Coil Pickup iPhone and Printer Recordings
We recently tried using a phone coil pickup on various bits of equipment. Coil pickups works by recieving and amplifying electro-magnetic fields which are generated by the circuitry inside electronic equipment whilst they are in use. This can lead to some interesting results, as we found when we used it on a printer/scanner and one of our iPhones!
We’ve got a recording of each, plus a few pics of the mics setup on the appliances.
This recording is the coil pickup mic used on the iPhone:
This recording is the coil pickup mic used on the printer/scanner:
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Are these audible sounds or electromagnetic waves caught by the mic?
The mic is picking up the electromagnetic fields generated by the equipment. If these sounds were audible, having a conversation on an iPhone would presumably be quite problematic 🙂