best sstereo mic for field recording

sharky

sharky

Active member
I will be going to do a doc in the amazon and will be recording a fair bit of ambient sound in the jungle. Wanted to get opinions on the best stereo mic for this - a cardiod or a shotgun. Right now I'm looking at Audio-Technica but am open to brand suggestions.

thanks,

Sharky :zombie_smiley:
 
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Shure VP88 is a solid brass MS stero mic, adjustable stereo angle, works with phantom or battery. True workhorse. Only down side is the bit high self noise. I used that for a radio documentary in Nepal.

If the mic does not need to be of one piece construction, you could rig many kind of stereo pairs from a set of Octavas. I made a Jecklin disk to go with the omni capsules, works fine.
 
petrus - the vp-88 is good for loud aplications as it was mainly maid for drums ovethead ( o.5 mv for 94 spl ) , exellent mic but for futball fields and trafic jams ( ok i did a few coffee shops ambient as well - but you know we are middle east people are less sevilian :-))
i would not take oktavas to high humidity invaerment if it is not paked inside zeppelines .
pearl msh-10 is also something to consider - very nice single point hyper .
sankem cs- 7/9 are good as well
but if you ask me , i was going with cs-5 for that kind of job . not to mention it works pretty well as mono shot gun as well
 
If you can afford them, Sennheiser MKH-series mics are very reliable under extremely humid conditions. MKH416/MKH30 in a M-S pair are my usual mics of choice for effects work, including nature atmospheres. Unfortunately, the cost of the two mics makes this setup a bit prohibative.

Single-point stereo mics such as the CS-5 and VP-88 (already discussed) offer more bang for your buck, and I should probably add the Sennheiser MKH418s to the discussion. I'm not a big fan of the back-electret side-element on the `418, but its nonetheless worth your consideration (especially if you're accustomed to working with the `416).

As for the cardioid vs. shotgun question (in a M-S setup, I assume), I would reccomend using a shotgun for the mid-element and recording matrixed. That way, you have the option to use the mics as a dialogue mic and discard the S-channel in post. That said, I don't reccomend using a stereo pair for dialogue (the added weight alone is a big issue), but it could be handy if you need to grab some dialogue or a mono effect and don't have time to switch to another mic.
 
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