Microphone types and characteristics:

Dynamic Microphone:(Research from Media College)

Dynamic microphones are versatile and ideal for general-purpose use. They use a simple design with few moving parts. They are relatively sturdy and resilient to rough handling. They are also better suited to handling high volume levels, such as from certain musical instruments or amplifiers. They have no internal amplifier and do not require batteries or external power.

Capacitor Microphone:(Research from Sound on Sound)

Capacitor microphones are able to respond to very high audio frequencies, and they are usually much more sensitive than their dynamic counterparts. In other words, they require less amplification than dynamic models to produce the same output level from the same signal source, making them

more suitable for quieter or distant sound sources. The reason capacitor microphones have such a good frequency response is that their diaphragms can be made much thinner and lighter than those of dynamic models, as they don't have to drag the mass of a voice coil along with them.

Electric Condenser Microphone: (Research from Media College)

The electret condenser microphone uses a special type of capacitor which has a permanent voltage built in during manufacture. This is somewhat like a permanent magnet, in that it doesn't require any external power for operation. However good electret condenser microphones usually include a pre-amplifier which does still require power.

Carbon Microphone:

The carbon microphone, also known as carbon button microphone, button microphone, or carbon transmitter, is a transducer that converts sound to an electrical signal. It consists of two metal plates separated by granules of carbon. One plate is very thin and faces outward, acting as a diaphragm.

Crystal Hand-Held Microphone: (Research from hyper physics)

Crystals which demonstrate the piezoelectric effect produce voltages when they are deformed. The crystal microphone uses a thin strip of piezoelectric material attached to a diaphragm. The two sides of the crystal acquire opposite charges when the crystal is deflected by the diaphragm. The charges are proportional to the amount of deformation and disappear when the stress on the crystal disappears.

Rifle Microphone: (Research from B&H)

A shotgun or Rifle Microphone is a long, cylindrical microphone that excels at picking up sounds in front of it, while rejecting sounds to the sides and rear. Shotguns are designed to have a narrower focus than an average microphone. Shotgun microphones do a great job of picking up the frequencies the human voice produces. Their sound grabbing and voice-capturing abilities make them a great choice for picking up on-camera dialog.

Boom Microphone: (Research from the dictionary)

A pole carrying an overhead microphone projected over a film or tv set

Radio Microphones:(Research from the dictionary)

A microphone incorporating a radio transmitter so that the user can move around freely.

Pre-recorded sources:

DVD: (Research from webpedia)

Short for digital versatile disc or digital video disc, a type of optical disk technology similar to the CD-ROM. A DVD holds a minimum of 4.7GB of data, enough for a full-length movie. DVDs are commonly used as a medium for digital representation of movies and other multimedia presentations that combine sound with graphics.

CD: (Research from tech terms)

Stands for "Compact Disc." CDs are circular discs that are 4.75 in (12 cm) in diameter. The CD standard was proposed by Sony and Philips in 1980 and the technology was introduced to the U.S. market in 1983. CDs can hold up to 700 MB of data or 80 minutes of audio. The data on a CD is stored as small notches on the disc and is read by a laser from an optical drive. The drives translate the notches (which represent 1's and 0's) into usable data.

Hard Disc:(Research from webopedia)

A magnetic disk on which you can store computer data. The term hard is used to distinguish it from a soft, or floppy, disk. Hard disks hold more data and are faster than floppy disks. A hard disk, for example, can store anywhere from 10 to more than 100 gigabytes, whereas most floppies have a maximum storage capacity of 1.4 megabytes.

MiniDisc™(Research from PC mag)

A compact digital audio disc from Sony that comes in read-only and rewritable versions. Introduced in late 1993, the MiniDisc has been most popular in Japan. The read-only 2.5" disc stores 140MB compared to 650MB on a CD, but holds the same 74 minutes worth of music due to Sony's Adaptive Transform Acoustic Coding (ATRAC) compression scheme, which eliminates inaudible signals. MD discs store disc and track titles displayed by the player. Used for music recording, rewritable MiniDiscs employ magneto-optic technology and come in 60 and 74-minute cartridges. The MiniDisc drive for computers (MD DATA) never caught on.