Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Microphone |
MicrophoneNoun1. Device for converting sound waves into electrical energy. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "microphone" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1880. (references) |
Etymology: Microphone \Mi"cro*phone\, noun. [Micro- Greek expression sound, voice: compare to the French expression microphone.]. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Aerospace | An electroacoustic transducer which receives an acoustic signal and delivers a corresponding electric signal. (references) |
Electrical Engineering | The electroacoustical transducer by which electrical signals are obtained from acoustical oscillations ; the electro-acoustic transducer operating from an acoustical system to an electrical system. Source: European Union. (references) |
Post & Telecom | A transducer which converts sound waves into electric signals. Source: European Union. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
A microphone is a device that converts sound into an electrical signal. Microphones are used in many applications such as telephones, tape recorders, hearing aids and in radio and television broadcasting.The invention of a practical microphone was crucial to the early development of the telephone system. Emile Berliner invented the first microphone on March 4, 1877, but the first useful microphone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell. Many early developments in microphone design took place in Bell Laboratories.
In all microphones, sound waves are translated into mechanical vibrations in a thin, flexible diaphragm. These vibrations are then converted by various methods into an electrical signal.
Omnidirectional Bi-directional Cardioid Hypercardioid Shotgun Depending on various aspects of a microphone's construction, it may be nearly equally sensitive to sound coming in all directions (an omnidirectional microphone), or it may be more sensitive to sound coming from a particular direction (a unidirectional microphone). The most common of the unidirectional type is sometimes called a cardioid microphone, because the sensitivity pattern somewhat resembles the shape of a heart; most vocal mikes are cardioid or hyper-cardioid (similar to cardioid but with a tighter area of front sensitivity and a tiny lobe of rear sensitivity.)
Some microphones have more complex sensitivity patterns. Most ribbon microphones are bi-directional, receiving sound from both in front and back of the element. This type of response is also known as a figure-8 pattern, because of its shape. Shotgun microphones, the most directional form of studio microphone, reserve most of their sensitivity for sounds directly in front of, and to a lesser extent, the rear of the microphone. Shotgun microphones also have small lobes of sensitivity to the left and right. This effect is a result of the microphone design, which generally involves placing the element inside of a tube with slots cut along the side; wave-cancellation eliminates most of the off-axis noise.
A parabolic microphone uses a parabolic reflector to collect and focus sound waves onto a microphone receiver, in much the same way that a parabolic antenna (e.g. satellite dish) does with radio waves. Typical uses of this microphone, which has unusually focused front sensitivity and can pick up sounds from many meters away, include nature recording, eavesdropping, law enforcement, and even espionage. Parabolic microphones are not typically used for standard recording applications, because they tend to have poor low-frequency response as a side effect of their design.
Microphone techniques
There exist a number of well-developed microphone techniques used for miking musical, film, or voice sources. Choice of technique depends on a number of factors, including:
- The collection of extraneous noise. This can be a concern, especially in amplified performances, where audio feedback can be a significant problem. Alternatively, it can be a desired outcome, in situations where ambient noise is useful (hall reverberation, audience reaction.)
- Choice of a signal type: Mono, stereo or multi-channel.
- Type of sound-source: Acoustic instruments produce a very different sound than electric instruments, which are again different from the human voice.
- Processing: If the signal is destined to be heavily processed, or "mixed down", a different type of input may be required.
Basic techniques
There are several classes of microphone placement for recording and amplification.
- In close miking, a directional microphone is placed relatively close to an instrument or sound-source. This serves to eliminate extraneous noise-- including room reverberation-- and is commonly used when attempting to record a number of separate instruments while keeping the signals separate, or when in order to avoid feedback in an amplified performance.
- In ambient or distant miking, a sensitive microphone or microphone is placed at some distance from the sound source. The goal of this technique is to get a broader, natural mix of the sound source or sources, along with reverberation from the room or hall.
Stereo techniques
There are two essential components that the human ear uses to place objects in a stereo sound-field. These are stereo intensity, the relative loudness of sounds entering either ear, and interaural time-delay, the slight difference in arrival time at both ears. Additionally, the folds of the pinnae also provide frequency-filtering that can help to place a signal in a 360-degree field of hearing.
