WHEN SHOULD YOU USE A PICK UP MIC?

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Howdy SEA Fans, like every other Tuesday this week also we came up with a new blog post on tips related to Sound Engineering.

This week we are grateful to Sanu our faculty who has provided tips for the week and today we are discussing about Pickup Mic.

Have you heard about or used the pickup mic?

For professional sound engineers there is no need of an introduction about the microphone.

They are well aware that it is used effectively picking up the sound waves from acoustic and stringed instruments like Violin, Mandolin, Guitar, Veena, Harmonium and in percussion instruments like Ghatam.

Discussion about this topic came during Veena recital by Sounder Raj on the first day of SEA Navrathri Music Band Festival.

On the same day during the performance these microphones has been leveraged to pickup the sound produced by musical instruments Veena and Ghatam.

The pickup mic used for the performance was AKG C411 and its integrated condenser capsule has helped in reproducing the sound of the instruments clearly and with considerably less ambient noise.

When talked in detail about the pickup microphones with Sanu, he has pointed out these tips when using Pickup Microphones in a live sound reinforcement setup

The main benefits behind using this microphone is get more direct sound, it can usually be a more convenient, which is less troublesome and it is a better way to amplify the instrument.

  • Pickup Microphones will help in getting more gain compared to dynamic microphones.
  • Do not use pickup microphones alone during a live musical performance, the sound has to be captured along with a regular microphone to provide a quality output. Even though it is a complex task it would be a really nice solution to pair both mic AND a pickup, and blending them.
  • Artists love to hear back the sound picked up by these miniature microphones via their stage monitors as the sound is quite precise and it will definitely help them for a better performance.
  • Inorder to avoid audio feedback during a live show it is better to send the sound which is being captured by these pickup mics to the stage monitors.

The picup microphone which we have used for the performance, the AKG C411 has got condenser transducer in sealed enclosure for clear and uncolored sound and it is ultra light vibration pickup does not change the balance of the instrument.

Even though it is being rarely used by sound engineers and still most of them are using regular microphones for picking up sound from the above mentioned instruments, new age sound engineers are using the same and professional sound engineers are recommending this microphone for quality sound pickup.

As a sound engineer have you ever used this microphone during any musical performance?

If you have used the same or not, do share what you know about the pickup mic as a comment below and it will help others to learn more about this microphone.

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