Low Cost Small Condenser Options

It doesn't show a broken pin. RF would depend on the setting.

As to the others...yes...it does. When you year a brightness, it is glowing at you. You can see where they highs drop off. You hear it it, but you can see the magnitude. Response is also there. One thing I need more time to investigate is how sound trails off at different frequencies. You can see, with A/B or sometime simultaneous recording, one mic more sharply defining the frequencies. Apparent in vocals, drums, and acoustic guitar (usually used for samples).

There was a very interesting one comparing ribbon mics on a podcast. The podcast was an hour long and the review, half the show, didn't start until the thirty minute point. What was interesting there is the commentators mentioned things I didn't immediately hear, or rather, couldn't identify what I was hearing. However the spectral analysis showed exactly what they were saying. Replaying the segment I could hear what I was seeing.

I must have heard 20+ Oktava clips, 90% good. The modded Oktavas, both Mike Joly and home modified did sound better.
 
No offense, but what you seem to be saying is either:

1) that your ears are not (yet) well developed; or
2) that your aural perception is influenced by what you see.

Neither of these is a good situation.

Anyway, can you show me two spectragrams that distinguish "brittle" from "bright'?
 
ullanta said:
No offense, but what you seem to be saying is either:

1) that your ears are not (yet) well developed; or
2) that your aural perception is influenced by what you see.

Neither of these is a good situation.

Anyway, can you show me two spectragrams that distinguish "brittle" from "bright'?
Click to expand...

When you use a waveform monitor, are you saying your eyes aren't developed? That wouldn't be good for a videographer/cinematographer! :)

You are hearing through amps and speakers/headphones with ambient noise just as you are viewing through a display with ambient light. The visuals provide detail your eyes and ears can't provide unambiguously themselves.

The displays below, my last for a while since I bought my mics and have work to do, are A/B comparisons done in a test reported in a podcast. There were many more I just picked some representative ones. The test compared a Coles ribbon mic to unmodified RSM-4 and Apex 205s and Mike Joly modified RSM-4, RSM-5, and Apex 205.

The top two compared the stock and modified RSM-4 on electric and acoustic guitar, respectively. The last compares the modified RSM-4 and RSM-5. The modified mics have a different ribbon, inner protective mesh removed (a fine mesh right over the ribbon), and use a Lundahl transformer. The RSM-4 and RSM-5 should differ only in basket shape, however production differences in the magnets may have come into play.

You can hear the podcast here, the mic comparison begins at around the 30 minute point and continues for over 30 minutes: http://psn.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=286132, the podcast itself: http://media.libsyn.com/media/psn/PSN_Show_094.mp3

1240067111.jpg
 
DavidNJ said:
When you use a waveform monitor, are you saying your eyes aren't developed?
Click to expand...

No, a waveform monitor is used for three reasons:
1) In the field when you know your monitoring is not ideal
2) To give an idea of exactly how to fix problems you see
3) To enforce broadcast standards

A waveform monitor is a tool for analyzing a picture, but tells you nothing about how "goodd the image being analyzed is, and little about the camera that produced it. Seriously, you'd choose a camera by looking only at waveform monitor comparisons of cameras? Go search out all the evaluations of ANY Panasonic prosumer HD camera. The story was almost always: on most of the objective instrumented tests, the Panny looks inferior. But all the testers liked the Panny best (at least for some situations). Do you have a Mojo-meter? Look at the CCD vs. CMOS debate, resolution vs. color rendition debates. "Goodness" is not measurable with these tests or analyses.[/quote]


You are hearing through amps and speakers/headphones with ambient noise just as you are viewing through a display with ambient light. The visuals provide detail your eyes and ears can't provide unambiguously themselves.
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The spectrographs are made through amps/converters/algorithms, etc. Details your ears can't hear? Shouldn't be a factor in mic selection!

The displays below, my last for a while since I bought my mics and have work to do, are A/B comparisons done in a test reported in a podcast. There were many more I just picked some representative ones. The test compared a Coles ribbon mic to unmodified RSM-4 and Apex 205s and Mike Joly modified RSM-4, RSM-5, and Apex 205....
Click to expand...

You are showing a comparison... but you don't say how it shows either mic to sound "better".

Anyway, do what you have to do. I hope whatever method you use you find success. Let us know after a year or two of experience if anything has changed!
 
Disagree again. Goodness is usually measurable if you measure the right thing. One sensor vs. three should have a much bigger impact on color (color filters vs. prism, a quick look at the graphs tells the story). Resolution has little do with CCD vs. CMOS. Canon is selling 720p30 cameras in both CCD and CMOS. The really fast stuff is often CMOS though.

