in times to come.

About the Author: Victor Epand is an expert consultant for music gear, speakers, and microphones. You can find the best marketplace for music gear, speakers, and microphones at these 3 sites: music gear, music equipment, speakers, and studio microphones, shure microphones, neumann microphones.
Source: http://www.articlesbase.com