Women on Mic was founded by Heather Welch from justheathers.com
Heather’s journey with audio began when she was very young. Her dad was an amateur ham radio operator. She watched and listened to him set up his antenna array, amplifiers and expanders, bounce signals off the moon and talk to people from all over the world. It was like the microphone offered a magical gateway that opened up the opportunity for distant connections that may not have otherwise been possible.
As she grew up, playing musical instruments and singing in choir and as part of a band gave her the experience of microphones as a tool to help capture and share music.
Then in 2017, with an idea to launch a podcast she began her first real foray into researching which microphone may best suit her budget (which was very limited) and her spoken word use case (podcasting). She quickly discovered the Podcastage YouTube channel hosted by Bandrew Scott and she was able to determine that the Samson Q2U would be the ideal starting microphone because it had USB capability for direct plug and play use as soon as it arrived, with the XLR connection option for the future. Heather has been a part of the Podcastage community ever since.
Though she joked about starting her own collection of microphones, that’s not a feasible option.
Also her voice is only one. She is often prone to sibilance and mouth clicks, and softly spoken with a New Zealand accent.
But the key thing she learned from Bandrew is that succinct and descriptive is the key to what makes his audio gear reviews useful.
Audio gear (specifically microphones), making connections and shining a light on what others create are what Heather is extremely passionate about, and there are lots of awesome women creating content online, and using microphones to help capture their voices.
While there are great resources out there on audio gear & reviews, a lot of them are hosted by men.
It’s hard to find raw (unprocessed) audio samples of women’s voices on various microphones.
If you Google ‘women on mic’ you’ll find many stock image websites for pictures of women and microphones….
You may find the link to Girls on the Mic which is an awesome project by the Women’s Audio Mission organisation.
In 2021 after seeing/hearing more and more comments like “Oh it’s a shame there aren’t any audio/there’s a lack of samples by women” Heather decided to create a repository of raw audio samples of women’s voices on different microphones: The Women on Mic Project.
The project aims to help other women hear how microphones sound on other women’s voices, to fill the resource void with succinct raw audio samples from women to help educate others on the types of signal chains (set-ups) and use cases for these microphones, as well as highlight the women who participate with a direct link to the content they create.
One of the key things about this project is that each person will have a different recording setup and space that they are recording in.
So Heather created a template for the recording to help make the samples consistent in terms of their format, to provide enough of an audio recording (not too long or too short) to hear how the microphone sounds and to specify in the recording what the set up is so that information can be considered for the context whilst listening.
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If you would like to provide an audio sample, please use this form to do so: https://forms.gle/UHR5nsmztC6J7VT38
Please share the form with other women and encourage them to lend their voice!
Please note:
– Only one form entry and link to a recording, per microphone used.
So if you have more than one microphone, you can complete the form multiple times, each time with a different microphone.
Information provided on the form is for the purpose of creating an audio repository of raw audio samples with due credit to the women who provide them so that others may listen to these samples to help inform their microphone decisions.
The Privacy Policy and Terms of Service of the Women on Mic Project are available here and in the Intake Form above.
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You’ll be able to listen to the audio samples on the Women on Mic YouTube Channel.
To connect on social media:
FB: https://www.facebook.com/WomenonMic
IG: https://www.instagram.com/womenonmic/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/WomenOnMic
YouTube