"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
news:znr1087176307k@trad...

In article
writes:

I'm referring to the common gesture for trying if a mic is open: is it a
real bad thing to tap a dynamic mic's capsule? What about a condenser?

No harm if you don't use a very large hammer. It's much better to tap
on a mic than to blow into it, which is the usual stealth approach
when they don't want to say "Is this mic on?" or "Check one two".

Snapping your fingers an inch or two in front of the grille would
seem to be safe for any mic. Produces a nice sharp wavefront
that will attract attention, bounce a VU display or test the reverb,
etc.