Suggestions for basic field recording setup

[Dave Largent]

The 4073 has a lot of reach outdoors but tends to
get hollow indoors, which I guess most all
shotguns do.

[Matthew de Jongh]

re: tascam hd-p2

i did a lot of research on this and even downloaded the manual and the salesperson assured me that it would in fact record line level in on the xlr inputs.

i got one and it in fact will NOT record line level on the XLR.

it will only record line level on the rca inputs.

but that aside, it felt like a toy and its design does NOT lend well to working out of a bag. too many of the controls are on the top of the unit where it would be damn hard to get to with it in a bag.

i ended up returning it and got the sound devices 744t.

i have had the 302 and loved it and then i sold it and upgraded to the 442 so i have 4 channels of input to match the 4 channels of recording i have on the 744t.

its a bit pricey but the sennheiser 416 is hard to beat.

good deals can be found on used ones that are in great shape.

i would stick with a 302 and whichever 7 series recorder best fits your needs.

both of these items fetch great prices used if you outgrow them and want to go from say a 302 to a 442 or if you want to go from a 2 channel recorder to a 4 channel recorder.

one advantage of the sound devices is if you have two of them you can get a simple y-cable to let you use one np-1 battery to power both.

the petrol eargonizer 2 bag holds a 302 or 442 and any of the 7 series recorders with a special cut out meant to hold an np-1 battery.

i started out with an me-66 and upgraded to the 416 for shotgun and i currently use the oktava mk-012 from the soundroom.com

the 416 is great for outdoor booming but for indoor booming the oktava works better (in my experience)

i'm thinking of upgrading to the sanken cs-3e but i haven't had a chance to really try out out yet.

the schoeps mics are great but many times more expensive than the oktava mk-012.

for a lavalier i use a pair of the sanken cos-11's

i also use the g2 and g1 sennheiser wireless.

my favorite is to use the sennheiser plug on transmitter it lets you plug into a soundboard if your filming a live show and it also lets you take ANY mike that has an xlr connection and make it wireless.

be advised though that there are two versions of the sennheiser plug on transmitter. the $200 version (skp-100) does NOT have phantom power and the $400 version (skp-500) does.

i can't say enough about how convenient it has been to have the ability to take anything xlr and make it wireless.

its not my first choice but in a pinch you can even make a boom mic wireless, or if you have a plant mic that really needs to be hidden and you can't have xlr cables running from the mic the skp really comes in handy.

i love the sanken cub-01 as a boundary/plant mic.

one other suggestion, i wouldn't use b&h to put together your sound kit.

i would use one of the companies that specializes in just doing sound.

they can really make a big difference helping you put together the right stuff and they can point out things you might have overlooked.

i have been using gothamsound.com and micah there has been super.

other great sound only companies are...

trewaudio.com locationsound.com coffeysound.com

and probably a bunch of other ones i missed but these are the ones i have heard great things about. my experience is almost solely with gotham.

b&h is a great place to buy stuff but if your putting together something like a sound kit i'd definitely recommend using a sound specialist.

matthew

[Berns Ortiz]

Sorry for beign late, mucho work these last weeks.
Matthew, thanks for chiming in. I appreciate a lot that you have taken the time to write down this info fer me.

Regarding the Sennheiser wireless, have u had any bad experiences with them...dropouts etc?

[Matthew de Jongh]

no i have never had a single problem with the sennheisers.

i had the evolution 500 series for a year and a half and then got the g2 as a secondary.

i know a lot of people who use them as well with no problems.

there are certainly more expensive ones but for the money the sennheiser g2 series is hard to beat.

i like the set that comes with both the beltpak transmitter and the plug on transmitter.

matthew

[Clay Spencer]

Originally Posted by Berns Ortiz

Thanks for replying Daniel. Right now I'm leaning over the Audio Techinca 4073a because I'm still under a budget. I did a little more diggin and found a link with very nice comparisons of this mic VS the 416 and it faired well.

