RODE NTG-2 Question

T

TheCase

Member
Hi,

Im am currently looking into getting a better mic than I have now, I use an external system to record sound, a minidisc.

I am looking at the RODE NTG-2 because when I am on location I dont want to be messing around with Phatom Power its just easier to have a battery in there, is there any difference between using the battery over the phantom

So this is my set up. Im going to use the RODE SM-3 shock mount attached to the boom pole, using a blanced XLR lead (2M) to an 6.5 jack then convert that to 3.5 so it can plug into the minidisc, is this ok?

So I would like to use the mic as far away from the subject as possible and still pick up excelent audio I see its Supercardioid so it has a fairly nice pattern, looks better than an shotgun mic.

We will be filming in and out, so will the deadcat/windshield reduce the strength of the mic because it is like covering the mic up so it wont be as loud I suppose. We will be also be doing vox popping so we dont want to put an mic in peoples faces too much

What you think?
 
TheCase said:
Hi,

Im am currently looking into getting a better mic than I have now, I use an external system to record sound, a minidisc.

I am looking at the RODE NTG-2 because when I am on location I dont want to be messing around with Phatom Power its just easier to have a battery in there, is there any difference between using the battery over the phantom

So this is my set up. Im going to use the RODE SM-3 shock mount attached to the boom pole, using a blanced XLR lead (2M) to an 6.5 jack then convert that to 3.5 so it can plug into the minidisc, is this ok?

So I would like to use the mic as far away from the subject as possible and still pick up excelent audio I see its Supercardioid so it has a fairly nice pattern, looks better than an shotgun mic.

We will be filming in and out, so will the deadcat/windshield reduce the strength of the mic because it is like covering the mic up so it wont be as loud I suppose. We will be also be doing vox popping so we dont want to put an mic in peoples faces too much

What you think?
Click to expand...

Shotguns typically ARE supercardioid - "shotgun" describes the physical design of the mic itself used to form its pattern while "super-cardioid" describes the shape of the pattern itself.

"...use the mic as far away from the subject as possible and still pick up excellent audio..." Let's see, that limits you to booming the mic no more than about 3 feet away from the subject.

Okay, I'll bite ... what the H is "vox popping?"

Most XLR to 1/4 TRS adapters will put XLR pin 2 on the tip, pin 3 on the ring, and pin 1 to sleeve. This is totally wrong for feeding to a stereo mini mic input and you'll end up with the same signal on both left and right channels but 180 degrees out of phase with each other, a disaster in post. Never cascade adapters so ditch the 6.5mm part of the chain and make up a cable with XLR pin 2 to a mini plug's tip and ring tied together, XLR pin 3 to mini plug sleeve, XLR pin 1 to cable shield, either leaving the cable shield floating at the mini plug or tieing it to the sleeve as well.

You'd be much better off using an active XLR to mini adapter box such as a Juicedlink or a small mixer rather than just a physical cable adapter. The way you're going about it you lose any advantages of the balanced cable as far as noise rejection, etc. Unbalancing at one end without using circuitry or transformers to do the job unbalances the whole system.
 
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I am looking at the RODE NTG-2 because when I am on location I dont want to be messing around with Phatom Power its just easier to have a battery in there, is there any difference between using the battery over the phantom
Click to expand...

I believe as with most batt. powerable mic's you loose a little headroom and sometimes gain a bit of noise because of the lower voltage. But it's not a lot, probably not enough to show up on a MINI Disk recording.

So this is my set up. Im going to use the RODE SM-3 shock mount attached to the boom pole, using a blanced XLR lead (2M) to an 6.5 jack then convert that to 3.5 so it can plug into the minidisc, is this ok?
Click to expand...

Just so you don't think I'm an elitist I used a MINI Disk with a mini plug mic in for wild recordings for a number of years and as a backup for my DAT. That said going in the mic in of pretty much anything with a mini phone plug is a bad idea. That is one noisey circuit. Using a mic pre like the MixPre and going into the same MINI disk at line level is a VAST improvement. Will it work? Probably. I don't like all those adapters. I would try to find something that will do it in one adapter. Also the mic in's on MINI disk recorders (that use mini phone connections) usually have power on them to power the kinds of mic's designed to work with them. This could be a problem for a couple of reasons. First if you not going through a balancing transformer to get to the mic your hitting it with voltage on one pin. It probably won't kill the mic but??? I wouldn't take the chance. Second since the MD is looking for a stereo mic in and your going mono if you don't use a "stereo" mini plug your going to short one side to ground. That could cause problems for the mic powering circuit in the MINI disk. If you adapters are connecting "all the wires" so that the three pins on the XLR connector on the mic are being connected to the three connections on a stereo mini plug you have two problems. First your hitting you mic with voltage and second your recording out of phase dual mono, that everyone is going to think is "stereo". If that "stereo" recording is summed to mono it will disappear.

