What Is An Ambient Microphone? Best Microphone for Ambient Sound
An ambient microphone is a type of microphone that is designed to pick up sound from all directions. This type of microphone is often used in recording studios and live concerts.
This makes them ideal for use in situations where you want to capture the ambient sound of a room or space. Ambient microphones can be used for a variety of purposes, including recording audio for video, capturing sound effects, and more.
In this article we w’ll discuss what is an ambient microphone? and What are the benefits of using an ambient microphone in detail.
Let’s get started:
So what is an ambient microphone? Ambient microphones are microphones that are designed to capture ambient sound in an environment such as a room or outdoor setting. They are often used for recording environmental audio for movies, TV shows, and video games.
Ambient microphones are different from traditional studio microphones, which are designed to capture sound from a specific source, such as a person speaking into the microphone. Ambient microphones are designed to capture the ambient sound of a room or environment, which can provide a more natural sound when used for recording.
Characteristics Of An Ambient Microphone?
- Omnidirectional polar pattern
- High-sensitivity
- Low self-noise
- Flat frequency response
Omnidirectional Polar Pattern
Omnidirectional polar pattern of Ambient mic enable it to capture sound from surrounding and thats why it is more sensitive than directional ambient microphone.
High-Sensitivity
The sensitivity rating of a microphone refers to how much output it will produce while the volume levels are maintained at a constant volume at a given sound pressure level.
Typically, the sensitivity is given in mV/Pa 104 dB as a measurement in sound pressure level (SPL) to the mic diaphragm.
Ambient microphones generally perform better than internal mics, because they have enough amplifier gain, or gain control, to get the microphone signal to line level in a mixing console or digital audio workstation. Generally, the easiest way to achieve a good level of ambient sensitivity is to use a more sensitive microphone.
Low Self-Noise
Passive microphones can be used over active microphones, even though passive microphones can have slightly better sound. Digital microphones have a lower noise level than active mics, but are typically looked down upon. Gain adds a slight amount of noise to the mic signal, and passive mics need to be preamp with more gain than active mics to achieve similar volume.
However, selecting a mic with a lower self-noise rating gives us a strong mic signal with a good signal-to-noise ratio.
Flat Frequency Response
The flat frequency response of the ambient microphone means that it is equally sensitive to all sounds, making it a natural sounding microphone.
This makes it a great choice for applications where you want to capture the natural sound of your surroundings.
What Is Ambient Miking?
An Ambient mic is a mic that is placed in a room that is not a ‘live’ mic. Most people think of a mic like this as being a shotgun mic, but a shotgun mic is placed on a boom near the ceiling, and the sound is bounced off the ceiling, bouncing down on the stage, and bouncing off the floor.
What I’m going to show you is the exact opposite of that, and the mic is placed in the middle of the room, and it’s left there throughout the entire event. That mic is usually a shotgun mic, and most of the time it’s used to record the music. So when you look at this, all the sound is bouncing around in the room. Some of it is bouncing off the ceiling, some is bouncing off the walls, and some is bouncing off the floor.
For placement, I recommend putting a mic on each side of the stage, pointed towards the congregation.
Place the mics a few feet behind your main speakers.
This does a good job rejecting direct sound from your main speakers and gives you a good stereo mix of the room.
When it comes to height, you can put them on stands at about ear level of those on the stage.
This works best if you want your ambient mics to also double for your musicians in-ear monitors, which I recommend. A two for one is always a good deal!
You can also hang them from the ceiling. You’ll just have to find the right balance between sound and aesthetics.
Experimenting with different placements is the best way to figure that out.
Setup on Your Mixer
Now connect them to your mixer and link them together as a stereo pair.
If you are unable to link them, simply pan one to the left and the other to the right in your live stream mix.
Next, set the gain for these mics while the full band is playing and the room is full of sound. You set gain the same way for these as you do any other mic.
Keep in mind, if you are using condenser mics, you’ll need to activate 48V phantom power.
Finally add a low cut filter at about 300Hz because trust me, you don’t want the ambient low frequencies as part of your live stream mix. They make it sound like a big jumbled mess. And that’s it. Your ambient mics are now set up and ready to go.
Conclusion
To conclude, an ambient microphone is a microphone that is designed to pick up sounds from the environment. This can be useful for things like monitoring a baby’s room or recording a conversation in a noisy place. However, there are some potential drawbacks to using an ambient microphone. For example, ambient microphones can also pick up sounds from nearby conversations or TVs, which may not be what you want to record.
However, it is best microphone for capturing natural sound of your surroundings. We hoped this article helped you to choose ambient mic. For further inquiry, please reach us at hello@micforyou.com.
Leave feedback about this