- The X-Y technique involves the coincident or close placement of two microphones, which may be either directional or omnidirectional. When two directional microphones are placed coincidentally, typically at a 90+ degree angle to each other (typically with each microphone pointing to a side of the sound-stage), a stereo effect is achieved simply through intensity differences of the sound entering each microphone. Variants of this technique exist that incorporate inter-aural time delay by placing the microphones several inches apart. The ORTF technique calls for a pair of cardioid microphones placed 7 inches apart at an angle of 110 degrees.
- The Mid-Side (M-S) technique uses a directional microphone (M) and a bidirectional (figure-8) microphone (S), placed at a 90 degree angle to each other with the directional microphone facing the sound-stage. The outputs of these microphones are mixed in such a way as to generate sum and difference signals between the outputs. The S signal is added to the M for one channel, and is subtracted (by reversing phase and adding) to generate the other channel. M-S has two advantages: when the stereo signal is combined into mono, the signal from the S microphone cancels out entirely, leaving only the mono recording from the directional M microphone; additionally, M-S recordings can be "remixed" after recording to alter or even remove the stereo spread.
- Binaural recording is a highly specific attempt to recreate the conditions of human hearing, reproducing the full three-dimensional sound-field. Most binaural recordings use model of a human head, with microphones placed where the ear canal would be. A sound source is then recorded with all of the stereo and spatial cues produced by the head and human pinnae. Binaural recording is usually only somewhat successful, in addition to being highly inconvenient. For one thing, it tends to work well only when played back directly into the ear canal, via headphones, as other methods of playback add additional spatial cues. Furthermore, as all heads and pinnae are different, a recording from one "pair of ears" will not always sound correct to another person. Finally, as visual cues are generally much more powerful than auditory cues when determining the source of a sound, binaural recordings are not always convincing to listeners.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Microphone."
| The following table is compiled from various sources, across various languages. When English abbreviations or acronyms come from a non-English source, this is noted. | |||
| Entry | Source | Expression | Field |
| MIC | English | Microphone | Telecom |
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |||
Synonym: MicrophoneSynonym: mike (n). (additional references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | First you trade the Cadillac for a microphone. Then you lie to me about the band (The Blues Brothers; writing credit: Dan Aykroyd ; John Landis) That's my microphone! (The New Guy; writing credit: David Kendall) And the microphone, as we all know, was invented by a man by the name of Charles D. Microphone (NewsRadio; writing credit: Scott Bank; Jenny Banks) | |
Lyrics | 'Cause I am bad, yeah the microphone wiz (Get Ready For This; performing artist: 2 Unlimited) WITH MY MICROPHONE (Big Mess; performing artist: Devo) And then the man steps right up to the microphone (Sultans Of Swing; performing artist: Dire Straits) Gimme the microphone first, so I can bust like a bubble (Nuthin But A "G" Thang; performing artist: Dr. Dre) Cause I'm an idiot, a loser, microphone abuser (Take A Look Around; performing artist: Limp Bizkit) | |
Clever | You are an engineer if the microphone or visual aids at a meeting don't work, and you rush up to the front to fix it. (references; author: unknown) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
References | |||
Books |
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Music |
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High Tech |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | The sound of the dog's heartbeats is picked up by a microphone stuck to his fur ... / WHO p. Credit: National Library of Medicine; photo by Spooner.. |  | Specialist (Y) 2nd Class Janna Hoffman (with microphone) and Specialist (Y) Helen Lu Dooley (with telephone) handle control tower duties, circa 1944-45. The Specialist (Y) rating represented the occupation of Control Tower Operator. Credit: NAVY. |