And lastly if nothing else is a problem, the voltage on the mini connector with nothing to do can sometimes create a hum/ buzz/ noise.

A properly designed adapter should eliminate many of the above issues but a Mic pramp solves them all so...


So I would like to use the mic as far away from the subject as possible and still pick up excelent audio I see its Supercardioid so it has a fairly nice pattern, looks better than an shotgun mic.
Click to expand...

Bad Idea. With very rare exceptions you always want to be close. A shotgun doesn't pick up more from the front it rejects more from the sides. Being far away is just as bad with a shotgun as it is with any mic. The difference is you will get less from the sides and back to step on your weak (because your too far away) front signal. Don't get hung up on names. It is a shotgun. The names are not a hard and fast thing and manufacturers use different names for the same thing.

We will be filming in and out, so will the deadcat/windshield reduce the strength of the mic because it is like covering the mic up so it wont be as loud I suppose. We will be also be doing vox popping so we dont want to put an mic in peoples faces too much
Click to expand...

The NTG-2 is not horrible indoors, at least the few times I have dealt with it or recordings done with it. But no shotgun is really "good" indoors. Of course a lot depends on THE indoors. A fairly dead room should be OK with many shotguns, a hard walled empty one will be hard on all of them. The dead cat doesn't reduce volume much at all. The whole design is to be as transparent as possible. I have no idea what "vocal popping" is so I can't help you there but you do want to be in their faces. Well not really but you should aim at being closer than 2 feet and more like one foot if at all possible.

Finally I would look to upgrading from MINI Disk as soon as you can. It can be a fine format but it has some issues.
1) with the exception of the new ones that can record wav files it records in a compressed format. A number of kinds of sounds can "freak out" the encoder and give you unusable recordings. It's near impossible to predict what sounds will do it and when, but it will happen from time to time.

2) Many MINI disks like yours (and mine) have a problem where if the battery gets too low they go into a coma mode. You can't stop the recording and it won't write the directory to the disk. The only way to break this mode is to pull out the batteries. MINI disks write their directories at the end of recording. So if you get the coma you loose whatever you were recording and sometimes the whole disk goes gaga and you loose it all.

3) mini connectors are bad news. Flakey connections, easy to break and easy to pull out.

4) Pain to transfer, low quality of transfer. The basic way most people get the sounds off the MINI disk is to use the line out of the recorder. On these low end (not the HHB MD recorder) this is a noisey trip. And the recorder is doing the decompressing and they are not usually great at it. And it's real time. When I was using MD for various things I was using a MD deck to transfer. It made a BIG difference.

5) MD is a dead/ dyeing format. Disks are going to get harder to get and equipment is going to get harder to replace. You have it so... But make sure that you get anything you might want in the future on to something you will be able to read if the MD breaks because you won't want to/ be able to replace it in the future.

The way to get really good recordings out of a consumer MD recorder like yours is to go in line from a Mix Preamp and transfer with a MD deck using the digital out.

But instead of dropping $1K or so to make the MD sound good you could drop $500 or so and have a really nice flash recorder with file transfers instead of real time transfers.
 
Thanks for the detailed reply. The technicality of this is really confusing. I know the MiniDisc has some time issues for long recordings it looses time but I never have had a problem, neither have I had it go into coma mode, but I have it now but will be looking to move on as you say its dieing form.

