Mic DIY – How to Make an Ambisonic Tetrahedral Microphone!
For the most professional-quality stereo/surround sound recording, I guess an ambisonic microphone may be used but costs thousands of dollars. (See Soundfield)
Of course, with some hacking and soldering, you can make your own like Dan did here.
This project involved building the microphone and the preamplifiers, including the B-format matrix and output amplifiers, based on a description by Henry J. Walmsley. I found several websites describing the tetrahedral microphone assembly, including pictures of commercial soundfield microphones (complete with the grandaddy soundfield of them all, the Soundfield™, without its screen).
As for me, I will stick with a cheap shotgun mic, I have no need for surround-sound recording just yet. But this might be great indeed for music studios and recording some awesome nature sounds such as sound of the ocean waves. (see my recent video on the ocean waves here)
For more information on soundfield mics, visit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soundfield_microphone
Note that the cheapest, from Core Sound, is about $1000. This is a lot less than “thousands of dollars”, but a lot more than $9.
For more information on home build soundfield mics, visit:
http://www.ambisonia.com/wiki/index.php/Microphones#Home_made_tetrahedrons
Regards,
Martin