 | Is christened by Mrs. James H. Doolittle, during launching ceremonies at the Norfolk Navy Yard, Virginia, 24 February 1944. Rear Admiral Felix X. Gygax, the Navy Yard Commandant, is in the foreground, holding a microphone close to the sponsor's champagne bottle as it smashes into the new carrier's bow. Credit: NAVY. |  | Composite of two photographs of Ezra Stone at CBS microphone. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Benjamin J. Davis, half-length portrait, facing right, standing at microphone, speaking at Negro Freedom Rally, Madison Square Garden, New York City. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Mitchell Field. Eagle ready for battle. An American pursuit pilot in combat gear climbs into his plane. His flying equipment includes a combined oxygen mask and throat-type microphone, headphones, parachute and Mae West life jacket. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Portrait photographs. Woman at CBS/WJS microphone. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Capitol Radio Engineering Institute. Microphone and radio equipment at Capitol Radio Engineering Institute. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Sunny Side Boys, two youngsters, one of whom is on his back playing the fiddle, with an older man playing guitar. Bascom Lamar Lunsford is probably the man to the right of the picture holding a microphone above the fiddler. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Robert La Follette, three-quarter length, facing front, standing at microphone, with clenched fists. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
 |  |
| "Microphone" by Rogerio Cunha Commentary: "Unisal radio studio." | "Microphone 2" by Hayanto H Commentary: "-" |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. | |
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | The headpiece includes a microphone and a transmitter. (references) | |
Echocardiogram In an echocardiogram, the doctor uses sound waves to map the structure of the heart by placing a slim device that looks like a microphone on the patient's chest. (references) | ||
The external monitor uses transducers secured to the mother's abdomen by an elastic belt. One transducer records the baby's heart rate by a sensitive microphone called a doppler. (references) | ||
Business | It is predicted that in the near future multimedia computers with sound cards, headphones, a microphone and the corresponding software will replace telephones for voice connections. (references) | |
Economic History | China | The production equipment include: Camera/camcorder, video tape, cable, monitoring system, non-linear editing systems, 3D animation software, VCD production system, audio console, audio gathering recorders, editors, tripods, projectors, caption generators, non-liner video workstations, MPEG compression systems, touch screens, microphone, recording systems, editing consoles, adapters, wireless communication systems, animation workstations, teltext production & playout systems, AV distant transmission, lighting, audio amplifier speakers, amplifier, digital video effect, Monitor, SGI workstations, special AV cards, audio workstations and lighting consoles. (references) |
Travel | Australia | Before you arrive in Australia, you are advised to check if your communications equipment (for example, mobile phone, fax machine, wireless microphone, notebook computer) is safe to operate in Australia. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| Speaker | Phrase(s) |
Celine Dion | I'm trying to. Every time I get back into my emotion and I'm trying to bring as much emotion as possible into the microphone and for the people to receive it. I do my best every time to get into it. We're like actors, singers are like actors. |
Dennis Miller | I enjoy the drama of a toppled podium and the sound of microphone feedback as much as the next guy. |
Rod Steiger | Awards are great until your first picture don't make money. You're the biggest man in the world for the time it takes to go from the microphone into the press box. If next picture don't make money, you know, that's it. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| "Microphone" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 95.77% of the time. "Microphone" is used about 684 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 95.77% | 655 | 9,994 |
| Lexical Verb (base form) | 2.92% | 20 | 78,262 |
| Lexical Verb (infinitive) | 1.02% | 7 | 133,076 |
| Noun (proper) | 0.15% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Noun (common) | 0.15% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 684 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "microphone": astatic microphone ♦ boom microphone ♦ capacitor microphone ♦ chest microphone ♦ condenser microphone ♦ crystal microphone ♦ directional microphone ♦ lapel microphone ♦ lavalier microphone ♦ lavaliere microphone ♦ microphone boom ♦ midget microphone ♦ neck microphone ♦ omnidirectional microphone ♦ radio microphone. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "microphone": microphone-level. | |
