Artists like Merzbow have made entire decadespanning careers on foundations as humble
as the contact microphone, and instruments
don’t get much more lowly than this one.
However, when layered and processed, they
can be a powerful accompaniment to any
studio setup.
A contact microphone contains only two
ingredients: one piezoelectric buzzer and
one guitar cable. Piezoelectric buzzers are
sold at Radio Shack and the like for extremely
cheap—as low as a dollar. And I’m sure that
almost every musician has a huge blue tub of
cables at the practice spot.
Slice one end off the guitar cable and strip
away about an inch of the insulation, exposing
the shield (outer) wire and hot (inner) wire.
Then, use a Dremel or cutting tool to slowly
chip away at the black plastic coating on
the buzzer. The buzzer itself is almost like a
box of Cracker Jacks or eating a Dungeness
crab—nobody cares about the shell—the
real prize is the disc-like element inside. This
small disc is the actual microphone, and it’s
a little bigger than a quarter. Solder the hot
wire of the guitar cable to the red terminal
on the element and likewise, the shield of
the cable to the black terminal. Wrap each
exposed lead in electrical tape, and then
wrap both leads together. Congratulations,
that’s a microphone that can be taped to
anything, snaked down into an echo chamber
or whatever else. It’s an invaluable tool to
have and a building block of texture work.
ToneReport.com
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