The Oktave killer?

Oleg 2

Carbonite Member
Ok guys as you know i do like mics and i like make experiments with different brands .
so maybe i was very bored as i passed the 40 i year ago and decided to make
some unusual test to check if any one will notice big difference if i will change the usual schoepses i use every day( i use them as i oun them not because i cant use the mbho and akg i have as well ) and replace them with something that cost less then oktava.

so last week i got these mics and did a couple of days on documentary testimonials in very nice sound proof offices with few males with quit good and strong voices to dvx .

it passed the test without any problem as the mics where fixed 1.5 feet overhead , no movement , no quick boom flying .the director of the shotes and the editor was pleased with the results - not so suprizing as i know that if i was coming with sony camera mics it was still passing :-)

but this time it had to pass female voice in not sound proof stage , allot of buzz from 10k and 5 k around ,
channel 2 supervisors and jumpy director + my fear to .f.u.c..k sound on 70000 us$ shooting day of one of the secussful tv drama serials here in israel ( Iimale) israeli channel 2 serial which starting the new season and make very expencive promo to run the season

except only one person on the set ( my booman) who was surprised to see new toy no other member of the crew didn't have aclew that what handling on the 600us $ ambient boom pole is 150us chiniz mic .

he was also surprised hear me say that i will take the boom and will go booming the rehearsal and he will ride the levels and will make test recording ( hd-900 sony directly true 442 )

so the rehearsal passed his ear and he asked what is the brand as there no name on the mic and was super surprised that there is no brand for that mic and it is one that has allot of names but these who decided bring it to israel decided not to give it any name at all .
he was more then surprised to hear it cost 215 usd with 3 capsules

(by the wayAlex Epstein bommed Matt Dillon , Gerard Depardieu
, the kid that see dead people and the film that took the sundance foreigner film this year and 4 features with me ,half of the episods of the serial the promo was made for ,about 20 years of experience recording and booming ,best booman that you can find on middle east , that for sure )

to make it short , it passed almost every shot under 2 feet and for much wider ones we pulled the sanken or trow the wierless
i dont not have allot of problem with mixing the mics as i know that director will cut almost everything from the mediums and close ups , maybe will left few words from the long so the editor will have mostly deal with my chiniz friend .
in the end of the day i was quit happy , i was more happy that i was strong enout to back up and change the mic ,so i passed my fear .
the mic worked perfectly , no failuers no starnge behaivior , nothing that i couldnt live with . the dyrector and the chnnel promo people dint have anything about that the sound is harsh and the talent is not sounding ok .
the y all where feed with line feeds , the director used shuree 33 on his monitor with 7506 so get extar acurate sound from my line outs .
the video vilage was acupide with bberengher headphone distro and akg/low cos bayer headphones .
so there where no shi*ty ifb feeds as they didnt pay me enouth :-)

so where do i put it - it is in the octava range -with small benefit , it has low cut filter of 75 and 150 which make the rumbling noise totally invisible
and work more then fine to eliminate nasty proximity effect .
it has 10 and 20 db pads (the 20 really not useful for the dialog as the mic become worse then shure 31;-)
the fast moves with 3 $ foam were not a problem at all when the filter was on .
it is abit hotter then octava , i will say it about 2 db less then schoeps with cut 1 .

the cardioid and the super cardioid capsules sounding very close , the hyper has abit more of mids so might be less proof for sibiliance , i had to take the mic off axis a bit on some takes but maybe this was this specific voice as i didn't have any of these last week on male i recorded


i paid 380 us for matched factory par with 6 capsules and nice box (got a small discount as i know the guy who run the business 410 regular but i think he give the discount to every one so maybe iam not more then the regullar castomer ))
215 if you buy 1 set and you dont get the box

all the mics come as matched par as it only way he told me that the factory will check them before they send , so he pays a bit more and has 0% dead on arrival
they sell it only with 3 capsules per mic -cant split so you get omnys that not for our regular use but why not ,some times you do need these for music so it can work on occasions or blow up when doing gun shotes :-)
didn't really checked how matched they are but for my year they did sounded very close .
the cardioids sounded the best , but they alwais sound the best - even what people telling you about schoeps 41 i prefer the 4 cardioid for the sound

