From the course: Microphone Techniques: Essentials

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Pads and attenuators

Pads and attenuators

From the course: Microphone Techniques: Essentials

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Pads and attenuators

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- [Instructor] The condenser capsule is very sensitive, as is the electronic circuit that amplifies the capsule level signal to mic level. When miking loud sources, especially loud sources with strong transients, the signal can easily overdrive the mics internal circuitry. Because of this, most condenser mics include a built-in pad that typically decreases the internal level by 10 or 20 dB. It's extremely important that these pads be used in loud applications because distortion that happens in the mic can't be metered on the console or recording device. It's very likely that the signal level will look perfect at the recorder, but that the sound has already been permanently distorted inside the mic. If you're hearing some distortion in the sound, but the levels look acceptable, apply the pad. If the mic has two pad levels, such as minus 10 and minus 20, try minus 10 first. There's no need to overpad the mic because that can result in an unacceptable increase of noise, but if there's…

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