Rode NT55 for interior dialogue

cap10kirk

cap10kirk

Well-known member
I recently purchased a Rode NTG-3 shotgun mic. I watched the rode university videos, which recommended the Rode NT55 for interior dialogue recording. Is this a good recommendation?
 
Not a good recommendation.

That's a cardioid. It's for instruments mostly. You need a hypercardioid like the AT4053b. The closest thing rode has for indoor video is the NT3, which is decent, though bright and heavy. I have used it for years though before I upgraded.

Here's a casual demo I did.

 
Cheers.

Do you know of a good article about which mics should be used indoors and outdoors for video which you point people to? I'm in the market for a mic or two for filmmaking.

-Andrew
 
AndrewGentle said:
Cheers.

Do you know of a good article about which mics should be used indoors and outdoors for video which you point people to? I'm in the market for a mic or two for filmmaking.

-Andrew
Click to expand...

Articles and books abound that discuss this. The issue is actually not indoors versus outdoors as such. Rather, it's reflective environments with a high level of indirect sound hitting the mic from off-axis versus non-reflective environments where there's little indirect sound to content with. Interior, acoustically conditioned spaces such as soundstages behave similar to open spaces outdoors while some exteriors, such as a paved tennis court or a playground next to the wall of a building may have as high a level of reflected sound going on as would a typical office space.

Indirect sound hits a mic with a slight delay and is phase shifted with respect to the direct component. When you use an interference tube based mic, the direct wave component is mixed with the indirect wave in the tube and the resulting mix of the phase shifted components gives rise to comb-filtering effects where some frequencies are emphasized and others are cancelled. I liken the resulting sound to voices in the bottom of a well or in a metal culvert, the sound taking on a hollow, ringing quality. So interference tube mics are often used outdoors while hypercardioids, which get their directivity from a different physical prinicple altogether and don't have any interference tube mixing, are used where high levels of indirect sound are present.
 
Steve House said:
Indirect sound hits a mic with a slight delay and is phase shifted with respect to the direct component. When you use an interference tube based mic, the direct wave component is mixed with the indirect wave in the tube and the resulting mix of the phase shifted components gives rise to comb-filtering effects where some frequencies are emphasized and others are cancelled. I liken the resulting sound to voices in the bottom of a well or in a metal culvert, the sound taking on a hollow, ringing quality. So interference tube mics are often used outdoors while hypercardioids, which get their directivity from a different physical prinicple altogether and don't have any interference tube mixing, are used where high levels of indirect sound are present.
Click to expand...

:Drogar-Shock(DBG)::Drogar-Shock(DBG):
 
Steve House said:
Indirect sound hits a mic with a slight delay and is phase shifted with respect to the direct component. When you use an interference tube based mic, the direct wave component is mixed with the indirect wave in the tube and the resulting mix of the phase shifted components gives rise to comb-filtering effects where some frequencies are emphasized and others are cancelled.
Click to expand...

Ah, I see, thanks for that, Steve. Interference tube based microphones are more directional and, therefore, more effective for dialogue when they can be used which gives rise to the need for both.

-Andrew
 
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