Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with mics

What headset/microphone do they use for TED talks?

jlstitt — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 06:21:46 -0800

What mic do they use for the TED talks? Hey guys! I'm trying to track down the mic/receiver setup they use for TED talks (www.ted.com) ... It's an earpiece and it gives pretty amazing quality during their talks.

Incidentally, it's a cool site for speeches.

Lav Mics for the Outdoor Stage?

grabbingsand — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 08:59:59 -0800

Lav Mics. What about 'em? We encourage our actors to cheat out, to be confident in their lines and to project. And yet, there are times when they need just a little more help being heard. So, here is a follow-up to a question I asked two years ago ... now that we've a little experience, if we decided to add lav mics to our audio arsenal, is there are make and model that you would recommend for theatre? For outdoor theatre? For outdoor theatre in a climate that can shift from nary a drop to downpour in under a minute?

Gigging equipment

long haired lover from liverpool — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 02:29:48 -0800

What PA equipment does a four-piece band need to gig? Suppose a four piece band (bass, drums, rhythm guitar, lead guitar) are gigging in local pubs/venues/weddings. Beyond their instruments, what equipment will they need? Amps? Mics? Mic stands? Will they use a mixing desk or just use their own amps?

Help me make music for MuFi

snsranch — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 19:08:38 -0800

Can you help me be a better home recording engineer? I've posted some things to MuFi which were pretty fun, but are technically suck-tronic. I've been making music for about 20 years, but have never recorded my work in any serious way and don't really know what I'm doing.

1. The Rig: A Shure SM58 to a Eurotrack MX802A mixer to MAGIX audio studio 2005 DeLuxe. I also use a Korg workcenter and various amps and guitars.

2. What's really killing me is mixing the vocals. Guitars and banjo with or without amps seem fine but when I try to lay the vocal tracks it just sucks.

I know there is no easy answer to this, but perhaps (even though I've searched alot) an online totorial or something might be helpful. I know there are some gurus out there, I've heard you on MuFi! Thanks in advance.

recording spoken audio

Evangeline — Wed, 13 Jul 2005 08:31:33 -0800

My not-for-profit theatre company (run by me and grumblebee) wants to start producing audio dramas and releasing them as podcasts (and maybe on CDs). We have a limited budget (under $1000). What recording equipment should we buy for good quality sound? We've been looking at The Marantz PMD 660, which got a fairly good review at Transom.org, but what mics should we get for it? Or should we go with something else besides the Marantz? Do we need a preamp? People keep making all sorts of suggestions, and each person's suggestions are totally different from each other person's suggestions. I guess that's to be expected.

But we're so overwealmed with suggestions that we don't even know where to start. We DO want nice quality, but we don't want to spend five years picking between two mics that sound almost the same to anyone except sound technicians. We'd LOVE someone to just pick out a "kit" for us, and say "buy this" so that we can get started.

We already have a laptop with a soundcard. And we have Adobe Audition. So we're fine with computer equipment and software. We just need good recording equipment.

We will be recording 5 - 8 actors who will sometimes be speaking at once. Should we get an omni-mic? Which one? Or a bunch of lapel mics? Help!