Freesound Forums

Hi,
which are the most important things to consider by buying a microphone?
I want to record some foleys for my new project.
thanks
Jeje

The most important thing to consider is if the microphone you're buying will be used for more than one specific use-case. Different types of microphone have their advantages and disadvantages.

For foley I recommend a unidirectional microphone in order to get a focused capture of the subject. Preferably a shotgun or condenser microphone with either a narrow polar pickup pattern as standard or an optional setting. Shotgun microphones are good for this but are less appropriate for indoor recordings because of the handling of reflections, but if the recording scenario is either dampened with furnishings i.e. carpet or properly acoustic treated then this won't be a problem. An industry standard foley microphone, and what I personally use is the Sennheiser MKH 416 (expensive though understandably).

For a person who is just getting started with their own foley recordings, it won't matter too much as long as you know what you are doing and can properly place a microphone when recording. That's if you are not recording foley for commercial productions, so in theory you could use any good quality microphone with a low signal-to-noise ratio and it will do the job until you want to invest in a more qualitative microphone.

Some useful resources:

• http://www.wikihow.com/Choose-a-Vocal-Microphone
• http://thehub.musiciansfriend.com/audio-recording-buying-guides/buying-guide-microphones
• http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1995_articles/jun95/microphones.html
• http://www.mediacollege.com/audio/microphones/choosing.html

Hope this helps