mic for school orchestra concerts

[Stephen Sobel]

I have a Canon GL2 camcorder. I'm looking for a mic to use primarily for middle school (and later high school) orchestra concerts.

I'm considering the Sennheiser ME66 and ME67. Any advice as to which would be better?

Also, is it better to get the K6 battery/phantom power supply, or the K6P phantom-only power supply?

To attach either of these mics to the GL2, do I need an XLR cable? What about the Sennheiser Shotgun Camera Mount - do I need that as well?

[Alex Knappenberger]

For them mics, do you need XLR's? Yes...however, the GL2 doesn't come with XLR inputs on it, so you either have to get a beachtek adapter, or a Canon one -- made for the GL2.

However, for stuff like this, I can only recommend that you want more then a single mic. I would personally get a few cheaper mics, and position them around, and maybe some lavs on some instruments -- etc...and a live feed from the PA mixer, into your mixer (which you would want to have if you have multiple mics).

[Stephen Sobel]

I understand some folk do a lot more elaborate setup with mics, but I not there (at least not yet). For the time being I'm going with one mic, attached to my camcorder. Given that, I'd like some advice/feedback on my ME66 and ME67 question, as well as the K6 versus K6P question.

Alex mentioned getting either a beachtek adapter or a Canon one. Is one better than the other in terms of quality? Is this item in addition to the camera mount?

[Ken Tanaka]

Stephen,
I've never attempted to record an orchestral performance so you'll have to take my remarks with that caveat.

But, if I were to do so, I would not use either the ME-66 or ME-67 (both of which I own). These are both cardiod shotgun mics with narrow fields, especially the 67 which has a very narrow field. These are appropriate when you want to reject off-axis sound, which is not the situation here.

If you're going to try this with one mic, and the mic needs to be remote from your camera, I would consider using a stereo mic such as the Audio-Technica AT822, located fairly centrally (left-to-right) in front of the orchestra. You'll get a wider, more balanced sound field and even be able to preserve some of the spacial properties of the performance.

Good luck and let us know how it comes out.

[Matt Stahley]

Stephen
i own an AT 822 stereo mic and ive recorded several concerts ranging from quiet jazz to ear bleeding metal and can say that ive had very excellent results.The mic is usually placed in the middle and towards the back of the room . not sure how big the concert hall is you are recording at but you should get a decent sound as long as your in the proximity of the miidle.this will help balance out the stereo effect.ive never hooked the mic to my cam but always recorded to MD and i am very pleased with the results.hooking one of these mics up to the camera should yield similar results as long as the recording level is properly adjusted.

[Stephen Sobel]

To clarify, I'm interested in a mic that is attached to my GL2. Also, I set up my tripod in the back of the auditorium, and shoot over the audience. I am not hooking into any stage mics or other sound system.

Given that, what is the best mic between the following:

Audio-Technica AT822;
Audio-Technica AT825;
Sennheiser ME-66;
Sennheiser ME-67;
Sennheiser MKE-300;
Canon DM-50?

[Ken Tanaka]

Given the description of your set-up plans, I'm not sure an external mic will be of that much benefit. No matter what mic you buy, you're going to get audience sounds and orchestral sounds bouncing off of every surface. The loudest sound will probably be the applause at the end of each number. You might as well just use the onboard.

[Stephen Sobel]

So, there's not much I can do between the onboard mic and taking the plunge for some sort of external mic arrangement? I'm not ready for that yet. Oh well!

[Alex Dunn]

What these guys are saying is if you are not going to do multiple mics, you're not going to improve your sound quality over your onboard so why bother. Believe it or not, the mics you're looking at are so "directional" that if you point one of them at the center you may only hear the center of the orchestra, rather than the whole orchestra.

For GOOD sound, you would want a minimum of two shorter shot guns (like maybe the M64) with good wind screens and a mixer (like the Behringer field mixer). Anything less would be little improvement over your on board system.

[Stephen Sobel]

Thanks to everyone for the feedback. This helps.

I am also interested in a mic for hiking jaunts. Does anyone have any recomendations as to mics for use in the great outdoors? Again, I'm looking for a mic I can attach to my GL2 camcorder. Or Iam I better off just sticking to the onboard mic?

[Don Berube]

For music recording, especially orchestral music, I typically will use my CROWN SASS-P MKII stereo PZM mic hung just over the front of the stage, fed to a stereo mixer and into a DAT as well as one of the static cams. This is an excellent mic because it is also almost 100% mono-compatible. I will also typically use the stereo mic on one of the cams for audience ambience. Sometimes I will also mix in an additional stereo mic (X/Y pattern) set in the back of the room to record the sound of the room.

http://www.crownaudio.com/pdf/mics/126982.pdf
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/product/...SPMK2/REG/1458

- don

[Kevin Jackson]

I'm very new at this, but had a similar situation a couple of weeks ago and thought I'd share it. We set up three cameras to capture a kids musical (~30 kids spread out over the stage) medium sized church sanctuary. Keep in mind we have no budget and are begging/borrowing equipment just to have something to play around with.

Not knowing what to expect from the audio, we put an Azden SG1x(?) shotgun on camera in the back/middle of the church, and used the onboard mics of the two miniDV cameras up front (one used for panning across the kids about 20 ft from stage [a Sony TR-3something], and the other tripod mounted in the front middle about 15 ft from stage [a Canon Z20] and never moved). We also had a laptop hooked to the soundboard on two free aux channels so we could level set the 8 or so channels being used by all the lavs, and stage mics.

Results:

The shotgun didn't work, way to muddy from the echoing of the PA mixed with the kids' voices.

The Sony cam was mistakenly set in 12bit mode and wasn't very crisp.

The laptop on the soundboard suffered from way too many kids saying "shut-up" and "quit hitting me" into their lavs. We only had a two channel input so we tried mixing all the vocals to one channel and all the soundtracks to the other.

Overall the little Canon Z20's piddly stereo mic in the center of the stage was the brightest and clearest of all of them. Every word was understandable, and for the intended audience of the parents, was probably ok.

What did I learn? You can't depend on any one camera/mic if you want to make sure you have something acceptable to work with after it's all said and done. The camera/mic I thought we would end up scrapping before we even started, ending up saving the day ... now I know that half the fun of this stuff is just trying as many things as I can "borrow" and see what comes out of it.

[Glenn Miller]

Newbie here. Just bought GL-2 and DM-50. Need to film/record about 4 hours of on-stage, outdoor, Blues Festival music.

30 foot Sound stage, with end-stage speakers, loud.

Video shots range in width from 8-piece band to single individual.

I can position the camera and on-board (or DM-50) mic anywhere I want to (especially between the crowd and the stage), but i do not know enough about recording sensitivity/distances. I do not know how 'big' a cartoid cloud/field IS--so I dont know how 'far' back I should stand, and whether a shotgun mike is even useful for a wide-stage like that.

I dont know enough about this to know where to stand--can someone offer some suggestions/guidelines?

Thanks so very much.