A friend of mine is producing a series of HOWTO videos for an open source project, and discovered that he needed a better microphone than the one built into his laptop. Upon searching, he was faced with a bewildering array of peripherals aimed at would-be podcasters, influencers, and content creators, many of which appeared to […]
We’re most familiar with sound as vibrations that travel through the atmosphere around us. However, sound can also travel through objects, too! If you want to pick it up, you’d do well to start with a contact mic. Thankfully, [The Sound of Machines] has a great primer on how to build one yourself. Check out […]
Using a speaker as a microphone is a trick old enough to have become common knowledge, but how often do you see the hack reversed? As part of a larger project to measure the acoustic power of a subwoofer, [DeepSOIC] needed to characterize the phase shift of a microphone, and to do that, he needed […]
When it comes to microphones, [Roan] has expensive tastes. He fancies the famous Telefunken U-47, but doesn’t quite have the five-figure budget to afford a real one. Thus, he set about getting as close as he possibly could with a build of his own. [Roan] was inspired by [Jim Lill], who is notable for demonstrating […]
Electret capsules can be found in some of the highest quality microphones for studio use, as well as in some of the very cheapest microphone capsules on the market. More care and attention has gone into the high-end capsule and its associated circuitry than the cheap one, but is it still possible to get good […]
Immersive audio is the new hotness in the recording world. Once upon a time, mono was good enough. Then someone realized humans have two ears, and everyone wanted stereo. For most of us, that’s where it stopped, but audio connoisseurs kept going into increasingly baroque surround-sound setups — ending in Immersive Audio, audio that is […]
Humans have long admired the sound of birdsong, but to fully appreciate how technically amazing it is, you need an ultrasonic microphone. [Benn Jordan] recently created a video about using these microphones to analyze a collection of bird calls, even training a starling to repeat an image encoded in sound, and has some recommendations for […]
Most humans with two ears have a pretty good sense of directional hearing. However, you can build equipment to localize audio sources, too. That’s precisely what [Sam], [Ezra], and [Ari] did for their final project for the ECE4760 class at Cornell this past Spring. It’s an audio localizer! The project is a real-time audio localizer […]
There are lots of different types of microphone, with the ribbon microphone being one of the rarer ones. Commercial versions are often prized for their tone and frequency response. You can make your own too, as [Something Physical] demonstrates using a packet of chewing gum. Yes, the ribbon in this microphone was literally gained from […]
Laser microphones have been around since the Cold War. Back in those days, they were a favorite tool of the KGB – allowing spies to listen in on what was being said in a room from a safe distance. This project by [SomethingAbtScience] resurrects that concept with a DIY build that any hacker worth their […]