Applications
Headphone Use:
To use headphones, simply plug in your 3.5mm headphone cable into the left
3.5mm connector. Adjust the gain controls to obtain a suitable volume. Mono
signals will be heard in both ears. Point the microphone in the direction you want
to hear, and enjoy hearing much better than you could unaided. A parabolic
microphone is very directional, so you must accurately point the microphone at
the subject you wish to hear. If you have the Mono-Stereo model, you can
increase the stereo gain to give you better awareness of where sounds are coming
from. You may use the headphones at the same time you are using any other
outputs. Note, if the gain is turned up too high, you may hear a loud ringing. This
is called feedback. Feedback occurs when the microphones pick up sound from
the headphones and starts an oscillation. To prevent feedback, reduce the gain,
move further away and behind the dish, or use headphones with greater isolation
(larger ear cups). The headphone volume is limited to protect your ears from
damage. It is recommended not to listen to loud sounds for long periods of time.
Recording with Line Level:
The internal amplifiers are very low noise and will add no audible noise to the
already exceptionally low noise Wildtronics Parabolic Microphones. Using the
3.5mm line level output with low cost, hand-held recorders will dramatically
improve the recorders signal to noise ratio, often resulting in performance
comparable to that of recorders costing over $1000. The main weakness of low
cost recorders is high microphone input noise. This is because low noise parts are
expensive and they wouldn't fit into the design budget of a low cost recorder.
Using our line level output and selecting line input on your recorder, eliminates
this weakness. Turn the gain controls on your recorder all the way down, and use
the gain control on your Wildtronics microphone to adjust the level for best
results. If your recorder features limiters or automatic gain control, turn those
features off if you can. Those features can be handy in certain situations, but they
will cause distortion and other undesired effects. It is better to adjust your levels
so that the loudest sound recorded will not clip. If you are recording with the
purpose of submitting sounds to an accredited sound library, they will almost
always require recordings made without limiters or automatic gain control. With
a 24 bit recorder, you can record with your average signal level at -20 to -30dB.
Post processing, with computer audio editors, can normalize the audio to an
optimal level.
A very useful and popular recording technique is to record two mono signals, one
on the left channel and one on the right channel at different gain levels to insure
one unclipped recording. Wildtronics Parabolic Microphones have the mono
signal on both the right and left channel of the 3.5mm stereo connector. To use
this technique, set up your recorder to unlink the gain level between channels, set
one channel 20db less than the other, and you can easily use this valuable 4
