Cheap shotgun mic - ATR55

It is cheap, and it is also better than trying to use the stock mic. It will also plug into the wireless bodypack, turning it into a wireless shotgun for maybe a boom pole.
 
I read this post last night and started to reply but just gave a sigh and hit the back button... I figured I'd wait to see what others told you because I knew there were a couple of guys on here that are using this mic.

I would strongly encourage you to AT LEAST go with a Rode NTG-2. If you really feel the need to spend the least possible on a mic... and your situation may dictate that so I have no problem with it at all... you can always upgrade later... the Rode would at least scratch the surface of professional sound.

My first TWO mics were atr-55... I highly suggest you consider another mic.

What you gain: the ability to get the mic closer to the source.

What you don't gain: any significant improvement over the horrible built-in mic at equal distance... I'd say that if you test the built-in mic at the same distance that the internal mics will even sound much better.

Oleg is right... you'll get somewhat "foggy" sound... fairly harsh with omni-present hiss. You will NOT have any significant reach... and you'll also have an unbalanced (potentially noisey) cable run if you ever try to boom that mic. With ANY mic you still need windscreen and shockmount... so factoring that in there are other choices to BLOW that one away.

I wish I hadn't sold my atr-55s... this conversation has come up enough that I'd like to show you, in an A/B comparison, just how amazing the difference is in one of those and a real mic.

The ONE thing I can say in it's defense is the situation that Cpt. Q defined... yes, you could plug this thing directly into a bodypack and use it wirelessly... but man, if you bought a DVX then I sure hope you eventually start caring about the sound as much as you cared about the image.

I bought an atr-55 shortly after buying my first digital camcorder... a Sony trv-17... that cam was around $890 at the time... and a fortune to me at the time. A $55 microphone seemed appropriate. I thought I was getting good sound because I had an audible improvement over the built-in mics... then I got a trv-900... and I kept finding myself in situations where I felt the sound was letting me down... I was so happy with the picture that I always felt the sound was really lacking. It was around that time that I started to wonder WHY there were so many mics listed in the B&H catalog... there's SO many... even if you look at just shotguns... why is the AT 835b so long and the 4073a so short? Why is the 4073a so much more then the other AT guns?

I had a lot of questions and I made a lot of assumptions! EVERYBODY DOES. All I knew for sure is that nearly ALL of the higher-end mics (I mean mid-level from the atr-55 to the really pro mics) used phantom power. I knew I was missing something... I just didn't know what it was... but I decided to get a Beachtek DXA-6 and find out... after paying for that and doing endless research... which at the time was SUPER-LIMITED... I concluded the best phantom condenser gun was an me66. So I bought one... I can tell you that the jump from an atr-55 to an me66 on the trv-900 was shocking. I was STUNNED at the improvement in both the sound quality and the usable range of the mic! I was in LOVE.

Shortly after that I bought my first real, true love, my DVX. I was able to sell my trv-900 for around $1300 and I got nearly $200 for the Beachtek... so it wasn't too hard to swallow. I was excited that I didn't need any kind of an XLR adapter type interface... and that I had phantom power on tap. For a while I thought I was doing okay with this mic/cam combo... but I always told myself that the rich, "hollywood sound", was simply something that you couldn't get without spending an actual fortune. The me66 still had tons of reach... and it was still a major improvement over the atr-55... but I was surprised that it wasn't more of an improvement over the trv-900/beachtek/me66 combo.

Enter Bryan Beasleigh... He and I were at the exact same point in our personal sound journey. He had just bought a VX2000 and I'd just bought a DVX... but aside from that we both had the me66 and we both felt that the hollywood sound was simply unattainable for a regular guy.

Maybe it was dumb luck... but Beas bought an AKG d230 instead of one of the usual eng mic choices... and he was emailing me about how nice it sounded compared to the me66... when I heard his voice through one mic and then the other I was really surprised and excited. Within days Beas wanted a good VO mic and so he tried, at a local pro shop's suggestion, a Rode NT1a... and that is the official point where the sh*t hits the fan. Up to this time there was NO PLACE on the net to hear mic samples! NOWHERE.

When Beas sent me that first comparison of the NT1a versus the me66... THAT was the moment that I officially lost my mind. That was the moment that I realized you COULD have the hollywood sound for pennies on the dollar of what I previously thought. That was the moment that the insane mic frenzy really started. It was within 2 weeks of that moment that we both bought Oktavas because they were so cheap and you could get them anywhere... this was before the Chinese fakes came along... and you had to test individual units to be sure you got a good one.

