There’s a bewildering choice of microphone types available and it can be hard to know which type of microphone to choose, let alone which make and model within that type.
I grabbed one of each of my microphones and performed a simultaneous microphone test on various test sounds. Maybe this unscientific video test will even be useful to someone!
| Microphone | Type | Pickup pattern |
|---|---|---|
| Behringer B-1 | Large diaphragm condenser | Cardioid |
| Behringer C-2 | Small diaphragm condenser | Cardioid |
| Behringer B-5 (cardioid capsule) | Small diaphragm condenser | Cardioid |
| Behringer B-5 (omni capsule) | Small diaphragm condenser | Omnidirectional |
| Behringer XM1800S | Dynamic | Cardioid |
| Eagle G148 | Dynamic | Cardioid |
| ProSound YU37 | Dynamic | Cardioid |
| StudioSpares S955 | Condenser | Cardioid |
I tried to think of a variety of different sounds to test the frequency response of each microphone.
- Clicking fingers
- Speech
- Tambour
- High percussion e.g. sleigh bells
- Recorder
The main problem with my experiment is that each microphone receives sound from the source at a different angle. Each sound source broadcasts different sounds in each direction, so it isn’t a fully fair test, but I’ve tried to get the microphones as close together as possible. The alternative was to make each sound multiple times, once in front of each microphone. This isn’t a fair test either, as it’s impossible to make exactly the same sound twice.
It was a fun experiment but I don’t think the results are very useful. In this test, all of the microphones sound very similar. This is definitely not true and the difference would be clear if I was recording a choir in a church or even an acoustic guitar or something like that. All of my test sounds were quite quiet since I don’t have the ability to do proper musical testing at home, but at least it was an interesting concept.
Jonathan Gazeley 