I tried a small arduino microphone recently:
int sensorPin = A0; // select the input pin for the potentiometer
int ledPin = 13; // select the pin for the LED
int sensorValue = 0; // variable to store the value coming from the sensor
void setup ()
{
pinMode (ledPin, OUTPUT);
Serial.begin (9600);
}
void loop ()
{
sensorValue = analogRead (sensorPin);
digitalWrite (ledPin, HIGH);
delay (sensorValue);
digitalWrite (ledPin, LOW);
delay (sensorValue);
Serial.println (sensorValue, DEC);
}
Output looks like that:
22 20 22 22 22 21 22 22 21 22 22 22 22 22 22 22 21 22 22 21
Well explaination how sound sensors work:



