Audio Technology

Recording

Introduction
Frequency response
Polar Patterns
Proximity effect
Cabling and phantom power

Recording environment
Microphone placement
Signal processing and special effects

Introduction
Analog recorders
Digital recorders
DAT recorders
Minidisk recorders
PC card and CD-R recorders
Hard disk recorders

Processing

Improving audio digitization
Digitization workflow

Introduction
Preparing files for analysis and delivery
Digital restoration
LPC in acoustic analysis

Audio Technology / Recording / Microphones / Proximity Effect...

Usually, high-quality speech recordings require the sound source to be fairly close to the microphone’s diaphragm. This may trigger a so-called proximity effect. Proximity effect is the increase in the low-frequency sensitivity of a microphone when the sound source is close to it. This is particularly true of cardioid, directional microphones. To counter that, most high-end directional microphones use a low-frequency roll-off filter to restore the response to its flat, natural balance. Some microphones have a user-selectable switch to control the filter. The proximity effect may be responsible for speech spectra showing emphasis in the low-frequency range, around the first and second harmonics.

Audio Technology
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Last updated: 2002