Collaborate Disseminate
[Eric Strebel] wanted a microphone to record voiceovers, and being a designer, wanted something suitably impressive for the task. Inspired by the classic Unidyne 55, he set about designing his own mic, and used some pretty fancy techniques to get it built.
The mic was built around a ribbon element, …read more
The tin can phone is a staple of longitudinal wave demonstrations wherein a human voice vibrates the bottom of a soup can, and compression waves travel along a string to reproduce the speaker in another can at the other end. All the parts in this electrical demonstration are different, but …read more
Imagine being asked to provide sound reinforcement for a meeting that occurs in a large room, where anyone can be the speaker, and in a situation where microphones would hinder the flow of the meeting. Throw in a couple of attendees who have hearing disabilities, and you’ve got quite a …read more
Continue reading Wire Loop And Amplifier Solve Audio Problem For The Hearing Impaired
It is easy to cobble together projects these days. ICs make it simple and microcontrollers even easier. However, we always respect a project that really goes from concept to finished product and that’s what we liked about [Curt Yengst’s] “THAT” Thing microphone preamp.
In part 1 of his post about …read more
The team behind [8 Bits and a Byte] have built a talking toaster. More accurately, they retrofitted their existing toaster with some hardware components to make it appear to talk and get angry at its users. While the actual toaster functionality isn’t necessary for the build, it certainly allows the …read more
A team of cybersecurity researchers has discovered a clever technique to remotely inject inaudible and invisible commands into voice-controlled devices — all just by shining a laser at the targeted device instead of using spoken words.
Dubbed ‘Light C… Continue reading Hackers Can Silently Control Your Google Home, Alexa, Siri With Laser Light
Security experts found that the devices – manufactured in China, and rebadged by multiple companies around the world – are vulnerable to a simple hack that could allow a hacker to track their location, and even secretly listen in via the mi… Continue reading Spying on personal alarms and GPS trackers is as simple as sending an SMS
Any studio operator worth their Protools subscription will have a wide array of microphones to cover any conceivable situation. SM57s to cover guitar cabs, fancy gilded ribbon mics for vocal takes, and a variety of condensers to round out the selection. That’s all well and good for high-fidelity recording, but …read more
Any studio operator worth their Protools subscription will have a wide array of microphones to cover any conceivable situation. SM57s to cover guitar cabs, fancy gilded ribbon mics for vocal takes, and a variety of condensers to round out the selection. That’s all well and good for high-fidelity recording, but …read more
A biographer of Frank Sinatra once commented that for singers like Sinatra, their instrument is the microphone. We tend to think of microphones as ideal transducers, picking up sound faithfully. But like most electronic components, microphones are imperfect. They have a varying frequency response. They pick up popping noises when we say words like “popcorn” that are normally lost to someone listening live.
[Cheddar] has an interesting video (see below) that covers how performers like Sinatra, Bing Crosby, and Billie Holiday learned to use the microphone to their advantage. They suggest that the microphone changed the way humans sing, and …read more