My love affair with the Oktava began in that month and it's never ended. I was so stunned at the improvement in sound quality with the Oktava over the me66 that my mind was blown wide open. This is when I first got excited about the possibility of doing projects using the DVX where you could actually impose true drama and suspense on your audience (not that I did that, but knowing I could was a huge boost in motivation to try)... and remember that I was already blown away by the improvement over the atr-55 with the me66... so we're really talking about something now!

What's the best part of this story? The Oktavas deals have only gotten better! Now you can get an Oktava hyper for around $165 (you still need shockmount and windscreen... just like with any mic)...

I realize you probably didn't want this long story... but man... if I could go back in time and save myself that long, blind journey I sure would. Using a $55 mic on a $3500 cam is going to yield the exact quality that the cost suggests... nothing more... there are so many mics that are a much better bang for the buck, even though they cost more then $55. This is one case where going cheap will cost you more money then you save.
 
why you would be able to afford wireless yet buy a atr55 is beyond me. ha ha! maybe azden wireless.

dont buy that mic man, its so crummy its frightening.
 
timapter said:
why you would be able to afford wireless yet buy a atr55 is beyond me. ha ha! maybe azden wireless.

dont buy that mic man, its so crummy its frightening.
Click to expand...
Don't worry. I'm not buying this mic.
 
MattinSTL said:
I read this post last night and started to reply but just gave a sigh and hit the back button... I figured I'd wait to see what others told you because I knew there were a couple of guys on here that are using this mic.

I would strongly encourage you to AT LEAST go with a Rode NTG-2. If you really feel the need to spend the least possible on a mic... and your situation may dictate that so I have no problem with it at all... you can always upgrade later... the Rode would at least scratch the surface of professional sound.

My first TWO mics were atr-55... I highly suggest you consider another mic.

What you gain: the ability to get the mic closer to the source.

What you don't gain: any significant improvement over the horrible built-in mic at equal distance... I'd say that if you test the built-in mic at the same distance that the internal mics will even sound much better.

Oleg is right... you'll get somewhat "foggy" sound... fairly harsh with omni-present hiss. You will NOT have any significant reach... and you'll also have an unbalanced (potentially noisey) cable run if you ever try to boom that mic. With ANY mic you still need windscreen and shockmount... so factoring that in there are other choices to BLOW that one away.

I wish I hadn't sold my atr-55s... this conversation has come up enough that I'd like to show you, in an A/B comparison, just how amazing the difference is in one of those and a real mic.

The ONE thing I can say in it's defense is the situation that Cpt. Q defined... yes, you could plug this thing directly into a bodypack and use it wirelessly... but man, if you bought a DVX then I sure hope you eventually start caring about the sound as much as you cared about the image.

I bought an atr-55 shortly after buying my first digital camcorder... a Sony trv-17... that cam was around $890 at the time... and a fortune to me at the time. A $55 microphone seemed appropriate. I thought I was getting good sound because I had an audible improvement over the built-in mics... then I got a trv-900... and I kept finding myself in situations where I felt the sound was letting me down... I was so happy with the picture that I always felt the sound was really lacking. It was around that time that I started to wonder WHY there were so many mics listed in the B&H catalog... there's SO many... even if you look at just shotguns... why is the AT 835b so long and the 4073a so short? Why is the 4073a so much more then the other AT guns?

I had a lot of questions and I made a lot of assumptions! EVERYBODY DOES. All I knew for sure is that nearly ALL of the higher-end mics (I mean mid-level from the atr-55 to the really pro mics) used phantom power. I knew I was missing something... I just didn't know what it was... but I decided to get a Beachtek DXA-6 and find out... after paying for that and doing endless research... which at the time was SUPER-LIMITED... I concluded the best phantom condenser gun was an me66. So I bought one... I can tell you that the jump from an atr-55 to an me66 on the trv-900 was shocking. I was STUNNED at the improvement in both the sound quality and the usable range of the mic! I was in LOVE.

Shortly after that I bought my first real, true love, my DVX. I was able to sell my trv-900 for around $1300 and I got nearly $200 for the Beachtek... so it wasn't too hard to swallow. I was excited that I didn't need any kind of an XLR adapter type interface... and that I had phantom power on tap. For a while I thought I was doing okay with this mic/cam combo... but I always told myself that the rich, "hollywood sound", was simply something that you couldn't get without spending an actual fortune. The me66 still had tons of reach... and it was still a major improvement over the atr-55... but I was surprised that it wasn't more of an improvement over the trv-900/beachtek/me66 combo.

