Contact Mic: A sample seeker's secret

If you already know about the contact mic, you are probably aware how powerful it is as a tool for finding interestingly textured samples. If you don't know what a contact mic is, read on.

A contact mic is simply a very small microphone you place or tape to something that produces inaudible or nearly inaudible sounds and records them. Any time you tap something, it produces a vibration and a contact mic can pic it up and amplify it for your use.

The great thing about contact mics, aside from being cheap and readily available, is that the textures you get with them can sound very exotic or alien. If you are looking for mechanical sounds you can often get them without having to find heavy machinery to mic. Another advantage is that you won't have as much white noise as you would by mic-ing something in someone's workshop.

Some Ideas for contact mic-ing:

• Modem
  
• Refridgerator & other household appliances
  
• Water dripping into a bowl
  
• Anything while flipping switches or pressing buttons.
  
• Creaky chair or door
  

Bottom line is experiment with everything. Sometimes you will find a wicked texture or one shot sound from a source you couldn't even hear. Using these sounds gives your work a much more unique flavor than buying a bunch of samples.

Had any interesting results? Leave a comment about it!