conclusion

i passed the chiniz mic fear test
it passed my boman ear and people who hear the mic on the spot


they sounds very nice for close micing
they have very low self noise at least they do not problematic in real world situation ( except the 20 db that is completely shi*)

will i use them on daily usage- yes, in placesno one pay me for my better stuff
do they friendly to use - they are
they are excellent choice as camera general mic if you dont prefer shotgun.
the handling noise and wind could be effectively been cut with 75 or 150 high pass filter , they long enough to be outside the camera , they short enough not to be in the frame ( hypercardioid)

do they have nasty spots - they do
they make sound devices preamp motor boating as cs-1 and blue lines so you have to cut low end on the mixer ( the internal lo cut doesnt help)
is it critical - no ( on 744 i could cut them with 40 hz) , so iam probably will not use them directly on music recording with sd gear without ext phantom power . they do work perfectly whith my other mixers and recorders , they work perfectly with dvx camera inputs .


length - they not the shortest, 16 cm and there is no swivel - but then oktava doesnt have it as well .
weight -about the twice then oktava
they sound ok but they do not akg or geffel or mbho , but so the oktava

ok, final - do they worth the money - big time
do they good for indy filmmakers - they do
do they more friendly and forgiving then oktava on boom and has less problems with suspension and wind flow - yes
do they sounded better - no they sounding different - they more mbho and geffel then schoeps or oktava
ahh - they dont have name or fancy logo but you always claim that it came from the same factory which make some nice brand names .

pictures

http://groups.google.com/group/sellbuyexchange-film-videoaudiogear/files?upload=1

by the way ,the first 2 days with these mic i ran them with the yogi mixer as one of the mebers here called it , the tw-44 that will get its oun review in a week or 2 .
yes it much better then the 44 or psc dv mix shi* someone did mention here in the past , very similar to wendt for the sound and bit with the price and facilities .,so stay tuned :-)
they dont have name but they have allot in USA .

BY THE WAY they would work with peluso .charter oks , sontronics and other capsules ( or these the same capsules :-)) and many others which share the same parents
 
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Ooooh.

THat'll Rock the boat

Possible alternative for the Indy guys then.
Sounds like a risky thing for you to have done! Taking risks is all part of the mid-life crisis? hehe ;)
 
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http://groups.google.com/group/sellbuyexchange-film-videoaudiogear/files?upload=1

ithink you need to be amember to upload the files
so be amember
yep some people buy porshe - i buy chiniz mics :-)
by the way i bought nice voice over large condenser without the name for less the 200 , as it come in pares as well one of my friends which has editing suit bought one as well so we can shere the matched par
nice worm sound very low noise - solid mic , 10 db pad amd low cut filter
will be perfect for live on stage shotes ;-)
 
ScoobySounds said:
Ooooh.

THat'll Rock the boat

Possible alternative for the Indy guys then.
Sounds like a risky thing for you to have done! Taking risks is all part of the mid-life crisis? hehe ;)

Hey if the mic is equal or better then an Oktava for equal or less money then we have to check it out.

I'm the last person in the world to bury my head in the sand... if this thing is a good mic I'll buy one (or more). I like that it's got a low-cut right on there.

I'm hoping that we'll have a showdown before too long. I'd like to hear them both in an A/B test. Winner takes all. :beer:
 
I'm going to second that they look like black Peluso CEMC6's

http://www.pelusomicrophonelab.com/CEMC6.html

I mentioned these a couple months ago, as they have been getting good reviews for music for some time. A reputable U.S. dealer for Peluso is SoundPure. I have purchased numerous mics from them in the past.

http://www.soundpure.com

I'm not surprised that there might be no-branded Chinese knock-offs of these, as Peluso has the bodies and some of the electronics made in China, and the risk of having anything manufactured there is that they will turn around and rip you off :) It has happened to other folks as well. Of course the Peluso mics are themselves somewhat "clones" of another famous mic.

