I can't seem to find this answere anywhere. I've an AKG shotgun mic and my thought is that the tip (front) of the mic should be as far forward as possible without touching the front dome of the blimp. Is this correct?

what i do know is that the ports on the side of the mic are the most important not to be covered or touching anything. Closer is better as far as sound goes, my 416 mic is as far as it goes to the front without touching the zepplin, i think you're fine. Just remember to properly place the mic on the shock mounts and the back of the mic should not be stressing the cable attached to it.

A long as the front and back don't hit the housing, even when knocked, it's fine.

I can't seem to find this answere anywhere. I've an AKG shotgun mic and my thought is that the tip (front) of the mic should be as far forward as possible without touching the front dome of the blimp. Is this correct?

No, it's not correct.

Roughly, the tip of the mic. should be as far from the from as the side of the mic. is from the side-wall.

The volume of still air around the mic. is what protects the mic.

Normally the mic. is sitting centrally in the windshield if you have bought the proper one for the mic.

The advice from Rycote is that the mic. sits in the body of the windshield and does not intrude into the endcaps.

And don't for get the ConnBox - don't use the normal mic. cable to the mic. The (Rycote) ConnBox (or a short flexible tail) decouples the mic. from the cable to minimise noise being transmitted to the mic. via the cable.

Seems this is an issue that may be confusing to many people. Thanks to all who have and will respond.

BTW, one more question...Do you leave the foam windscreen on the mic when using a blimp, or remove it?

I don't leave the foam windscreen on when using a blimp since the shock mount doesn't usually allow the foam to stay on the mic undamaged and also the length and width the foam adds to the mic makes it much closer to hitting the blimp

when using my CMC64 in the zepplin, I leave the B5 pop screen on as a little extra protection. seems to work well. I'm using a rycote S and have the mic back in the mount.

BTW, one more question...Do you leave the foam windscreen on the mic when using a blimp, or remove it?

VERY IMPORTANT

You should always take the foam windshield OFF when the microphone is in the basket.

The foam does *not* give added protection - it actually reduces the protection and makes it worse.

Wind protection is governed by the volume of still air around the microphone - inside a basket windshield the foam windshield reduces the volume of air and thus makes the protection worse if you leave it on.

This was explained to me in detail by the one person who designs wind protection and shockmounts and really understands the science behind it all (which is more than can be said for most of the copy products).

Just to make sure, John, do you mean to say that 'Rycote' is the inventor of the 'windshield'? That they're the original and the 'others' are the (a) copy?