Stereo-Mic

Ambient recording of what? If your talking about ambiences and backgrounds, it's sort of up to you. You want a quiet mic and one not particularly susceptible to RF. You also want a quiet mic pre/mixer and good wind protection for the mic/s.

I use a pair of Oktava Cardioids though a Sound Devices MixPre into a flash recorder. I'm using a Marantz PMD671 but if your going line in I'm not sure there is a lot of difference.

I have also used a pair of Neumanns into a Nagra V.

If your recording busier environments you can get away with less quiet gear. For stealing BGs in bars and such I have used a stereo pair of lavs feeding a MiniDisk recorder. It's a much noisier setup but it really doesn't make much of a difference with bar recordings.
 
Sort of a PS

I havent had great luck with stereo mics. I have used ones from the low end (~$150) Sonys to a fairly expensive Sennheiser (~$650) and a bunch in between. They have been OK but all have been noisier than the Oktava pair and the cheap ones had mini plug outs so kind of limited. The Sennheiser had a serious issue with picking up RF like radar sweeps that made it very problematic in the SF Bay Area because of all the military RF floating around. I also like the flexibility of having two mics.
 
There is one mic combination which is head and shoulders above anything else what comes to stereo ambience recording: Sennheiser MKH30 and MKH40 in M/S combination. Very quiet mics, good RF rejection, does not mind moisture. Rycote has a dedicated holder and Zeppelin for this combination. Naturally you need a MS-matrixed mixer and/or recorder to be able to monitor the signal.

There are also good MS single body mics designed for video field work, from Pearl for example.
 
muroshi said:
What kind of stereo mic would be your choice for ambient recording?
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I wouldn't use a "stereo mic." as such.

I would use either a Soundfield mic. (I have the SPS200, but the new 450 would be better if you are doing lots outdoors as it has a built-in heater to protect the capsules from the effects of damp and condensation).

Otherwise I would use an MS pair of Sennheiser MKH 30/40.

Both options in a proper Rycote windshield.


If you want inexpensive - the Rode NT4 is a nice. mic., but with the major problem that, because of its shape, it is expensive to windshield and really only goes into a full Rycote WIndshield Kit.

A good alternative is the Beyer MCE 72 - this is a slim mic. and can easily be windshielded in a Rycote Softie or maybe even the MiniScreen (the MiniScreen with a Windjammer is actually cheaper and better than a Softie).

I hope this helps.
 
Two sennheiser MKH30 or 40 are 2.6k$ just for the mics. That's definitely way out of my reach and the M/S over my head.

Wouldn't the Rode NT4 fit into my rode blimp? The Beyer MCE 72 would be half of the price of it. Any comparisons among those?
 
The Rode NT-4 fits into the Rode blimp. I used the NT-4 for about a year until I picked up a pair of Audio-Technica AT-3032 omnis. I bought the 3032's because they have a really quiet noise floor (around 8 dBA) and they give the option to use them in different configurations depending on the stereo spread/sound that you're looking for. Here are a couple of sites that can give you info on stereo recording, as well as interesting DIY configurations for stereo pairs:
http://www.trackseventeen.com/mic_rigs.html
http://www.deltamedia.com/resource/stereo_microphone_techniques.html
http://emusician.com/mag/emusic_front_center/
http://www.pugetsoundman.com/articles/stereo/stereo.htm
 
muroshi

I also have the Rode NT55s. They are great mics too. The NT-4 and the NT55 have the same cardioid capsule, but the NT55 also comes with an omni capsule. I only use the cardioid though. The battery on the NT-4 lasts a really long time. More than 20 hrs I'm sure. It's a perfect XY configuration, and indeed does fit in the Rode Blimp. The NT55 pair is good in that you can position each mic separately, and they have a low cut filter, as well as a 10db pad. If I were going out to get ambient sounds I would take the NT-4 for it's ease of use. You just aim it at the sound and bam, you got it. It comes with a foam cover, but you need a furry (like from Rycote) to go over the foam to protect against any wind. It also comes with either an XLR cable, or a mini jack (3.5mm) cable, so you can plug it into the Zoom H1, or the Sony D-50 and run it on battery.

It all depends on how you need to work. But both mic versions sound great IMO.
 
muroshi said:
@Noiz2:
PS? I thought the octavas are not that recommended for film work? Or goes this just for hypers? Which octava pair do you own?
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PS = Post script ie after thought.

