Microphone advice needed

B

billh

Well-known member
I am looking for a microphone for an EX1R. I know I will use the camera to record speakers in a small room, nature videos, and short clips of finished pianos being played by an artist for web use (often there is a recording engineer present, but not always). I’ve seen people mention the Sennheiser 416 and ME66 and the Rode NT# and NT4.

Thanks!

Bill
 
billh said:
I am looking for a microphone for an EX1R. I know I will use the camera to record speakers in a small room, nature videos, and short clips of finished pianos being played by an artist for web use (often there is a recording engineer present, but not always). I’ve seen people mention the Sennheiser 416 and ME66 and the Rode NT# and NT4.

Thanks!

Bill
Click to expand...

A better method might be hard wired to the sound board.
 
distant miking of pianos is a pretty tricky task - and rarely sounds right on standard video/interview style mics. If the aim is high quality piano sound, then you have to decide on how ambient you want it to be. The piano is generally considered a stereo sound source simply because of the physical distance between the low and high strings. A mic that has a pickup pattern vaguely 'torch like' will sound wrong - if you ask the recording engineer to set up for a sound recording - then there will be mics in shot. If you have to have the further away, it needs a good piano in an excellent sounding room. Concert halls work, but small rooms with many hard parallel surfaces work badly against you.
 
For piano, a pair of large-diaphragm condensers, in ORTF configuration, flown above the piano about 9' and about 12' from the axis of the hammerline provides a very well-balanced pickup without too much acoustics.
 
FYI billh,

ORTF isn't an abbreviation for anything to do with the mics, it means Radio France.

The configuration is to point the two mics just a bit more than 90 degrees away from each other. :happy:
 
The advice so far is great, but the sad fact is that there is no one do-everything mic, just as there is no single do-everything lens. Your initial mic selection shows this: The 416 is a shotgun and its design makes it sometimes poor to use indoors (a vagary of their construction and noise rejection system), the NT4 is a specialty X-Y stereo mic that'd be the wrong choice for inteviews but great for outdoor ambiences, and so forth.

The one general class of mic that can cover all of your bases is a small condenser mic. Examples include the Oktava MK012, the Shure SM57, the Røde NT5, the Schoeps CMC modular system, and the Sennheiser MKH series. The challenge is that each of these mics has a different character: some are noisier (more electronics "self-noise"), sharper, smoother, peaked in different frequency ranges, etc. What's more, small condenser mics also have different pickup patterns, mostly affecting frequency response and what amount of "off-axis" sound will be rejected. This still makes it hard to find one mic whose characteristics will be well-matched to a wide range of material. Those that come closest might be the Schoeps CMC series, but many sound effects people find them a bit too noisy for super-quiet effects gathering, and they're also supremely expensive, widely considered some of the best mics of their kind, period.

The more you know about mics, the more you can bend the rules, er, the guidelines. Some shotgun mics perform great in the right rooms. Some small condenser mics are great on acoustic instruments. Some large condenser mics are even hauled into the field for nature ambience recording. But it takes experience and knowledge to anticipate shooting conditions, content, and audio characteristics to make such calls in mic use. I'm still learning!

How do I choose mics? I do exhaustive research online, examine all my possible uses, and rent before I buy. In fact, if your uses aren't recurring - that is, the uses you list are one-off gigs - I'd strongly recommend renting for those gigs! Tell the rental agent what you're recording and you can rely on their expertise. This way you can rent a range of mics and THEN, after you've got some experience with them, you can make a much more informed buying decision! (See if you can lean on the recording engineer you mention!) Finally, there's no harm - indeed, there's a lot of utility - in using a different mic for each of the uses you mention.

Hope this helps,
-Atomick
 
Piano is difficult to record on the cheap. And in a room you will have reflections. I guess I would try the Zoom H2, or a pair of truly cheapo earthworks-style mini omnis like the Naiant or get something better. For better, Atomick's post is exactly on the money. Except I don't use Shure :)
 
billh said:
I am looking for a microphone for an EX1R. I know I will use the camera to record speakers in a small room, nature videos, and short clips of finished pianos being played by an artist for web use (often there is a recording engineer present, but not always). I’ve seen people mention the Sennheiser 416 and ME66 and the Rode NT# and NT4.
Click to expand...

Perhaps without realizing it you have asked 4-5 good questions there. As atomick very well explained, those are all significantly different kinds of applications and it would be unlikely to find a single mic that covers them all.

Recording "speakers in a small room" is a wide-open question. Without knowing any details, it could be that a small clip-on mic would be most appropriate. Or a hypercardioid boom mic.

Recording nature videos is a very different kind of application. Consider that many examples of this kind of footage aren't really using sync sound. The video is shot in a visually artistic way, but the audio may have been recorded separately perhaps with the microphone closer to the "source", maybe even within the video frame, etc. Ambient sound recording generally requires microphones with very low self-noise and high sensitivity, especially if you want to collect the sound from the POV of the camera. But mounting microphones ON the camera is rarely a good idea because the location usually isn't optimal for the microphone. Fortunately, the EX1 is all "solid-state" (no tape transport noise) so the only noise I would expect would be from the lens motors and operating handling noise.

Ambient sounds are frequently recorded with a separate small digital recorder. There are separate discussions specifically about recording ambient sounds, and even whole discussion forums devoted to the topic.

