Oktava for Ambience and SFX

F

filmsparK

New member
Hi, I'm purchasing my first off-camera microphone, and due to the fact that I don't have enough money to afford a true shotgun/hypercardoid combo (I'm still a student), I'm looking into starting off with the MK012 (with windscreen), and buying a shotgun later.

Naturally, I'll try to film most of my scenes indoors or on quiet outdoor sets, but I'm also going to be filming a lot of action and fight scenes in which I'm going to drop all the audio from the shoot and reconstruct it in post. For that, I'm going to need to be able to record SFX (punches, weapon hits), foley, and ambient sound (both indoor and outdoor).

What I'm wondering is, what heads for the MK012 would best suit this situation? I'll obviously be going with the hypercardoid for dialougue, but for the ambient and SFX, would I want the cardoid head, the omni head, or both?

I realize that ideally I'd want two Sennheiser shotguns and a mixer for this kind of stuff, but when I say I can't afford it, I literally mean that, so I'm just looking for the best solution for my situation. As a footnote, my budget for audio is about $600, and the Oktava/windscreen/shockmount pretty much fills that up.

Also, this is my first real foray into audio for film, so if the MK012 or anything else I've planned on getting here would be a bad choice/waste of money for my situation, please let me know.

Thanks!
 
For sfx its better to go with stereo pair ,
cardioids would sound better
dont forget attunuators and boorow ditional to place in line if you are recording gun shotes .
 
Most of the weapon hits are along the lines of swords hitting swords and baseball bats hitting...well, everything, but nothing nearly as loud as a gunshot. A pair would sound better, but at this point I'm just looking to get away from that "wasps in a tin can + motor noise" signature sound that plagues student films. Ironic that I can't stand bad sound, because I probably have one of the lowest-cost setups on the block. But anyway, I'll go with the cardoid head and leave the omni out (which saves me money).

Thanks for the advice!
 
A stereo pair of MK012's in a custom zeppelin are my standard recording set up for FX. A pair also went with a friend to Morocco to do FX recording for Hidalgo. They work very well. All have been using cardioid heads. I used them to do wild recordings of all the swords in Drunken Master (the reissue), they work very well. To repeat a warning from above, if you ever do gunshots be VERY careful. It's the quickest way to blow your mic, and ears, there is.
 
Actually I do. Apparently I have to post them to a site first so I'll have to figure that out. Or I can email them. Basically it's an old Schoeps Rycote Zep (this one was used on Blue Velvet) that was modified to use O rings as support bands. THe Oktavas are at a narrower angle then most would use them at but I'm recording FX not music. I have a very different set up for that. Something I've been calling SOSR ( Speaker Oriented Stereo Recording) but that's it's own thread and doesn't apply much to film.
So you can email me or I will probably figure out how to post in the next few days.
scott@askinc.net
 
As promised, Scott sent me the pictures and a fantastic description.

okzep1zw9.jpg


okzep2lj6.jpg


Noiz2 said:
The Zep has the old 1/2 round style support with tiny holes for the elastic. I opened them up. I ended up using O rings. I tried a number of custom clips ( I have a small machine shop in the basement) but in the end the O rings worked better than anything I tried. I started with the O rings just to try out configurations. If I was doing this from scratch I would use a Zep with a larger diameter, not to get more spread but to get a bit more wind protection. As it is the capsules are a bit closer to the end than I would prefer, though I haven't had any particular wind problems. I would also use thiner lead cables. These were the thinest I could find locally but I know there is thiner more flexible cables made for just this kind of thing. To help compensate I have them looped back and wire tied to the support so on .he whole it is pretty flexible but lighter cables are on my to do list. The rather short lead cables (~18") are connected to a pair of longer cables. Both are sleeved in this in this very soft and flexible cable wrap that is sort of like the old "Chinese finger traps". It expands a lot and you just push cables and connectors through. Then pull it tight and cable tie it and it becomes nice and non tangling. I used little bits of leather so the bands don't touch the mic body directly and so the mic bodies don't touch. It adds a bit of isolation.

Actually since this shot I have changed to a pair of cables that Matt Made up. THey are actually thicker than the originals but more flexible. I will probaby stay with them and not go for the thinner cables. THe only other mod was that because of the thicker cables I made a second cable exit hole on the other side of the support so they now come out on either side of the handle.

A friend was the production recordist on Blue Velvet and when she sent these in to be refurbished by Rycote they sent them back along with new replacements so she gave me the old ones. However the only parts they replaced were the inside suspension, the Zep and the dead cat. So I made replacements for the bottom bracket and the handle. That's why they look a bit unusual.

Now there is a lot of talk about the "correct stereo" set up. I'll give you my thoughts on that because one criticism right off the bat is that this set up is not wide enough and that the heads are not "coincident" and will not be mono compatible.

So first the "usual" setup for this type of thing was two of these zeps on a stereo arm with the heads over each other. My set up has the heads much closer that they were in that setup. The second is more philosophical. The whole idea of "correct" stereo is a bit bunk. There is all this head modeling mic setup stuff that costs a fortune and what do you get? You get something that sounds great in headphones. If you use any logic at all the mic capsules need to be where the reproducers are going to be on playback, not where your ears are, if you want "realism". I'm mostly recording FX, "reality' has nothing to do with it. So I find that this arrangement works better in more situations than a more conventional angle. I also record with a package that has a pair with a "proper" angle and I like mine better. You get more coverage in the center (which is generally what you are trying to record) and you still get a pretty wide image on things farther off ie BG's. But I'm doing film work and the BG is going to get layered up anyway. Some is going to be mono (because that's what the recordings were) some is in stereo. It all is going to get mixed as wide as it needs to be. Mono compatibility is a hang over from pop music that needed to play on mono AM radio. Nobody I have ever worked with "collapses" a stereo recording to get mono, they use the left channel. I don't care if you can't collapse the stereo image to mono, it's not going to happen. Most film mixes don't even check for mono compatibility any more.

That leads to my SOSR recordings. Not very practical for FX but the chamber music recordings I've been doing sound really good. Coming out of having to defend my "proper stereo is bunk" statements I thought well if mimicking the ears isn't a good route what is? Well most people listen to music on speakers, so recording at theoretical speaker positions would make sense. If you set up mics at positions relative to the listeners of where speakers should be placed while listening to the recordings wouldn't that give a better image? Again it's probably not collapsible to mono but I'm not recording for 78 records. People have been listening to music in stereo since the mid 60's. I think that now 40 years after stereo dominated the market and 30 since stereo FM took over the music broadcast market we can stop worrying if it will sound OK on AM mono. Anyway what I'm getting with this setup is a nice wide recording that sounds great compared to M/S or X/Y from a central location. It's probably a bit extra wide on headphones but I don't really care. This would probably also sound great for BG recordings but it's a lot of set up for that. Maybe on a dedicated nature recording gig, but I'm usually much more over the shoulder than would be poss with SOSR.
Click to expand...

Thanks once again!
 
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