How do YouTubers record audio when far away from a microphone? Is it that the microphones have a long range or what?
In: Technology
All a microphone does is collect sound information.
So it doesn’t matter how far away a YT is, as long as they speak loud enough for their microphone to pick up their voice.
The trick is using the right kind of microphone for the job.
There are three common types of microphones. Dynamic, condenser and ribbon. Dynamic microphones are great for capturing loud and close sounds while the other types pick up sounds from a farther distance, so they are most likely the ones being used by the youtubers.
So yeah you could say that the microphones they use have a long range.
Depending on how high budget their studio is, they normally have a clip-on mic on their body, or a shotgun mic with the camera/on a boom above their head.
Most professional video productions, including Youtubers, have a microphone (or several) separate from the camera.
They could have a hidden lapel or radio microphone concealed on their person.
There could be someone off-camera with a ‘boom’ (a long stick with a microphone on the end, usually covered with a fluffy ‘wind sock’) or a microphone on a stand. Booms are generally ‘shotgun microphones’ which means that the ‘pick up’ area or the area in front of the microphone where it is most sensitive is is a very narrow area – like the barrel of a shotgun (I know, wouldn’t a ‘shotgun’ microphone mean it spreads across a wide area? Apparently not). These don’t so much have long range as they simply aren’t sensitive to areas and don’t mingle the sound with stuff from top bottom or left or right of a specific narrow area – in effect they pre-filter out extraneous noise.
The ‘boom operator’, usually a dude with strong arms, has to constantly shift the position of the microphone so it is pointed right at the most resonant parts of a person, and it will pick up their voice much clearer than many other types of microphones which will mingle it with everything else.
There’s a few different types of microphone, each one has a specially shaped sound funnel/sound dampener for its intended purpose.
Fun fact: audio is usually recorded at a much higher microphone sensitivity than is needed to make it easier to have it at a high quality after editing.
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