#GoRadio 13: The $1 Hydrophone Trick
Another water-themed prompt from Jeff Emtman:
Perhaps the title here is misleading. If you're paying $1 for a condom, you're getting grifted. I read a scientific article years ago called "how many condoms can you wear at once?" The article's results were inconclusive, as they ran out of supplies before they were able to max out. The science was not in vain as the scholars came away with two important findings. First, condoms are extremely resilient, very stretchy and surprisingly tough. And second, in a follow up article about the sourcing of the 1000 condoms used in the study, they described their methods for not going broke in the pursuit of science. They demonstrated exactly how ripped off consumers get in the "family planning" aisle of CVS. But sourced in bulk, from companies like CondomDepot.com, name brand condoms can often be had for ten cents a pop.
Apologies for the extended preamble, but I just didn't think that the title of "The somewhere between ten cent and one dollar hydrophone trick" had quite the same ring to it.
Regardless...
1. Unwrap a latex condom. Any kind will do, though if you have unlubricated condoms, you can skip step 2.
2. Gently rinse the lube off. Be thorough.
3. Dry the condom with a cloth or paper towels. Again, be thorough. Do not use a hair dryer.
4. Stretch the condom over a microphone with its cable attached. Pull it relatively taught, but be gentle.
5. Use a rubber band to secure the base of the condom in place, preferably on the cord.
You now have a hydrophone that will give surprisingly good results. My co-producer and I have used this technique on multiple episodes of Here Be Monsters--we've dipped our mics into a bathtub and multiple rivers. We've never had the condom fail, though please don't hold me accountable if yours does. I can't offer any opinions on whether double-bagging would be a good idea here as I've not tried that.
Now go record some underwater sounds. Any underwater sounds. They all sound great.
Jeff Emtman makes KCRW's Here Be Monsters, a podcast that contains that secret superfood that doctors don't want you to know about.