Not sure where you heard that Oktava were not good for film? They would not be the choice maybe for someone new who didn't want to take the time to practice but that holds true for the Schoeps. Schoeps is pretty close to a standard in feature film work and the Oktava's are essentially 1930's vintage Schoeps.

I have a stereo pair I use mostly for FX (and concert) recording and a hyper for FX and production work.

I'll give a very condensed version of my stereo rant ;~)

There are a lot of systems out there that supposedly are "accurate" stereo recording set ups. Personally I find 99% of it to BS for two reasons. First off the things that try to mimic what your ears would pick up are only accurate IF you wear headphones and play the recordings back as recorded. If your planing on using speakers then you just completely invalidated the logic behind the recording.

THere is a big M/S camp. The argument there is that you can change the stereo field after the fact, and you get a mono recording as well. The math works out the same if you do an X/Y recording and convert it to M/S. They are freely convertible back and forth so you can change the spread on the X/Y also and you can extract the mono from the X/Y. So for me it comes down to convenience. If I'm recording stereo that is most likely the way I want to use the sound. With M/S you have to extract a stereo signal and with the X/Y you don't. If I want a mono recording I will most likely record in mono. Other peoples work flow may be based around M/S so it's more of a hassle to use X/Y so that is something you have to work out for yourself. I don't think either is superior, they each have their up sides and down sides. M/S tends to be a tighter package so that may be a big plus.

And lastly films build their reality they don't record it, at least narrative films do. So stereo "accuracy", even if you agree that it exists, doesn't really matter for FX recording. The only thing that counts is if you are getting the sound you want. "Reality" has pretty much nothing to do with it. There are endeavors where those things matter but not in FX recording. We have all evolved into systems we like and tend to defend them like they were the holy grail. But in fact my holy grail may not work well for you at all.

The things that transcend preference (mostly) are low noise, reliability, etc. Things that everyone needs. After that listen to what people say, look at what they do (a lot of preferences have to do with what people work on most of the time) and see if you can find something that sounds like what you want to do or someone who's preferences sound like yours. Once you get out of the crap range there are very few bad choices, just bad choices for YOU. We have all made choices that for US didn't work so well and it colors our opinions. Like my opinion on stereo mics. I know there are some great stereo mics out there, but I haven't had good luck and will be very hesitant to buy another one. You shouldn't read too much into opinions like that though.
 
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muroshi said:
Two sennheiser MKH30 or 40 are 2.6k$ just for the mics. That's definitely way out of my reach and the M/S over my head.
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An MKH 8040 stereoset is cheaper (and probably better).



muroshi said:
Wouldn't the Rode NT4 fit into my rode blimp?
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Very likely, ask Rode.



muroshi said:
The Beyer MCE 72 would be half of the price of it. Any comparisons among those?
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Good value for money and easy to windshield, but I have not compared them side by side.
 
Take a look at the Audio-Technica BP4025
Lower self noise than the rode nt4 because of the large diaphragm, fits inside the rode blimp, and cheaper,
I got this instead of the nt4 after a lot of research, now its one of my favorites, I use it with an edirol r-44 with superb results, needing a lot less gain than the rode ntg-2 that I use too.
 
muroshi said:
@Noiz: To answer your question. AT4053b and CK93 have been recommended in this forum several times over the oktava, cause of handling noise and richness of sound:
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?202973-Oktava-MK012-Vs-AKG-Blue-CK93&highlight=octava
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthrea...od-Mic-for-Commentary-Tracks&highlight=octava
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Well out of both threads there are three people who mention liking something over the Oktava. Handling noise is an issue if you don't handle a mic well. The one comment about something else being fuller is interesting, the Oktava if anything seems to have too much bass.

But two points. A lot of this is personal preference, as I mentioned before. And one complexity with the Oktava is that there are chinese knock offs out there that don't sound the same as the Russian mics actually made by Oktava.

So nothing there would translate into "I thought the octavas are not that recommended for film work?". But that doesn't mean that other mic choices are not just as good or even better.
 
Noiz2 said:
And you also need a 1/8" feed. None of the mics mentioned so far have 1/8" outs except the Sony I mentioned awhile back.
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But the NT4 would work with the zoom H1, I think?

Why do you not want to use the built in mics?
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With the Zoom H1 mics I notice self-noise above input level 48 (which wouldn't fall between the recommended -12 and -6db for most things). If it would improve the sound quality considerably I would buy the NT4 to enhance the quality of my short. What's your impression?
 
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