Category Archives: Contact microphone

Contact microphone Water

Metal bowl with water and more

This is yet another test of my homemade contact microphone. I used the same metal bowl I did in this post. This time I tapped the bowl with my fingers, filled it with water and rolled objects around in it, among other things.

The homemade contact mic seems to be making more and more noise. Time to invest in a properly made mic, I think..

Equipment: Homemade contact microphone -> SD744T

Contact microphone

Metal bowl and handheld massager


I have been thinking about buying a contact microphone for a while. I’ve seen plenty of blog posts where contact mics are used for recording interesting sounds. Buying a professionally made contact mic is not at the top of my shopping list at the moment, so I made my own using this tutorial as a starting point. I used an XLR connector instead of the 1/4″ jack mentioned in the tutorial.

I have a metal salad bowl that I’ve been meaning to record forever. It became the first subject of my contact mic test recordings. I placed the mic on the outer side of the bowl and put a small, battery powered handheld massager in the bowl. The massager vibrated and rotated slowly in the bowl, sounding louder whenever one of the legs passed the mic. When the original recording is slowed down, it kind of sounds like heavy machinery at work at a distant construction site.

Equipment: Homemade contact microphone -> SD744T