Microphone

We’ve all been annoyed by someone taking a loud call in a quiet room, and now a Japanese tech company has unveiled a creative, if somewhat bizarre, solution. The Mutalk is a Bluetooth mouthpiece that “mutes” users who speak into it.

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have presented some remarkable audio from a new optical microphone system that uses cameras to see and reconstruct sonic vibrations. Remarkably, it can cleanly separate a single instrument playing in a group.

DJI has announced its first dedicated audio recording system. The DJI Mic clip-on transmitter mics and wireless receiver setup is reckoned ideal for "shooting a vlog, interviews or any kind of content creation that requires high-quality audio."

Better audio is one of the best improvements you can make to your video setup, be it for streaming, podcasting or just video meetings. The MDrill one is a versatile US$80 condenser microphone that can instantly bump up your sound quality.

Although TV professionals commonly use wireless microphones when shooting on location, decent-quality units are generally too pricey for use by regular folks using smartphones. The creators of the Hooke Lav mic, however, have set out to change that.

Many blues players use both hands to cup a harmonica around a microphone, creating a chamber around the instrument to keep out unwanted sounds from band members, improve tone and amplify the volume. The Dyna-Mic cups the harmonica to the microphone for you, so you can go hands-on or hands-free.

Sennheiser's high-tech headset puts microphones as well as earbuds in both your ears to produce incredibly immersive binaural 3D audio effects that really put a listener in the room with you. It also lets you dial the outside world up and down as you please with noise cancellation.

The human voice is a powerful instrument in itself, but Vlad Kreimer is looking to transform vocal sounds into synthesized soundscapes with the help of the Pipe, a mouth-controlled effects processor and synthesizer that turns the voice into a digital beat machine or rocking lead synth.

Video conference calls have become a regular occurrence in offices, but squeezing everybody into frame can be a challenge. To make sure everyone in a tight space can be seen and heard, Logitech has announced MeetUp, a 4K webcam with a wide-angle lens and microphones tuned for small-space acoustics.

​Repeating golden placement of studio microphones between recording sessions can be a bit of an imprecise pain. The UK's Aston Microphones believes it can help with the Starlight, a pencil microphone with an integrated laser pointer.

IK Multimedia's new iRig Acoustic Stage package marries a pick-shaped MEMS microphone with a battery-powered box rocking a preamp and digital signal processing to make any acoustic guitar sound just like it would if it was captured in a traditional recording studio.

Recording vocals and then replaying them in a loop to sing over the top of can involve a complicated mix of hardware and software, and some technical know-how to bring them seamlessly together. The Loopa is billed as the world's first microphone that puts loop and overdub controls on the mic itself.