The HVX and relatives is an interesting set of compromises. Low res sensors but at the time high bandwidth storage with more chroma information. That is discussion (debate?) taking place in forums where the advantages of the hybrid DSLRs are being discussed. Advantages of oversampling are really the issue.

In the case, you can see what you hear. It is virtually assured that there is more variation in sound reproduction (speakers and amps) then in image reproduction (monitors). There is also less standardization in calibrating them. All things that indicate graphs mean a lot.

A better evaluation would be to say: does your data abstration (which can be graphically displayed, i.e. waveform monitor, spectral analysis) match your direct analysis (visual or auditory).
 
DavidNJ said:
In the case, you can see what you hear. It is virtually assured that there is more variation in sound reproduction (speakers and amps) then in image reproduction (monitors). There is also less standardization in calibrating them. All things that indicate graphs mean a lot.
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Here you are showing a lot of ignorance. Monitors vary all over the place a how often are they adjusted? A mix room is calibrated before every session. Any good editor calibrates regularly. I'm assuming that anyone doing color correction is working on a recently calibrated monitor but how often are production monitors calibrated? Should be every time the setup changes but I haven't seen it done in years, few editors that I know calibrate their monitors regularly. Since it's a pretty pricey device that you need to calibrate a computer monitor you can pretty safely assume most no-budget and home users do anything beyond the built in calibration. Of course that would also apply to many sound editors working at the same level. But for instance virtually no visual editors compensate for the lag in LCD and Plasma displays.

And lastly there is no lack of standardization in sound calibration. It is very standard.
 
And you calibrate your speakers? You know anyone who calibrates their speakers? Your aging ears are accurate transducers? And of course you use...require...multiple monitors to see an image.

Sound doesn't have the equivalent of a gray card or color card to calibrate it (assuming you don't use your eyes there either, for the reasons you listed among others). The spectal analysis leaves the best signature. It is trivial to look at the picture and see which has greater definition, covers different frequencies, and may be over/under boosting certain frequencies. If you listen to the clips, you can hear it.
 
My 2 cents: Btw, nice debate.... good entertainment!

An interesting thing about audio is that many times humans prefer audio that has noise in the signal vs. a more refined and pure wave. Look at the tube vs. solid state debate. Tubes have all sorts of distortions in the harmonics yet it sounds great. Human taste is subjective, though it can be analized and quantified as one being better than another using statistical thinking; if one has the time and tenacity and assumes the largest population determines what is best. Brittney thinks it does!

All things available to the senses can be measured, quantified and made sense of. Ameican wine makers figured out what constitutes fine wine through using a basic scientific approach and now win many world wine tasting competitions. Who would have thought they'd crack this secret French code?

The question for me is, is all that really necessary? Maybe one can just use their senses and fine judgement to come to a conclusion without the meters and graphs. On the other hand sometimes you need those tools because us humans change from day to day and aren't the most reliable and obejective judge. In the end all the measurements will justifysomeone's values. Remember values are basically just something you want.

IMO, in the end, there's more than one road that will get you to where you're going. So take it and be happy.
 
The answer is every small condensor solution north of $1500-2000 is ok: KM184, MK040, Schoeps. The problem is when you want to spend less than $1000.

In the ribbon mic test I posted earlier, the Cole, a model used by the Beatles, costs less than $2000. The trouble is when you want to spend less than $500.

The same is true in video cameras: would we be comparing 1/2" vs 1/3" cameras if we could all afford full 1080p 2/3" cameras?
 
1) Of course. I wouldn't want a camera with a sensor larger than 1/3" if I could help it... I really need as much depth of field as possible.

2) I have done comprehensive testing, with a group of musicians and conductors, recording simultaneously with eight pairs of mics, 20 different ensembles (to help producers of a broadcast concert series choose a standard setup). Noone liked the Schoeps or DPAs (expensive mics). For almost all ensembles, most preferred the Oktava MK-012s. Coles were very picky about placement - sometimes great, sometimes not. The more expensive mics tend to be more application specific.

3) Some mics work best in a studio, without ambient noise; but sound really bad in many real-world situations (e.g., Schoeps, which have a "magical" ability to emphasize unpleasant noises in the environment - page turns, stage creeks, etc.). Unless you know how to LISTEN, you can't judge how well your mic is performing in the situation you're in. A mic alone is nothing. A mic interacts physically with the environment and electronically with the rest of the recording chain. All measurements - output level, definition, frequency response, etc... can make the mic great or terrible in a particular situation. No mic is great in every situation. But some are more widely applicable with good results than others. The Oktavas fall right into that category.
 
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DavidNJ said:
And you calibrate your speakers? You know anyone who calibrates their speakers? Your aging ears are accurate transducers? And of course you use...require...multiple monitors to see an image.
Click to expand...