Enter Bryan Beasleigh... He and I were at the exact same point in our personal sound journey. He had just bought a VX2000 and I'd just bought a DVX... but aside from that we both had the me66 and we both felt that the hollywood sound was simply unattainable for a regular guy.

Maybe it was dumb luck... but Beas bought an AKG d230 instead of one of the usual eng mic choices... and he was emailing me about how nice it sounded compared to the me66... when I heard his voice through one mic and then the other I was really surprised and excited. Within days Beas wanted a good VO mic and so he tried, at a local pro shop's suggestion, a Rode NT1a... and that is the official point where the sh*t hits the fan. Up to this time there was NO PLACE on the net to hear mic samples! NOWHERE.

When Beas sent me that first comparison of the NT1a versus the me66... THAT was the moment that I officially lost my mind. That was the moment that I realized you COULD have the hollywood sound for pennies on the dollar of what I previously thought. That was the moment that the insane mic frenzy really started. It was within 2 weeks of that moment that we both bought Oktavas because they were so cheap and you could get them anywhere... this was before the Chinese fakes came along... and you had to test individual units to be sure you got a good one.

My love affair with the Oktava began in that month and it's never ended. I was so stunned at the improvement in sound quality with the Oktava over the me66 that my mind was blown wide open. This is when I first got excited about the possibility of doing projects using the DVX where you could actually impose true drama and suspense on your audience (not that I did that, but knowing I could was a huge boost in motivation to try)... and remember that I was already blown away by the improvement over the atr-55 with the me66... so we're really talking about something now!

What's the best part of this story? The Oktavas deals have only gotten better! Now you can get an Oktava hyper for around $165 (you still need shockmount and windscreen... just like with any mic)...

I realize you probably didn't want this long story... but man... if I could go back in time and save myself that long, blind journey I sure would. Using a $55 mic on a $3500 cam is going to yield the exact quality that the cost suggests... nothing more... there are so many mics that are a much better bang for the buck, even though they cost more then $55. This is one case where going cheap will cost you more money then you save.
Click to expand...
That was a long story but thanks. Sounds like your loss will be my gain. I think I will get the Rode-1.

Any thoughts on this?
 
MattinSTL said:
I read this post last night and started to reply but just gave a sigh and hit the back button... I figured I'd wait to see what others told you because I knew there were a couple of guys on here that are using this mic.

I would strongly encourage you to AT LEAST go with a Rode NTG-2. If you really feel the need to spend the least possible on a mic... and your situation may dictate that so I have no problem with it at all... you can always upgrade later... the Rode would at least scratch the surface of professional sound.

My first TWO mics were atr-55... I highly suggest you consider another mic.

What you gain: the ability to get the mic closer to the source.

What you don't gain: any significant improvement over the horrible built-in mic at equal distance... I'd say that if you test the built-in mic at the same distance that the internal mics will even sound much better.

Oleg is right... you'll get somewhat "foggy" sound... fairly harsh with omni-present hiss. You will NOT have any significant reach... and you'll also have an unbalanced (potentially noisey) cable run if you ever try to boom that mic. With ANY mic you still need windscreen and shockmount... so factoring that in there are other choices to BLOW that one away.

I wish I hadn't sold my atr-55s... this conversation has come up enough that I'd like to show you, in an A/B comparison, just how amazing the difference is in one of those and a real mic.

The ONE thing I can say in it's defense is the situation that Cpt. Q defined... yes, you could plug this thing directly into a bodypack and use it wirelessly... but man, if you bought a DVX then I sure hope you eventually start caring about the sound as much as you cared about the image.

I bought an atr-55 shortly after buying my first digital camcorder... a Sony trv-17... that cam was around $890 at the time... and a fortune to me at the time. A $55 microphone seemed appropriate. I thought I was getting good sound because I had an audible improvement over the built-in mics... then I got a trv-900... and I kept finding myself in situations where I felt the sound was letting me down... I was so happy with the picture that I always felt the sound was really lacking. It was around that time that I started to wonder WHY there were so many mics listed in the B&H catalog... there's SO many... even if you look at just shotguns... why is the AT 835b so long and the 4073a so short? Why is the 4073a so much more then the other AT guns?

