sE Electronics Magneto - Manual (Page 2)

Microphonel Manual
SE Electronics Microphone Manual
Thank you for purchasing this SE Electronics microphone, which was hand built in one of the most
advanced microphone manufacturing facilities in China. Designed by a team of extremely experienced
engineers and verified by extensive listening tests, each model utilises gold sputtered, ultra-light mylar
diaphragms in an advanced capsule design. Your microphone was constructed using the finest quality
Japanese electronic components and extensively tested to provide you with years of trouble-free
operation. Every SE Electronics microphone comes with an individual frequency response plot.
SE Electronics tube microphones use traditional, high voltage tube circuitry to ensure the true vintage
tube sound. This is in contrast to many cost saving tube designs where the tube is run at a very low
operating voltage so as to introduce deliberate distortion which their designers hope to pass off as
warmth. Whereas most vintage mic tubes are hard to find and extremely expensive, the SE Electronics
range uses commonly available high performance tubes that are specially selected and matched for low
noise operation. (Applicable to tubes mics only.)
Specifications
Specifications for all of our microphones can be found at: www.seelectronics.com
Pickup Patterns
There are two basic microphone directional patterns, omnidirectional, which picks up sound equally from
all directions, and figure-of-eight, which picks up from both the front and rear of the microphone but
not from the sides. Combining these two basic patterns creates a cardioid or directional response, which
simply means the microphone is most sensitive in one particular direction. By varying the way in which
the omnidirectional and figure-of-eight patterns are combined, varying widths of cardioid pattern can be
created.
Cardioid
Cardioid pattern microphones are popular for general-purpose recording as they can be directed
at the wanted sound source while offering a measure of rejection to sounds approaching the
microphone from the rear, and to a lesser extent, the sides. This is the polar pattern of the
USB2200a.
Where several musicians are playing together, this reduces the amount of crosstalk between the
microphones. Cardioid pattern microphones also pick up less of the ‘room sound’, which results
in a clearer, less ‘coloured’ recording. Note that cardioid microphones belong to the category of
‘pressure gradient’ microphone as their output signal depends on the differences in air pressure
between the front and rear of the capsule.
All pressure gradient microphones exhibit some degree of proximity effect, which simply means
that there is a significant rise in their bass response if they are used very close to the sound source.
This can be countered by using the low-cut switch on the microphone or microphone preamplifier.
Variations on the cardioid theme range from wide cardioid to hypercardioid.
Hypercardioid has a narrower pickup pattern than the normal cardioid response but is more
sensitive to sounds coming directly from the rear.