Yes I calibrate my system every day on a project. No I don't depend on my aging ears to calibrate, just as you don't calibrate with a grey card and you aging eyes. Again you show ignorance of the topic you claim expertise in. You use grey cards to take reflective light readings. That would be almost exclusively in still photography. In film one uses an incident light meter. But none of that has to do with calibrating monitors. Old school you would use a special set of color bars (and aging eyes) new school you use a device that sticks on the monitor and a image sequence, at least for computer monitors. Sound systems you calibrate with spectrum analyzers and SPL meters.

Meters and graphs are great for setting up and calibrating systems and near useless for evaluating "quality".

And I don't quite understand where ribbon mics come into a discussion of small condensers in a film forum. Ribbon mics are for all intents and purposes never used in filmmaking. They are pretty low output, relatively high noise and usually too heavy and certainly too fragile for production and it only marginally gets better for post.
 
You will have to tell me how a light meter tells you camera how to calibrate its three colors to the current light temperature. Mine has a little button that wants a white or grey card zoomed in on. Now the light meter is very good for setting up the lights.

The ribbon mics were useful because the example had a narration talking about the differences that were obvious in the graph...the comments from a more experienced source than myself.
 
It doesn't...it sets the white balance in the exposure. If it captured RAW, you would just include the gray card in a frame.
 
When you say quality variation in the past and good quality since the past 3 years, the one i just bought is dated 29-09-05 I feel a bit stupid asking this but did they build them up with high quality components in 2005?
 
Yes.

No worries.

I'm tempted to start a new thead with the oktava vs. schoeps in it... but I'll get it posted here anyway... just to prove my earlier point.

90% of us here are using these for location dialog... don't LOOK for things to worry about. If you are doing binaural recordings of music or xy (or ortf) stereo recordings of strings... then I'd consider some mods... and I'm not KNOCKING the mods... I'm just saying that for this community... I'd like to hear how easy it is for you guys to pick the stock octava from a schoeps mk41.

This audio is/will be dated... but screw it... I'm firing up the HD and finding it. BRB.

OK... I'm back... here you go Which is which? <click that... and I'm sorry for the 1K beeps between clips!

So... which is which? Is it SOSO, or OSOS, or SOOS, or OSSO? As you try to figure that out... think about my earlier points... (once again I'm putting my time and/or money where my mouth is)... and for the record, yes I can definitely hear the differences, but the Schoeps is $1500... so... what do YOU hear? Do you think the mods will turn that $250 mic into a $1500 location dialog mic of Schoeps caliber? If it's this hard to easily distinguish the difference in a $250 stock Oktava and a $1500 cmc6 w/ mk41... well... whatever... again, while it sounds like I'm knocking the mods... I just don't want people to think the reason their last location sound gig didn't sound better was the stock mic's fault... instead use a little more discipline or a better boom op and keep the mic consistently on the frame line... THEN you'll hear what you were missing.
 
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At one foot, the second example (#4) is MUCH better. At three feet, both were good, the second (#2) was brighter, which made the comparison difficult. The second was was crisper and less noisy.

That was ears only.

That said i did look at them, apply some filters to make them similar, and listen again. I'll let others chime in first.

I can't say who is Schoeps and who is Oktava. IF 1 and 3 were the Oktava, and I really don't know, I would like to hear the OktavaMod.

I should have said either OSOS (my guess if I had to bet) or SOSO (which would be surprising, because I thought #3 wasn't that good).
 
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OK, I was giving Matt grief for "knocking the mods" but his post above is completely correct. My only point was that the guy doing the mods was OK and not a scam. But even Micheal (the guy that does the mods) will say the change is subtle. He's up front about what will change and has also told me that for production recording it's probably not going to make a noticeable difference. I know the production mixer from BLUE VELVET and she loves Schoeps, but when she was going off to Morocco for HILDAGO she brought a pair of (stock) Oktava's as backups because she thought they sounded so similar that they could be swapped. The reason I was thinking of having the mods on a (second) pair is that I do some chamber music recordings and it would be worth it, maybe, to get a bit closer to the $1,500 mic. It's always possible that I would find the change so worth it that I would use it for FX also but I had other reasons/ uses. And the economy sucks and a gig that was going to pay for it is off looking for more financing etc... And there is a couple of month wait for appointments to have the mod done. So I'm in a holding pattern. There is nothing wrong with the stock Oktava's (well after the earliest ones and I'm not talking about Chinese knockoffs). They have been used on a ton of films small to BIG. Most of the people getting the mods are using them in studios for recording music in a nice quiet controlled environment. Once your out in the wilds most/all of the "improvement" is going to be lost do to other factors.
 
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