Good mic between 400-600 dollars

I have a hard time forgiving the pressence of an ME66 anywhere and anytime. This is coming from the guy who has bought and sold this mic at least six times. The thing with the ME line is the I want to like it, but it just doesn't sound good.

In my opinion, I would take a pepsi challenge with the ME66, the Rode NTG1 or 2, and the 897 and I guarentee you the ME66 will be at the bottom of the line up.

I hate that mic, but it does have a nice pricepoint and is modular.
 
Me66 not good

Me66 not good

I must admit I'm the opposite, I'm more of a sound guy pretending to be a a camera man...and I have to say I've heard quite a few mics, and the me66 is terrible. I do have to note that my only experience with this mic is a demo test on the net...not sure if it was positioned correctly etc...but what I heard was a paper thin sound. it had no meat to at all. Almost like the low mids were carved right out of there. it was not an even sound at. the test had a proximity advantage as well, I think the guy had it about a foot a way from his mouth. Needless to say I wouldn't use the me66, there's other mics that sound better in the same price rang. The okatava mk012 is good mic for it's price. it sounds much warmer.
 
While I do agree that the Oktava is a great mic, you can't compare an Oktava to an ME66. That is like saying my apple tastes better than your orange. My Oktava has become my primary mic since most of my shoots are indoors. Then again, at this point I own only one hyper cardiod and have five shotguns. I normally shoot inside versus outside at a ratio of 8:1, so I have no idea why I have so many shotguns, but still.

That being said, I still don't think it is fair to compare these two mics...
 
i said this in the top5shotguns post, and ill say it again: somewhere, somehow, some person managed to trick the uneducated portion of the market (which is pretty large) into believing the me66 is like a 416 replacement/clone.

Its like, you say to the guy "do you only use/rent/sell the me66?" and theyll say "yeah, y'know, its like the 416".

NO!O@)*$_*(*$*%($!

Yankee, 5 shotguns? Dude, do you hang them over your mantlepiece or something? :) lol!

Gotta say, thats pretty cool, as sound nerd people go. It must just be fun to whip them out like a wad of crayons and pretend to pick the "right" mic even if you're just grabbing the 416 most times!

i love the oktava, and if you had to match up hypers to their "sister" shotguns, id say it would be oktava-4073a and 416-schoeps.
 
I really think with hypers the Oktava meets most of the needs of non professionals, but when it comes to shotguns there are mics that you use for different flavors. For me, I am not using the 416 for any application I can, the 4073a as a backup, the 815 for anytime I need something to sound very live at five (it's a long barrel shotgun ENG type mic), the NTG2 which I don't own, but I'm not giving it back for a while for anything where I just want a fuller bass sound, and finally the 897 as a stick to hit people with. I think I am going to see if my buddy will trade the NTG2 for my 897, I prefer the NTG at this point, but I have no use for it really. It's just cute.

To get back to the point of this thread it's simple, if you have $600 to spend then get a new 4073a w/ Rycote & att. cable or get a used 416 with Rycote. The 416 is a better mic, the 4073a you can buy new.
 
i started out with the me-66 and i shot a lot of great stuff with that mic.

then i worked on a student film and a fairly seasoned pro brought a bag of gear to share in case he had anything i didn't and he had a 416.

i just fell in love with the sound.

i bought the 416 right away after that shoot.

then about six months later i picked up an oktava in black with all three heads.

i haven't used the 416 since then.

but i must say since then i've been doing shorts, indoors in regular noisy houses and between the oktava and the sound device 302 mixer i've gotten the most amazinly clear/clean sound. the cutoff filter on the 302 is amazing and the oktava is almost too easy to use as far as pointing.

i'm sure i'll pull out the 416 for booming in a huge room or outdoors. i keep it in my kit and its always there as an option.

these things we spend so much time critiquing, they are all just tools. have to stop and remind ourselves of that sometimes.

you can take someone who is super talented and give them a beat up me-66 and give someone else who isn't paying attention a 416 and the me-66 will work better for the more skilled person.

i've been working with this prima-donna dp who blames everything on the equipment. the lights were lowell and not the arri hmi, the light stands i brought were the knock off's not the mse c-stands he was used to etc etc.

matthew
 
A mic that is not often mentioned here, but is in fact pretty decent, would be the AT835B.
It certainly is entry level, but for $240 it isn't a bad deal.
Certainly adequate for the budget minded person starting out.
 
I have an 835, the non B model. It is a long shotgun and gives an ENG sound. Its decent but hardly an ideal microphone for most film applications (although John Lyons used one on Hunting Camp and I was impressed with the sound)
 
Yes, TheYankee,
I really beleive this one is often overlooked, not sure why. I was also surprised it never made the top 5 list thread here (even if only in mention).
It was my only shotgun for some time, and it never let me down. Of course, I have moved on to greener pastures now...
 
The hardest problem I run into is when I'm interviewing with someone for a mixer job and they talk about the great deal they got on the ME66, and why would we need another shotgun for the shoot, since the ME66 works indoors and out. On the one hand, I want the job so I don't want to kick them too hard in the shins by telling them they were ripped off, but on the other hand, I want to take them by the hand, tell them to put it up on eBay and hope they get $100 for it.

My current mic situation is:

Outdoors:
Senn. 416T: Used only with really experienced boom ops
4073a: Used with novice boom ops
897: Used in situations where it could be ruined (for example, the herring processing plant we shot in one night...also bought some new, cheap cables for this one and ended up throwing most of them away becaused they smelled like dead fish even after washing as best I could without soaking them in a bucket).

Indoors:
Octava Hyper: Used only with experienced boom ops due to potential handling noise issues and the tight pickup pattern
Rode NT5 Cartioid (matched pair): Used with novice boom ops due to wider pickup pattern

I really like the sound of the Rode, but not as good as the Octava. Ultimately I want to replace the Octava with Schoeps 641, but that's not in the current budget.

Phil
 
well i just got my AT 897 and it Blows the me66 away that I have
the range is at least 2 feet so to me that just rocks
 
only potential reasons i prefer me66 to 897 are that its modular and runs hotter. but you guys are right, there are a lot of interesting and good shotguns out there. i just think that when it comes down to owning one good shotgun that will never let you down, and is agreed by EVERYONE to have killer sound, its 416 all the way.
 
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