Microphone Review – Alesis USB Mic

Seeing as how I’m recording hypnosis .mp3 files, having a good microphone is important. The only issue is, I value my mobility, and my primary computer, like many Americans these days, is a laptop. In making the switch to a laptop, I gave up a lot of things, like the plethora of inputs and a good soundcard that having pci or pci-e slots can offer.

To top it all off, ever since I had my motherboard replaced last year (Hooray for extended warranties with in-home service) my sound jacks have both been very noisy.

Where does that leave someone looking to get good sound quality?

I was faced with two options. One is to buy either an external sound card or mixer that hooks into my laptop via USB. The other is to skip the middle man and buy a USB microphone.

Given that I don’t need the finest control or quality, and I’m buying from a value perspective, I went with a USB microphone. This allows me a much easier set up if I’m recording a session elsewhere, and at a price range of $50-$150 is much cheaper than buying a USB-XLR interface or some other mixer box.

If you’re wondering what kind of benefit you’ll see over using a cheap headset or desktop mic, you’ll probably be quite impressed after some fiddling with levels and microphone positioning. I bought an Alesis USB mic - a condenser microphone with a cardioid pickup pattern.

The condenser part means that it is essentially a big capacitor, and vibrations strike one of the capacitor’s plates, the change in distance changes the capacitance of the system, which is measured to create a signal. This is different from a dynamic microphone, which relies on a diaphragm moving within a magnetic field to create an electric current (The opposite of a speaker). Typically, a condenser microphone will give a better reproduction than a dynamic mic. Many of the small microphones in electronics are electret mics, a special kind of condenser, but on average their sound quality usually suffers (due to size and expense) in comparison to a larger mic.

The cardioid pattern means that it picks up sound best when it comes from in front of one side of the microphone. This allows some leeway in background noise.

If you need the best quality sound reproduction, there are much better options with correspondingly higher costs, but for quality that is just ‘okay’ I don’t think you’ll go wrong with the Alesis USB microphone. It retails in the US for $99.

Session Length

I see a lot of hypnotists bragging online, especially on YouTube, about how fast they are. Many of them are simply using the same instant induction techniques used by most every hypnotist; some are just showing videos of using what is essentially a re-induction trigger. Regardless, there seems to be a concept that faster is better.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, I’ve noticed that my sessions tend to run short compared to many. Maybe I’m incredibly lucky in that all my usual subjects are quick to enter trance, or maybe I’m just rushing through things. Maybe it’s because other hypnotist think that a longer session is necessary to achieve results, or to make people feel like it’s worth the price. With an in-person therapy session, a one-hour length is probably the minimum necessary to account for talks on both sides and any potential slip in scheduling, but how many people have an hour or more to listen to a recording, especially on a daily basis?

It’s a common question subjects pose, though: how long will it take to hypnotize me, and how long will it take to see results.

The answer, like most things in hypnosis, is “It depends.”

There are a lot of factors that go into how long it takes to hypnotize someone: experience in being hypnotized, what the goals of the session are, and how eager the subject is all play a role, among others. In the same way, how long a session must last – and how many sessions, depend on a lot of the same factors.

Personally, I prefer to have shorter sessions, and more of them. While a single long session can give more time to bring ‘deeper’ trances, depth isn’t always the important thing. I think that in many cases, a quick 20 minute session, held often with content shifting slowly with time, can bring more effective change.

Closing Your Eyes

It might be a bit low class of me, but I’m a big fan of having the subject close their eyes at the beginning of an induction.

Many people out there will say that it’s not necessary, and that’s entirely true. In fact, when hypnotizing a person face to face, having them keep their eyes open allows you to see their eyes, and pay attention to the focus of their eyes and the characteristics of their blinking.

Much of my hypnosis these days, however, is not face-to-face. When I write scripts for iHypnoU.com, I have to create a script for a session where I never see the person. It’s one of the hardest things in hypnosis.

A hypnotist’s best tool for putting someone under is his or her ability to change the session to fit the subject. It’s often said that only a certain percentage of the population can be hypnotized. I think that’s crap. The better way of putting it is that a given induction will only work for a certain percentage of the population. So generating a .mp3 that works for the biggest percentage of people possible is quite a tall order.

With an .mp3, I don’t have the subject focusing on a video, so rather than have them stare at a spot on the wall or something, it is much more effective to have them close their eyes and focus inward on a visualization that I give them. Some people would have no problem with being hypnotized without ever closing their eyes or having a visual focus, and would go under with their eyes open staring off into nothing. For anyone visually oriented, however, a lack of a focus is a major dealbreaker.

So I tend to start my .mp3s with having their subject close their eyes. It may be stereotypical and a little campy, but it’s effective.

Phobias

When people think of hypnosis in relation to phobias, most people would think of using trance to get over the irrational, debilitating fear. When I think of phobias and hypnosis, though, another thing also comes to mind.

Imagery.

One of the most important parts of hypnosis is imagery – it’s one of the most used and useful tools in a hypnotist’s arsenal, but it can harm as much as help the trance process.
One of the important things to cover with a subject in a pre-hypnosis talk is to ask them about fears and phobias that they have. If the goal of the hypnosis session is to alleviate some of these irrational fears, then some are apparent. Otherwise, though, a hypnotist might not think about what their subject is deathly afraid of, and that can be dangerous for the rapport and trust that the hypnotist is working so hard to build.

Imagine someone has just completed an induction, and proceeds into a staircase deepener. Rich imagery helps this deepener greatly, and often the staircase is described as a spiral staircase.
Fun fact: I once cried for 10 minutes at a tower in Casa Loma when my parents tried to drag me up a spiral staircase. Now, I was probably five years old at the time, but the point is that you don’t always know what will push people out of their comfort zone, and when you’re running a hypnotic induction, you’re definitely want your subject nice and comfy.

This goes for people looking to be hypnotized as well. Especially if you’ve had problems in a previous experience, make sure you let your hypnotist know about phobias or fears like claustrophobia before you start.

Full disclosure of phobias can make a hypnotic trance more enjoyable for both the subject and the hypnotist.