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Re: Shotgun microphone

Subject: Re: Shotgun microphone
From: Syd Curtis <>
Date: Sat, 05 Apr 2003 22:00:46 +1000
Yet again it is a matter of much satisfaction to be a subscriber to
naturerecordists and able to read the discussion on parabolas and their
operation for low frequency/long wave-length sounds.

>From the depths of my technical ignorance, then: if one attempts to record =
a
specific source of a low frequency sound and the recording level on the
recorder goes up when on focus as distinct from off-focus, then either the
mic is highly directional or the parabola is, and if the parabola is, then
it must be amplifying that low frequency sound.

Record the low frequency sound with the one mic, with and without the
parabola, and compare the recordings.  Surely that is all that is necessary=
?
Any difference must be due to the parabola?

I have long known that sound results from some sort of vibration that
alternately increases and decreases the pressure on the surrounding medium
and that if that is air, then the air molecules move back and forth and in
doing so 'bump' other molecules thus transmitting the pressure variations
away from the source.

What I cannot understand, is how, when this gets to the receiver, be it a
mic., or my ear-drum, the one lot of molecules can simultaneously deliver
quite distinct sounds from different sources and keep them distinct.

Syd





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