Berns,
I'm new here, and to recording, but I will share with you what my ears heard at B&H in a recent audition of several of the mics you have mentioned.

like you, I found that the ME66 was not to my liking. metallic is the way I would describe, although your description also would be apt for what I heard.
I was shocked to hear that this is something of an industry standard, but it seems as if this mic is meant for emphasizing voice, i.e. an 'indoor shotgun', if you will. it definitely has a NON-flat freq response.

the 416 was very, very nice, my favorite of the bunch I auditioned that day.

the AT 4073a also sounded good to my ears, but not as natural and realistic as the 416.
As I recall, I thought the 4073 sounded a bit like a cross between the 416 and the ME66.

the mic I settled on for now, until I can justify the $$$ for an MKH series (416 or other), is the Rode NTG-2. It didn't have the 'reach' of the 416, but it did have a very similar sound, and was overall more natural to my ears than the others I listened to - at least in the B&H sound-isolation booth, on that day.

as an audiophile, I realize that personal taste plays a huge part in what 'sound' is preferred, but, if I had the money I would go straight to an MKH416.

best of luck,
clay


ps, after writing this I goggled the comparisons you mentioned.
the freq response charts that were described seem to bear out
my placement of the 4073 as a cross between 416 and me66 -
the 4073 has a lower bass response that is consistent with the 416,
but has a pronounced 'bump' in the treble, which would correlate
with the similarity I heard between 4073 and ME66. although
those who reported the striking similarities between the 4073
and 416 seemed not to notice this hot high treble of the AT mic.
perhaps it will not bother you, but given your 'reaction' to the
the ME66, you should at least check it out before making a
final decision.

pps, the pronounced high end of the 4073 just might be the
'hot' ticket for use with a Rycote softie or other windshield,
hmmm....

[Pete Tews]

I am using a sennheiser me-66 and a audio technica 4073a. Was going to return the me-66, but I felt it really complemented the 4073. The pair sounds really good together.

-p

[David Ennis]

Originally Posted by Berns Ortiz

...Thank God I just got a hold of an K6/ME66 capsule combo from friend to try out for the evening...To much mid-high bump, and a big lack in bass... Its weird, it seems the mic is not very sensitive as I would have expected..I think sennheiser might have bumped the mids and highs to compensate for the lack of sensitivity in this mic...

The ME66 may have its faults, but lack of sensitivity isn't one of them. It's an extremely popular choice among videographers, particularly nature shooters, precisely because of its senstivity and many people are happy with its overall sound in many situations, so it doesn't suck for everyone. Other people have commented on a tinny character compared to other mics, so I'm not saying you're wrong about the sound. Youve been around and you know what you want to hear and you weren't getting it from the ME66. Based on posted sound clip comparisons I decided several years ago that I didn't want one either.

But back to the sensitivity. At a nominal 50 mV per Pascal of sound pressure, the ME66 is more sensitive than 95% of the mics out there. You seem to be a very comptetent observer, so I'd have to conclude that your friend's specimen is a lemon. And if it's sensitivity is below spec, it's frequency response may be off too.

On the other hand, we may be placing too much emphasis on sensitivity. High sensitivity is a convenience, because it's easier to get high levels during recording and monitoring. And it also implies that the signal to noise (i.e. self-noise of the mic) is higher. But since you can do what you wish with levels in post, and you can very effectively remove mic noise, it stands that there would be no difference in the post production results of a high sensitivity and a low sensitivity mic, provided that their patterns and frequency responses were the same.

All that being said, I return to your original post. If you want excellent and economical coverage of indoor and outdoor situations in a single mic, I'd strongly recommend the AT4053 hypercardioid ($395 at B&H). A hyper is the only correct choice for most indoor situations where high directivity is needed, a shotgun being virtually always the wrong choice. And due to its high directivity, a hyper will work in lieu of a shotgun in many outdoor situations. On a boom in particular, the 4053 will give the same excellent performance indoors or out. the AT4053 has a very respectable sensitivity of 22 mV per Pa.

Want a shotgun too? Consider the AT897 ($250 at B&H). At these prices you can probably afford both. All the pros think highly of the sound of the AT897. I had one a few years ago and liked the sound too, but as a neophyte I returned it because of the sensitivity issue (10 mV per Pa). If I had known then what I know now I would have kept it, and I'll probably correct that error in the near future.

The Rode NT3 hypercardioid ($199 at B&H; bulkier and heftier than the AT4053, but reportedly quite good) and the Rode NTG-2 shotgun ($270 at B&H; more sensitive-- than the AT897) would make for a good indoor/outdoor coverage kit too.

[Dave Largent]

Originally Posted by Fred Retread

The Rode NT3 hypercardioid ($199 at B&H; bulkier and heftier than the AT4053, but reportedly quite good)

I'd like to hear what people are using for a shockmount for
the NT3 for booming.

