Headphones as microphone?

[John Link]

I have plugged my headphones and my powered Moonsoon speakers into a Y connector that I plugged into the headphone output of my Edirol UA-3. The headphones now act as a sort of microphone (If I tap on them I hear the sound through my speakers). This works even if I disconnect the Y connector from the UA-3.

Can anybody explain what's going on?

John

[MichaelL]

The speakers are acting as a microphone diaphragm and converting the sound into an electrical signal. You should try using a woofer as a large diaphragm mic to capture ultra lows....a well known trick by now for kick drum and bass cabs.

[John Link]

Thanks for the explanation, Michael.

When things like this surpise me I realize that my ideas about electricity aren't quite correct. I think of the headphone output as the source of a signal and the headphones and the powered speakers as an outlet for that signal. I think of the Y connector as _splitting the signal (it's called a "splitter", right?), but my recent observation shows that the Y connector is a _connector, in this case connecting the speakers, headphone, and UA-3.

John

[crowdog]

Another useful trick with headphones is to use them as a contact mic for acoustic instruments without electronics like guitars or upright basses. Just put the ear-pieces over the instrument body, plug it into the input jack of a tuner and voila! You can quickly and accurately tune to the rest of your track.

Tony

[studiojimi]

sometimes i use the headphones as a mic for tuning stand up bass or acoustic guitar

just straddle it on the body and plug it in a tuner

VERYVERY accurate

[Barnabas]

I was doing a live show years ago and the alignment pin fell out of the mass connector on my snake which allowed the snake connector to be hooked up backwards. I was running a CD to test the system and its sound was coming out of one of the mics on stage, not the speakers. It was freaky for a while until we realized that the mass connector needed to be flipped around.

A speaker and a dynamic mic are basically contructed the same way, just different sizes.