Matakuliah
Tahun
: O0372 - Dasar-Dasar Produksi Siaran Radio
: 2010
MICROPHONES and SOUND
Book: “Modern Radio Production” by Hausman, Benoit,
Messere, & O’Donnell: Chapter 5
Pertemuan 4
THE BASICS of SOUND
• Microphone is a transducer. It changes the energy of the motion of
sound into electrical energy; it is the instrument that transforms
sound into something usable by the record and playback units
hooked up to a radio console.
• Sound itself a vibration-a specific motion-of air molecules. When
molecules are pushed together, they are said to be in compression.
Where molecules are pulled apart from one another, are called
rarefactions.
• The microphone also transduces the motional energy into electrical
energy. That energy then might be transduced into
electromechanical energy (storage on audiotape), or it might be
transcduced back into motional energy by a loudspeaker.
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THE ELEMENTS of SOUND
•
•
•
•
A pure tone sound is represented by a sine wave.
CYCLE: Each time a wave goes through its pattern and
returns to its starting point, it has completed one cycle. A
cycle passes through a complete rotation every 360 degrees.
The time it takes for a wave to make a complete cycle is
called an interval.
FREQUENCY: was measured in cycles per second (cps). In
recent years, the term cycles per second has been replaced by
the term hertz (Hz)
AMPLITUDE: the height of the sine wave. It indicates the
volume of the sound. The higher the amplitude, the louder
the sound.
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OTHER CHARACTERISTICS of SOUND
• PITCH: A term commonly used to describe sound,
is not the same as frequency; it’s the ear’s and mind
subjective interpretation of frequency and loudness,
signifying the way we hear a frequency.
• DURATION: is the amount of time a sound exist
and to the amount of time individual harmonics
exist within a complex waveform.
• VELOCITY and DISTANCE
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THE MICROPHONE: HOW IT WORKS
Three types of mike most common in radio:
1. Moving Coil:
• The diaphragm in a moving coil mic is attached to a coil
of wire. The diaphragm, a thin membrane, vibrate as it is
driven by the sound waves. The electrical wave produced
now carries the imprint of the sound wave by mirroring
both the frequency of the acoustical energy, and the
amplitude of that energy. Moving coil mics are
sometimes reffered to as dynamic mics.
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THE MICROPHONE: HOW IT WORKS
2. RIBBON:
It has a thin (usually corrugated) metal ribbon suspended
between the poles of a magnet. It responds to a difference in
pressure between the front and back of the ribbon. It refers to
pressure-gradient mic.
3. CONDENSER:
Is actually an old-fashioned name for a capacitor. A capacitor
stores an electrical charge. A charge is applied to the side of the
condenser known as the black plate.
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PICKUP (POLAR) PATTERNS
of the MICROPHONE
• Omnidirectional:
– it picks up sounds equally well from all sides. (Remember the
glitch at 180 degrees, simply because the mass of the microphone gets in the
way of the sound waves!)
• Bidirectional:
– accepts sound from the front and rear and rejects it from
the sides. (Typical of ribbon mics that have the ribbon open to air on both
sides)
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PICKUP (POLAR) PATTERNS
of the MICROPHONE
• Cardioid:
– it means “heart-shaped”. It often called
unidirectional, meaning that it picks up sound
from only one direction.
– Supercardioid: tighter curve in front and a lobe in
back.
– Hypercardioid: narrower front angle and a bigger
rear lobe.
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FREQUENCY RESPONSE of MICROPHONES
• RANGE: the amount of the frequency spectrum a mic can
hear.
• SHAPE: is a graph of frequency response. It is the
characteristics of the response curve.
• Flat Response: a mic that capable of responding equally well
to all frequencies in the whole audio spectrum; it’s also called
high fidelity or high accuracy.
• Proximity effect: cardioid mics tend to boost bass frequencies
as the sound source moves closer to the mic.
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PHYSICAL TYPES of MICROPHONES
•HAND-HELD
•STUDIO, MOUNTED
•HEADSET
– HEADSET MICS
•LAVALIER
•SHOTGUN
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MICROPHONE SELECTION and USE
1. Selection by Mic Type
- Depends on Quality and Either Applications
2. Selection by Pickup Pattern
- Depends on the Event
3. Selection by Element
- Depends on the certain elements that do various tasks better than
others do
4. Selection by Frequency Response
- Depends on the mic range and the curve shape.
5. Selection by Personality
- Depends on the announcer.
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