what is your preferred indoor non-lav dialogue mic-cheap-reasonable-wish list?

[Rob Katz]

what is your preferred indoor non-lav dialogue mic-cheap-reasonable-wish list?

i'm thinking about adding to my mic collection.

i do a far amount of indoor, talking head interviews.

i employ a lav on channel one (tram 50/sony ecm 77)

i employ on channel 2 a akg blueline ck93/hypercardioid or a rode ntg2.

most often i pump the two channels thru the non-d version of the sound devices mixpre.

occasionally, i go straight into camera and these days that is the sony fs100.

so, those in the know, care to offer up your choice for a non-lav indoor dialogue mic?

if so, a cheap-ish choice, a mid-priced choice and a wish-list choice would be helpful.

thanks in advance to those who care to play along.

be well.

rob
smalltalk productions
nyc

[Henry Kenyon]

Most popular lectern mic I've seen is the Shure SM57.
Indestructible, good proximity for bg noise rejection, no power required, sounds good and is cheap.
You can also clip an omnidirectional lav onto the existing lectern mic (underneath to be out of view).

[Stephen Brenner]

You might consider the rode nt3. It can run on battery for phantom power and is very sensitive and omnidirectional, so it will catch two people in a dialogue without moving it. It's a big, heavy mic so it may
not be the best used on a boom. I'm not referring to the rode ntg3 which I also have.

[Stephen Brenner]

Rob,

How does the mixpre work with your ck93 from about 6ft or 12 ft away?
I find that most of my mics are too weak when used with my beachtek.
They work much better with an audio technica preamp that I have but
it's only good for studio work.

[Paul R Johnson]

There really isn't much point in microphone wish lists, because no matter what you buy, you immediately have a new one on your next wish list. Back in the seventies I had an SM57 as my wish list mic. I still use them today, but almost every project is different, so mic my collection really doesn't have a 'favourite' - just 'most suitable' for the job in hand. I have a nice Beyer 201 hyper but rarely is it ever attached to a video camera - ever. Despite hypers being touted as indoor 'musts' rather than shotguns. I have two AKG 416s, but often use an older AT815 because it has just a bit more reach. I've got a wonderful sounding fig-8 ribbon that I really wanted very badly, and then didn't find as useful as I thought. I'd be quite happy using a 57 if it was all I had laying around. I don't own any Rode mics any longer and although they were great, they didn't get used much because I had other similar sounding ones.

Very very rarely do I find a mic forced on me that sounds bad. In most bad audio situations it was the use that was wrong - not the mic.

[Gary Nattrass]

I have loads of microphones but tend to use one most of the time the AT 875R sorry but it is an absolute bargain and so useful in video sound recording, I now have five of them. A good friend just gave me all his old sound kit but most of it will be going to e- bay Inc two 451' s a Beyer 201 and a sennheiser 816in full rycote blimp.

I also have two SQN mixers but prefer my twelco' s so they will go too as I tend to stick to my tried and tested sound kit which is mainly budget but very usuable where a lot of pro kit can be over engineered for modern videography.

[Ty Ford]

1. Schoeps CMC641

2. Audio Technica AT4053b

3. Audix SCX-1HC

Regards,

Ty Ford

[Richard Crowley]

Originally Posted by Stephen Brenner

How does the mixpre work with your ck93 from about 6ft or 12 ft away?

The Electrovoice 643 was the only microphone that had a decent chance of capturing normal dialog at that extreme distance. Of course, the microphone itself was almost 7 feet long.
Electro-Voice Model 643

http://javierzumer.com/wp-content/up...odel_6431.jpeg

[Rob Katz]

Originally Posted by Stephen Brenner

Rob,

How does the mixpre work with your ck93 from about 6ft or 12 ft away?
I find that most of my mics are too weak when used with my beachtek.
They work much better with an audio technica preamp that I have but
it's only good for studio work.

stephen-

the mixpre is a wonderful tool which i find usually only helps when introduced into the audio chain.

the ck93 is highly touted and does what i ask it to do.

it's sound is neutral, uncolored. as a boomed mic it is easy to work with.

since i use the ck93 indoors doing talking head interviews, i am rarely 6' feet away from the source and never 12' away.


ty-

i have read good reports of the at4053b.

anyone fans out there want to share?

and i know nothing about the audix scx-1hc. i'll need to start a websearch.


i put up the original query because, i believe-real or imagined-my main interview mic can/should be offering me "more".

"more" what i don't know.

but that doesn't mean i'm not willing to ask and look.

ymmv

be well.

rob
smalltalk productions
nyc

[Steve House]

Originally Posted by Stephen Brenner

Rob,

How does the mixpre work with your ck93 from about 6ft or 12 ft away?
I find that most of my mics are too weak when used with my beachtek.
They work much better with an audio technica preamp that I have but
it's only good for studio work.

Your basic problem is not that the mic's are "weak," it's that you're trying to use them much farther away from the subject than is optimum. Remember that doubling the distance reduces the volume of the desired sound hitting the mic by a factor of 4. You're going from more than 3 times the design working distance up to more than 6 times the preferred distance. That means the desired sound is from 9 to 36 time weaker than it should be. When it's that weak it's not much louder than the surrounding ambient noise. When you try to compensate by adding a preamp and gain you increase the level of the noise right in lock-step with the desired voice and all you do is make an already unacceptably noisy signal louder. For optimum results with normal spoken dialog, a hyper should be about 20 inches (or even less) from the source.