So a PreAmp like this:
http://www.dolphinmusic.co.uk/shop/flypage/product_id/1937

Any good? The problem is this looks AC powered and when running with the subject you cant plug it in, and its XLR outputted again, so how do we convert that into 3.5 jack orr are you you saying with the preamp, I can go XRL -> 6.5 jack -> 3.5 jack without problems but if I'd just do that out of the mic I'd have the problems

Thanks
 
Nope. Forget anything with tubes. I'm guessing you have a small to nonexistent budget. In that case the Beachteck mentioned above might work. Also you might be better off getting the right addapter and just saving for something like the MixPre. Behringer makes (I think) a small battery powered mixer in the ~~$50-$80 range. That might be OK but? It's kind of a toss up when you that low in price. Also you might look for used in the classified ads. Where you find real bargains is when either someone has died and the family is just dumping everything or sometimes someone is just getting out of audio and want's it all gone ASAP. Also garage sales sometimes have great deals. What you looking for is something that is quality but for whatever reason the seller just wants it gone or doesn't really know what it is. Over the years I have found some real bargains but you never know. You can get good deals from people upgrading equipment. It's safer than garage sales because the equipment has generally been maintained by someone who cares but you won't often find huge bargains because they know what they have.
 
TheCase said:
Yeah, I have an £150/$220 budet, I guess this is too small and the above mixers start at £600
Click to expand...

At the very least the preamp that Noiz suggested ...

http://www.sounddevices.com/products/mp1master.htm

plus a properly wired adapter cable to get from it to the minidisc, like this ...

http://www.trewaudio.com/store/product.php?productid=146&cat=21&page=1

would get you into the right ballpark.

If you want to go into the mic input instead of the line input, something like this ...

http://juicedlink.com/index_files/CX_camcorder_XLR_microphone_adapter_audio_mixers_CX211.htm

or this ...

http://beachtek.com/prod.html

are worth considering. I have one of the 4 channel Juicedlinks and can vouch for their quality.

Now, what is "vox popping?" <g> When I hear that term my first thought is the 'pop' sound of the burst of air from 'plosive consonants such as "B" and "P" hitting an unprotected microphone, not something you usually want to record <grin>.
 
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Vox Popping, is going up to random people in the street and asking them questions, like you see typically on news channels or comedy shows.

This may seem dumb, but how do I know wether to use Line In or Microphone atm I use Microphone never even touched the Line In

The http://www.sounddevices.com/products/mp1master.htm starts at £200 over my budget. I'll have to save up more and come back and see whats new
 
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TheCase said:
Vox Popping, is going up to random people in the street and asking them questions, like you see typically on news channels or comedy shows.

This may seem dumb, but how do I know wether to use Line In or Microphone atm I use Microphone never even touched the Line In
Click to expand...

Line in is for when you feed the recorder line level signals. Mic levels are typically weak, ranging from a couple of millivolts for dynamic mics up through 35 or so millivolts for some condensor microphones. The NTG-2 is somewhere around 15 mV as I recall. Line level is a much higher voltage used for connections between different types of equipment like amplifiers. The playback output of your recorder would be an example of a line level signal, used when you connect it playback through a regular stereo receiver or to a set of amplified speakers. For consumer equipment such as your minidisc the standard line output would be 316 millivolts, 20 times the voltage of your microphone. Microphones need sensitive preamps to raise their voltage to where they can drive the recorder. When you use the mic in you're using the mic preamp built into the machine itself, which on inexpensive equipment is often not of the highest quiality. Using line in will by-pass the internal preamp (most of the time - some camera manufacturers cheat on this), replacing its function with the usually much higher quality external one and when one of those field mixers provides it, giving you more control as well.

A thougt occured to me ... is it just you or is someone talking to your subject asking them the questions while you film? If you're working with an interviewer, why not use a handheld reporter's microphone in the hands of the interviewer rather than fussing with booming a shotgun. Something like the ElectroVoice RE-50 dynamic mic is well within your budget, excellent sounding, an industry standard for field reporting use, and tough enough you can pound nails with it so if your interview subject gets PO'd at the questions the interviewer has a club in his hand with which to defend himself (LOL). Other possible choices in the same type of microphone at even lower cost would be the EV635 or the Audio Technica AT8004. Just an idea.
 
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Its not just reporting it is a bit of everything I do make films as well so this would be no use. Looks like this will cost more than I imagined

Thanks for everyones help here, I learnt alot today, happy new year :)
 
TheCase said:
Its not just reporting it is a bit of everything I do make films as well so this would be no use. Looks like this will cost more than I imagined

Thanks for everyones help here, I learnt alot today, happy new year :)
Click to expand...


Alas, there really is no one size fits all solution. You need to assemble a tool kit so you can pick the right tool for the job at hand.
 
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