Recording pianos is yet another completely different kind of recording application. It is very dependent on the type and character of the instrument, and also very much dependent on the room (and even the style of music to some extent). Unless you are just shooting short "news style" shots, recommend having the recording engineer do a proper mic selection and placement if you are going for something that really captures the character of the pianos.

Note that the Shure SM57 is not a condenser mic and probably not suitable for any of these applications.
 
Richard Crowley said:
Note that the Shure SM57 is not a condenser mic and probably not suitable for any of these applications.
Click to expand...

Oops, yikes! :embarasse Thanks, Richard, I typed while too tired: Indeed, the SM57 is a dynamic mic, not a condenser mic. Sorry 'bout that but thanks for the correction!
 
Thank you everyone. I did not realize I was asking you such a broad question. It looks like the better way to go may be buying more then one mic? I am a photographer, and your video world is new to me, and I still have a great deal to learn. I didn’t know a better way to describe what I wanted - by “nature”, I meant things like this,

http://www.vimeo.com/8769320

and as for the piano, I understand about the space, etc. and the incredible choice of equipment available, and I have heard the difference a small change can make. I see this frequently, and I am not trying to capture sophesticated sound like you see here.

http://homepage.mac.com/billh96007/PianoCraft/PhotoAlbum242.html

http://homepage.mac.com/billh96007/PianoCraft/PhotoAlbum267.html

http://homepage.mac.com/billh96007/PianoCraft/PhotoAlbum286.html

http://homepage.mac.com/billh96007/PianoCraft/PhotoAlbum284.html

When I do take video of the pianos, I use Plural Eyes to sync the sound they give to me. The mic selection I made was based on nothing more than the fact I have seen them mentioned in video forums. Can you guys suggest some that would be good to use for the sounds like in the video I posted, and also for a speaker in a small room (I assume they are different). More educating comments are most welcome!

Thanks,

Bill
 
I wouldn't use omni mics to record piano, if the goal is to keep room ambience under control. I'm not a fan of close-miking pianos. The stereo balance is unnatural and the tonal balance is too bassy. Mikes need to be a distance away, and directional, to maintain a stereo balance that suggests a closer mike location, but from a distance, you capture a more natural tonal balance, recording the instrument as it is most often heard by an audience.
 
Well, that's what makes audio fun because I would never use large diaphragm mics on piano, although I would sometimes go for the Sennheiser medium diaphragm like the MKH 80 or 800, but the first mic out of the drawer for piano is usually the high voltage DPAs. The only reason I suggested the mini omnis with the tiny capsules is that the are like $60 and can be used for close miking--which you need in a room with reflections--as well as nature sounds and so on. Like all super small capsules, they sound different than say the Schoeps MK2H, which is also a good choice, just way more expensive. On piano, I start out with either a Faulkner array MKH 30s with two flanking DPA omnis (or the MKH 80s in wide cardioid) or a decca tree. But not in a small room. NOS with two omni flankers is nice as well, and a couple of sweeteners, preferably two carefully placed MKH 41s over the bass and treble ends, away from the hammer noise and off axis from the string plane gives the slight zing to make up for the out of tune harmonics from the octave stretching used in piano tuning.
 
That's all very creative miking, but I'd reckon it would sound like most every commercial pop recording I've heard involving piano--heavy, chesty, unnatural. Not that it's a bad thing--indeed it may be what the client wants, but it's not how a piano sounds from a distance away.

The thing all too many recording engineers forget, or seem not to know, is that musical instruments radiate different tonal balance in different directions. A natural sound is not found if an instrument is close-miked, because that arrangement ignores the sound the instrument puts out in different directions. The way we hear sound in the front row is an integration of the instrument's various radiated sound, bounced off various surfaces within the stage, orchestra shell, and deck. Close-miking ignores these sounds, providing a completely different, albeit unnatural sounding pickup.

Having the mikes a distance away, but utilizing a carefully-controlled cardioid patterned large diaphragm mike, rejects most of the reverberrations and works well in medium/large spaces. I don't like the small mikes because the self noise is audible.

The whole idea of recording as an extention of the musical art just conflicts with my philosophy that Classical music should be presented as-performed. Apparently Peter Aczel of The Audio Critic shares that philosophy. To me, a great recording is one where I can set down in my listening chair, close my eyes and be transported to the 4th row center in the concert hall.
 
Hi guys,

Let’s forget the piano mics - there is always a recording engineer for anything serious. I have two uses coming up. One is to use recording a speaker who will be 25 or 30 feet away from me, and for use when shooting a WW2 pilot visiting the Air and Space museum. Then there is times when I am on hikes filming and want to pick up the sounds I hear, like water birds, etc. Atomick has mentioned several possibilities (Oktava MK012, the Røde NT5, the Schoeps CMC modular system, and the Sennheiser MKH series). It may be I need to buy two mics, but with this in mind, which would you guys recommend? I do have a Edirol R1 digital recorder here that perhaps would be a better choice than one of these mics if I placed it on the lectern and synced it with PluralEyes?

Thanks,

Bill
 
For the speaker, put a wireless lav on the podium mic.
For ambients, use Rode NT4, on the camera if for run n gun shooting.

For serious sound pickup, I use a pair of studio condenser mics. And for really serious work, I use a dedicated 8 channel 24/96 recording system.
 
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