Jambot – Robotic Microphone System for A Speaker Cabinet

• Jason Dephillips
• Vincent Russo
• Ramon Martinez
• Andrew Geraghty

When recording instruments, the sound recorded by a microphone has a large dependence on the microphone’s position. Very slight adjustments to the microphone can create a substantial differences to audio profiles. The current methods for microphone positioning require manual adjustment to the microphone position by a sound engineer until the desired sound properties are captured. This is a lengthy process with low repeatability. Therefore, the designed product aims to allow for remote microphone repositioning and provide high repeatability by fixing a robotic microphone carrier directly to the cabinet. For this application, a guitar cabinet was designed that would house the robotic components and facilitate a modular speaker. Various design decisions were considered and the final design, was chosen to maximize sound quality. This robotic microphone positioning system allows for the microphone to be positioned along the three cartesian axes as well as a tilt and pan axis. Various motion components, and guide systems were considered, and the final selection was chosen based on various metrics. Along with microphone positioning system, this project also attempts to tackle another problem present in recording studios: the vast amount of cabinets on site. This was solved by integrating a toolless, hot-swappable speaker into the design. This design features simple toggle clamps that keep the speaker secured while keeping the device toolless. Introducing a toolless swap feature, along with a remote-controlled microphone, could save audio engineers multiple hours a day. In addition, these features save recording artists valuable studio time and allow a more streamlined recording process.