[Carlos E. Martinez]

The first way to judge a mic for dialogue recording is to compare them and see which sound more natural. By natural I mean closer to how voice really sounds. This may seem obvious but it's not.

This discussion may take weeks or years, as that naturalness is what most mic manufacturers are after... when you solve the directionality issues, which are what we filmmakers have to deal with.

So in the end is a personal choice. That you, Bernardo, will have to make.

The choices mentioned above are quite good, and I would add another one which is flexible and resonably affordable: AKG SE-300/Blue Line. They are real condenser mics, not electret ones like the ME66 kit or most ATs. The AKG shotgun and hyper-cardioid capsules sound great and will cover 99.99 % of your micing situations.

The MKH416 is an industry standard (the ME66 is not, just to correct an above misinformation), so maybe you should judge the others compared to it. But first of all try to see what sound you like best.

Learning to listen is the hardest part in the sound recordist profession, and when you solve that you can usually get good results with almost every microphone. But picking a mic that will do that more easily is much better.

Carlos

[Marco Leavitt]

Just to correct: the Blue Lines are in fact electrets, although the CK93 actually has better s/n than the AT4053, which is a true condenser. Only downside I can see to buying an electret in this case is you'll have to replace it in, oh, 30 years or so. You should have your money's worth by then.

[Chris Hocking]

Dave: I use a shockmount for a large studio condenser and two laps of that "foam stuff" you get with Pelican cases. Works a treat!

[Berns Ortiz]

Wow, I tought this thread was getting behind. Its great that there's people still chiming in. Even better for me.

Yeah, I might have been rude by using the word suck with the m66, not meant to offend anyone by al means, but quite simply I didn't like the sound of that mic. The mic had a very eq'd sound to my ears. You're right that sensitivity specs are really up there than others, wich would explain why this mic's output is hot. However, the detail, I dunno, it wasn't there for my ears. When I tested it, I tried various sources. One thing that clearly came up front was the emphasis on the mid high - highs the mic has. I did a little but very good test while jangling my home keys in front of the mic, and the high end was...well...dunno how to spell it correctly, but harsh, fatiguing. Kind of like when you insert a bad eq shelf and boost the highs a lot. Sort of phasey harsh. I didn't personally found the low mid - lows natural either. It might be that the mic I tried that occasion was flunked, but then, I heard somewhat the same signature on the 416 vs me66 comparison web page, and also on the other site where there's comparisons of the 4073,416 and me66 as well. All these sound clips from the me66 had those hyped mid mid-highs. I guess the me66 might work well at ditance because the bump might be well around 3-5k, and in situations where capturing inteligible dialog as a prioirity without enphasis on natural sound, well, certainly this mic might help on making speech more inteligible at longer distance and of axis. I'm kind of worried at the of axis though. The mic's bump make off axis sounds weird. I guess any shotgun would, but the clue might be wich make off axis content sound smooth, even if were are looking to reject those sounds, wich in practice, might still be dificult even with such pickup.
The 416 also has a sheen on the highs, but it sounds silky, and the lows sounded very very natural to me, more comparable to the sound of a studio mic, wich is what I'm accustomed. The problem is that the price is a little steep for me atm. From the lower priced mics, I found the 4073 somewhere in the middle. I didn't found the high end harsh, and the lows, altough they didn't have the same definition as the 416, they still kept natural sounding, and somewhat better of axis sound than the me66. The rode NTG2 also sounded good, but I like the lows better on the 4073. So I'm leaning for the 4073a for exterior, and the 4053 for interiors. If everything goes right I'll update to the 416 afterwards.

[Carlos E. Martinez]

Originally Posted by Marco Leavitt

Just to correct: the Blue Lines are in fact electrets,

As far as I know they are real condensers.

[K. Forman]

Depending on how far in the field you will be recording, I seriously recommend something like a Korg D12 hard disk recorder/mixer. *If* you have access to power, this gadget is quite handy. From plugging wireless receivers into it, to running lines in from a house board, you'll get good audio recording, and will be able to manually adjust levels later.

If you are literally in a field, and the closest power is a good ways off, you're out of luck. Same goes for intermittant power failures, you'll lose what isn't saved.

[Marco Leavitt]

"As far as I know they are real condensers."

You can download the Blue Line data sheet here:

http://www.akg.com/products/powersla...uage,ENUS.html

It says "all models prepolarized condenser capsules." That's code for electret.