Shotgun Mics & Md

[woodeeee]

Hey, i bought a set of high quality stereo mics last year, which did me proud at recording live concerts and clubs etc

however, i want to move up the ladder a rung and buy some nice shotgun mics for concert recordings, as my previous mics recorded too much ambient sound, preferably i could use them for recording lectures in a moderately sized room (50ft)

i spied this batbox over at SP:

http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/...?item=SP-SPSB-6

pic:

http://www.soundprofessionals.com/mas_asse...l/SP-SPSB-6.jpg

which i think is a good choice

but im having trouble choosing suitable shotguns, up to a max $ of $300 a pair (batbox excluded)

can anyone give me some advice

obviously i dont want huge shotguns, also the lecture-recording idea isnt topmost priority as i can use my current mics sufficiently for that.

a balance between size and quality/cost would be best

thanx in advance

ps loving the new look forums!havnt been here in a couple of months

[A440]

Do you really want superdirectional shotguns, or would cardioids or hypercardioids do the trick?

www.core-sound.com has a lot of serious tapers' mics.

Another place that carries a lot of high-end mics is www.oade.com, though it's hard to determine what prices are--you could call them. I'm waiting till I win the lottery, though.

[dex Otaku]

A440 is dead-on here.

I would not recommend using shotgun mics for stereo recording.

As a suggestion, the Rode NT4 mic has had some good reviews.

[woodeeee]

thanks for your advice and attention

not knowing a huge amount, but 'enough to get by' about mics, i bought thse mics last summer:

http://www.giant-squid-audio-lab.com/gs/gs...redbattery1.htm

which for there original purposes, worked fantastic, and produced amazing sound reproduction from tropical rainforest recordings

an example situation id like to record with less ambient sound is:

at an outdoor concert, 100 ft from the stage into MD (ie as little audience input as possible)

i did look into cardioids or hypercardioids a few weeks ago, but owing to a lack of finances i put off purchasing a set. and alas, my memory isnt what it used to be and have seemed to have forgotten all that i had learnt about mics

[dex Otaku]

an example situation id like to record with less ambient sound is:

at an outdoor concert, 100 ft from the stage into MD (ie as little audience input as possible)

Hmm.

It is very difficult to manage crowd rejection from the middle of the crowd.

Hypercardioid mics [as most shotguns are at least some variation of], being extremely directional as they are, are ill-suited to stereo recording as you won't get much of an 'image,' really. You will get stereo, sure, and it might be okay for certain applications, like distant-mic'ing specific sound sources, but for music played over a PA I would expect the results to be pretty poor. This is not to say that it's guaranteed they will be, as I've never tried it myself.

Still - even if you used highly directional mics, standing in the middle of a crowd at head height - you're still recording all the people in between the mic and the stage.

Proximity and source volume are the two issues here; while the PA might be louder than a single person in the crowd, the whole crowd together can be close in volume to the PA, and so on.

Pretty much the only simple way I know around this issue is to elevate the mics, regardless of what kind of mics you're using. Recording from the middle of a crowd, you will pick up lots of the crowd, period. The farther the mics can get from the people, the less it will pick them up; of course, the PA will be about the same volume regardless of height.

[LowMD]

Elevation is ideal if it's at all possible.

Dex Otaku, you're assuming that most of the crowd noise is in front of you. But even if the people in front of you are talking, they're likely to be facing forward and away from your mics.

In a big show, there's a lot more crowd noise from behind that's being projected directly toward you and your mics. It always seems that the loudest, drunkest, out-of-tune singing along, clap-on-the-wrong-beat moron is sitting right behind me. Seriously, I would think that if cardioids rejected a lot of that sound from behind, they would be useful.

Sound Professionals does recommend cardioids as their "if you're only getting one mic" choice.

http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/...ry=binvscardfaq

Edited February 9, 2005 by LowMD

[dex Otaku]

Dex Otaku, you're assuming that most of the crowd noise is in front of you. But even if the people in front of you are  talking, they're likely to be facing forward and away from your mics.

This is a good point, but the noise level from them will still be quite high. You're assuming that 100% of the noise from the crowd in front of you will be coming from their mouths, and that all of their mouths are pointed away from the mic, which is not usually the case. All the stamping, clapping, people turning to yell at their friends, whatever.

In any case, the real point was that no matter how directional your mic is, you can't reject sounds that are in the field of the mic - and if you're standing in a crowd, the loudest sounds by proximity alone will be from those in the crowd who are closest to you.

In a big show, there's a lot more crowd noise from behind that's being projected directly toward you and your mics. It always seems that the loudest, drunkest, out-of-tune singing along, clap-on-the-wrong-beat moron is sitting right behind me. Seriously, I would think that if cardioids rejected a lot of that sound from behind, they would be useful.

You should get a medal for that line. It reminds me of the time I sat in front of a blind girl at a performance of "Phantom of the Opera".. I mean, I can totally get into the whole experience of a blind person going to hear musical theatre. But -NOT- when they're stone-cold tone-deaf and really like singing along at the top of their lungs. Which, really.. it was totally incidental that she was blind.

And she was sober.

[woodeeee]

thanx guys

well i had a flick through SP's card's, and to be honest i cant really tell the difference between most of them

i leaning towards SP-CMC-2A because it has a slightly wider frequency range than the others, buts thats the only reason i could find

any tips?

[A440]

You're right, they do all look pretty similar in specs, so you might as well get the ones that already have clips and a little extra bass response.

Core Sound does have a cheaper pair of cardioids.

http://www.core-sound.com/lcmics.html

If you're really feeling experimental, both have 30-day trial periods, though it would cost you for the shipping.

[woodeeee]

thanx A440, i settled for the SP's SP-CMC-2A card's

should be with me in a week,

got a couple of concerts coming up, so il post a short review of their performance, for any who's interested

[A440]

Please do post a review, and it would be great if you could put up a sample recording at livefrommd (at) yahoo.com . Happy recording!