I had a lot of questions and I made a lot of assumptions! EVERYBODY DOES. All I knew for sure is that nearly ALL of the higher-end mics (I mean mid-level from the atr-55 to the really pro mics) used phantom power. I knew I was missing something... I just didn't know what it was... but I decided to get a Beachtek DXA-6 and find out... after paying for that and doing endless research... which at the time was SUPER-LIMITED... I concluded the best phantom condenser gun was an me66. So I bought one... I can tell you that the jump from an atr-55 to an me66 on the trv-900 was shocking. I was STUNNED at the improvement in both the sound quality and the usable range of the mic! I was in LOVE.

Shortly after that I bought my first real, true love, my DVX. I was able to sell my trv-900 for around $1300 and I got nearly $200 for the Beachtek... so it wasn't too hard to swallow. I was excited that I didn't need any kind of an XLR adapter type interface... and that I had phantom power on tap. For a while I thought I was doing okay with this mic/cam combo... but I always told myself that the rich, "hollywood sound", was simply something that you couldn't get without spending an actual fortune. The me66 still had tons of reach... and it was still a major improvement over the atr-55... but I was surprised that it wasn't more of an improvement over the trv-900/beachtek/me66 combo.

Enter Bryan Beasleigh... He and I were at the exact same point in our personal sound journey. He had just bought a VX2000 and I'd just bought a DVX... but aside from that we both had the me66 and we both felt that the hollywood sound was simply unattainable for a regular guy.

Maybe it was dumb luck... but Beas bought an AKG d230 instead of one of the usual eng mic choices... and he was emailing me about how nice it sounded compared to the me66... when I heard his voice through one mic and then the other I was really surprised and excited. Within days Beas wanted a good VO mic and so he tried, at a local pro shop's suggestion, a Rode NT1a... and that is the official point where the sh*t hits the fan. Up to this time there was NO PLACE on the net to hear mic samples! NOWHERE.

When Beas sent me that first comparison of the NT1a versus the me66... THAT was the moment that I officially lost my mind. That was the moment that I realized you COULD have the hollywood sound for pennies on the dollar of what I previously thought. That was the moment that the insane mic frenzy really started. It was within 2 weeks of that moment that we both bought Oktavas because they were so cheap and you could get them anywhere... this was before the Chinese fakes came along... and you had to test individual units to be sure you got a good one.

My love affair with the Oktava began in that month and it's never ended. I was so stunned at the improvement in sound quality with the Oktava over the me66 that my mind was blown wide open. This is when I first got excited about the possibility of doing projects using the DVX where you could actually impose true drama and suspense on your audience (not that I did that, but knowing I could was a huge boost in motivation to try)... and remember that I was already blown away by the improvement over the atr-55 with the me66... so we're really talking about something now!

What's the best part of this story? The Oktavas deals have only gotten better! Now you can get an Oktava hyper for around $165 (you still need shockmount and windscreen... just like with any mic)...

I realize you probably didn't want this long story... but man... if I could go back in time and save myself that long, blind journey I sure would. Using a $55 mic on a $3500 cam is going to yield the exact quality that the cost suggests... nothing more... there are so many mics that are a much better bang for the buck, even though they cost more then $55. This is one case where going cheap will cost you more money then you save.
Click to expand...
That was a long story but thanks. Sounds like your loss will be my gain. I think I will get the Rode-1.

Any thoughts on this?
 
I don't think we need that long story 3 times in this thread... something bit me when I read your post... this mic has come up before and as I said, I know some guys on this board are using it.

In an effort to be gentle about it I gave a "whatever works for you" kind of post the last time this mic came up. I want to be cool to everybody... but the notion of using a $55 mic with a $3500 camera makes me sick to my stomach.

It's not that I'd have a problem with it IF IT WERE GOOD... but it's such a zero-gain over the built in mics (the ONLY gain being in getting closer)... that it just drives me nuts that people pair this up with a DVX. How can you take a professional audio interface (XLR and phantom) and work to BYPASS that in order to use the cheapest possible consumer-grade mic? That's like rigging a pvc frame into your new vette so that you can use a lawn chair instead of the factory leather seats.

It's genuinely a case of being happy by not knowing what they're missing... so anyway... sorry to be so long winded... but every now and then I like to remind people that I didn't arbitrarily form my opinions on mics... and yeah, they ARE just my opinions... but I bought about $8K in mics to form these opinions.

