SoundField микрофоны: тарихы, түрлері және қолданылуы

Type of microphone
The Soundfield microphone is an audio microphone composed of four closely spaced subcardioid or cardioid (unidirectional) microphone capsules arranged in a tetrahedron. It was invented by Michael Gerzon and Peter Craven, and is a part of, but not exclusive to, Ambisonics, a surround sound technology. It can function as a mono, stereo or surround sound microphone, optionally including height information.

The Soundfield microphone was invented by Michael Gerzon and Peter Craven. Their theoretical design was developed into a practical microphone system by Calrec Audio Limited, who launched the first Soundfield microphone in 1978. In 1993, the Soundfield microphone part of Calrec was separated out as the company SoundField Limited, who further developed the range of products. Since the original patents relating to the Soundfield microphone expired, other companies have started to manufacture Soundfield microphones. In 2016, the parent company of RØDE Microphones, The Freedman Group, acquired SoundField from then owner TSL Products. As well as keeping the existing range of SoundField microphones and processors in production, RØDE launched a collaboration marque, 'SoundField By RØDE'. The first microphone under the collaboration, the SoundField By RØDE NTSF 1, was released in September 2018.

A Soundfield microphone kit, consisting of the microphone and a signal processor, produces two distinct sets of audio signals called A Format and B Format. The sound processor may be either dedicated hardware, or a computer running software. The software processing may be done in real time during the recording, or later offline.

The first set, the A Format, is produced by the Soundfield microphone itself and consists of the four signals from the microphone capsules. These four signals are not intended to be used without further processing. The A Format is normally transformed into the second set of audio signals, the B Format. This process is described in the two sources listed under Further reading. Depending on the microphone model, this transformation can be performed in either hardware or software.