Ending with "microphone": gun-microphone, mouth-microphone, radio-microphone, stick-microphone. | |
Containing "microphone": transmitter-cum-microphone-cum-hologram. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "microphone"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | mikrofon (Mike). (various references) | |
Arabic | ميكروفون (boom, mike), مذياع (mike, radio, radio set). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | микрофон (transmitter). (various references) | |
Chinese | 话筒 (mike), 擴音器 (megaphone). (various references) | |
Czech | mikrofon (Mike, mouthpiece). (various references) | |
Danish | mikrofon (mike, position and sound detector, vibration). (various references) | |
Dutch | microfoon (mike). (various references) | |
Esperanto | mikrofono. (various references) | |
Farsi | میکروفن , بلندگو (Loudspeaker, Megaphone), بابلندگوصحبت کردن . (various references) | |
Finnish | mikrofoni (mike), microfoni (mouthpiece). (various references) | |
French | microphone (mike). (various references) | |
Frisian | mikrofoan. (various references) | |
German | Mikrophon (Mike, transmitter), Mikrofon (micro), Mikro (micro, Mike). (various references) | |
Greek | μικρόφωνο (blower, mike). (various references) | |
Hebrew | מיקרופון (boom). (various references) | |
Hungarian | mikrofon (hydrophone, Mike, sound pick-up). (various references) | |
Indonesian | mikropon (mike), corong (funnel, mine shaft, quill, shaft). (various references) | |
Irish | micreafón. (various references) | |
Italian | microfono (Mike). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | マイクロアンペア計 (ME, micro floppy, micro-ampere meter, microbus, microcapsule, microcard, microchip, microcomputer, microcopy, microelectronics, microfiche, microfilm, micrometer, micromicro, micromouse, microphone location, microprocessor, microprogram, microreader, microscope, microsecond, microstate, microsurgery, micro-systems, microvolt, microwave, MPU). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | マイクロフォン . (various references) | |
Korean | 마이크 (mike). (various references) | |
Papiamen | mikrofon. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | icrophonemay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | microfone (mike). (various references) | |
Romanian | microfon (transmitter). (various references) | |
Russian | микрофон. (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | mikrofon (mike). (various references) | |
Spanish | micrófono (mike, mouthpiece). (various references) | |
Swedish | mikrofon (mike, pickup). (various references) | |
Turkish | mikrofon (Mike). (various references) | |
Turkmen | mikrofon (r). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | мікрофон (transmitter). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Greek | 700 BCE-300 CE | mikros. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "microphone": microphones. (additional references) | |
| |
"Microphone" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: dicophane, macrophone, metraphone, microfine, microphoned, miraphone, nyclopone. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "microphone" (pronounced mī"krufō'n) |
| 4 | -u f ō' n | allophone, megaphone, saxophone, sousaphone, telephone, xylophone. |
| 3 | -f ō' n | earphone, headphone, videophone. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "c-e-h-i-m-n-o-o-p-r" | |
-2 letters: hormonic, morphine, neomorph, pecorino, phonemic, prochein. | |
-3 letters: chomper, chopine, chorine, chorion, compone, hencoop, hormone, incomer, ionomer, meropic, moocher, moonier, moorhen, moronic, morphic, morphin, nephric, omicron, phocine, phonier, phrenic, pincher, porcine, porcino, promine. | |
-4 letters: ceriph, chimer, chopin, chrome, chromo, cipher, coheir, coiner, cooper, copier, crepon, enrich, ephori, heroic, heroin, homier, hooper, impone, income, menhir. | |
| Words containing the letters "c-e-h-i-m-n-o-o-p-r" | |
+1 letter: endomorphic, microphones, morphogenic. | |
+3 letters: chemisorption, chromoprotein, comprehension, monomorphemic, morphogenetic. | |
+4 letters: actinomorphies, anthropometric, chemisorptions, chemoreception, chlorpromazine, chromoproteins, comprehensions, enantiomorphic, gerontomorphic. | |
+5 letters: chemoreceptions, chloramphenicol, chlorpromazines, incomprehension, morphophonemics, nonmetaphorical, pharmacognosies. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Photo Album 8. Images: Digital Art | 9. Quotations: Non-fiction 10. Quotations: Spoken 11. Usage Frequency 12. Expressions | 13. Expressions: Internet 14. Translations: Modern 15. Translations: Ancient 16. Abbreviations | 17. Acronyms 18. Derivations 19. Rhymes 20. Anagrams | 21. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