Any mic will easily outlast your camera... I wouldn't go too cheap on a shotgun if that's what you want. The Rode should be passable, but you'll eventually run into somebody with a more professional gun and then the seed of desire will be planted. The Rode should get you by for now... and since you're new to this audio thing it's probably gonna' knock your socks off (since you don't have anything to compare it to yet.)

Oleg rubs a few people the wrong way... but man would we be at a loss without him... he and I even had some abrasive posts back and forth early on but he is a tremendous resource of audio knowledge... and his posts sum this situation up the way I would if this were a PM conversation.
 
I'll agree with Matt, whatever works. After getting my first camera kit together, I quickly realized the stock mics weren't going to cut it. All I could afford was the ATR55, and it was better, but not great.

Now that I'm moving up a notch, the GL1 has been replaced by a HD100. The ATR55 wasn't going to cut it any longer, mostly because I wanted better audio to match the video, partially because I couldn't see using adapters to make it work with the pro XLR inputs. I just got an Azden SGG 1000- still not what I want, but it's what I can afford at this point. Eventually, it will be replaced with either a Rhodes or a Sennheiser. But, in the world of video or film, there is always a very long list of "needs" and "wants". The fun part is trying to make those lists work with the "what I can afford" reallity check.
 
Capt Quirk said:
I'll agree with Matt, whatever works. After getting my first camera kit together, I quickly realized the stock mics weren't going to cut it. All I could afford was the ATR55, and it was better, but not great.

Now that I'm moving up a notch, the GL1 has been replaced by a HD100. The ATR55 wasn't going to cut it any longer, mostly because I wanted better audio to match the video, partially because I couldn't see using adapters to make it work with the pro XLR inputs. I just got an Azden SGG 1000- still not what I want, but it's what I can afford at this point. Eventually, it will be replaced with either a Rhodes or a Sennheiser. But, in the world of video or film, there is always a very long list of "needs" and "wants". The fun part is trying to make those lists work with the "what I can afford" reallity check.
Click to expand...
Well said! Sometimes the "gear head ' thing gets out of hand to the point of elitism and not everyone has an unlimited budget .
 
BrianMurphy said:
Well said! Sometimes the "gear head ' thing gets out of hand to the point of elitism and not everyone has an unlimited budget .
Click to expand...
In some threads... yes, agreed. In this thread? No.

If somebody buys a DVX I think it's fair to make some minimum budget observations here. Unless somebody states otherwise... it's the assumption that we're all DVX users on this board. I don't assume $100-200 to be a significant amount of money for a production tool that one can expect to use for the next 10 years.

Budgeting less then $100 to mics after spending $3500 on a cam is totally out of wack... if that were the case then I have no clue how that person would even pay for tape stock... going back to my previous analogy, why spend every last dime on a sports car (that one couldn't afford) when he can't even gas it up once he gets home?

That's what we're really talking about here... about the same cost of a tank of gas versus two tanks of gas... hardly elitist (in THIS thread) if this guy is shooting with a DVX.
 
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After scraping together the $6,000 on my cam, it took all I had to spare... and a bit I really couldn't. Most of what I end up doing is B roll or 2nd cam anyways, so audio from me isn't always crucial. And of course, most folks pay $#!+. If I were doing this stuff full time, or even getting a few well paid gigs, then yes, more money to alot to better gear. Until then, ya make due with what ya got.
 
I didn't mean to imply that you shouldn't make due with what you got... but if you spent $6K on a cam and $55 on the sound package... hmm... I don't know what to say to that.

As you define it... B roll and cam 2... I guess it makes sense... but this IS the audio forum... and the other assumption, when people post here, is that they care about sound.
 
True enough. Which is why it has been noted- over and over- the ATR55 is only a last resort, until you can do better. If you are a sound guy, not a videographer, you really shouldn't have any excuse not to have a better mic. If you are only doing small personal projects with your handycam, again make due with what you have. If you plan on doing a more serious project, move up when you can, the sooner the better.
 
I think it sort of boils down to "do you want to make money and create pro products with this tool". If that answer is yes, then you need to think carefully about audio and NOT SKIMP because it is a bad investment: your client (unless very naive) wont appreciate the product, and you'll end up upgrading pointlessly and wasting money.

If you are just hobbying, then quite honestly do whatever you like - its YOUR hobby after all.
 
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