I couldn't be happier with my Peluso mic.
 
sorry did you see me doing AB Tests for the last 3 years :-)?
it pass my ear or not , that the only test i do .
and the test i did on the promo is better then anything else , noone test dialog mics in sound proff studios as we usially work them on differnt locations whith different voices so some would sound better in one place and some will sounds better in other and on others .
so the bulshit of AB TEST is not realy bother me .


the mics from that factory goes for the about 160-180 per mic if you buy them at states and about 45-60 us per extra capsule then you add for the name they shoing whith

the factory as i know was build by east german GEFFEL engineers time ago
so actually iam not surprise they sounded ok .

the only problem with these products is the quality control , that why Charter oaks and others take quit allot of money for the same product and their logo as they at least check and match the mics/ capsules for specifications .
i tested 2 matched pairs not scientifically of course but only to hear the general feel . they sounded the same , so i suspect that the factory did matched them or at least the limited edition which was sent to israel (about 25 pars ) did pass quality control

i will talk to the guys and see what their plans for the future and if they are going to import it steady to israel - not very profitable if you ask me as the price you pay here incl tax on import and very high fedex shipping duties from china ( still they do some money and it only showes how much others robe you for the same products :-))

so if they continue do it, ill try to convince them make cardioid /hyper cardioid packs what make take the price about 30 us less so for 180 you will get for film set .

these people also bring mbho to israel so it is very delicate as you know not to step on other brands (these are really good microphones and with 604 short body they make you get one hell of the good microphone 730 euro for mic ,hyper and cardioid , another 140 for the swivel - 60 less for 603 preamp 370 for a figure of 8 , for the price of 1 schoeps you get a matched par :-))

so who knows - these who like to do the tests find the same mics and do it , if you like to hear them and test them i can arrange you 1 or 2 if there any left at all as they sold almost immediately the whole stock for local musitians .

or you can watch the Promos for Imale on Israeli Chanel 2 in a week or 2
and probably my next commercial for one of the largest banks iam going to nail with these mics on my next gig on wednesday -
as we say in cinema - rules was made to broken as we did it this time :-)





for got to mention that the deameter is 22 mm
 
ok , the promo is -On air - dont hear any problems
and since i have another one next week with the same company i dont think they where dissapointed :-)
i did afew tests and the mics have some bump on their uper fq range ( we did the test with sd 302 to protuls )
so it may be the problem with sabilience i had on some shotes whith thin female voice
i will try to check if i can make adapter ring and use the bodies whith oktava capsules ( 19n to 22 and central pin adapter ) , but it may take few weeks until i will find some one who can do this delicant job
what i really liked that i can take all the **** doun inside the mic so there was no wind shifts and handling noise which came from the preamp ( let say this the only reason i use cut 1 on schoeps mics)
stay tuned , there are some nice surprises i hope you will get next week and i still oun you my reviue about the tw -44 which i becomes as an option for 4 channels under wendt price .
 
I am really having a hard time with all this mic stuff. As everyone seems to suggest to audio newbies, I decided on the Oktava with the BBG and Windjammer. I was 5 minutes from checking out and then I saw this post.

This will be my first mic, should I wait and pick up this mic, or is the Oktava plenty good enough for me to learn with and still achieve good results?

By the way, thanks for the review! Even though it has confused me, It may have saved me a purchase!
 
if you want go straight to the camera you will have benefut at least ridd of the unwonted low fq problems

and since this one has longer body it would nuch eacier fit it on any normal suspension , the octava with it short profile is abit pain in the ass .
check around you may find these as here they been sold as acomplete set only ( 3 capsules- hyper , cardioid , omni=215 us+ shipping )
 
by the way - no one belive me it was recorded with 150 $ microphone,even the guy who sold me these :-)
 
after more then 10 days - averall 300000us budget production days
these mics already established a nice place in my bag - and yes they already covered them self .

secend opinion.
they are reliable , working grate inside the zeppelin outside on interviews ( 75 hz roll off /foam ) .
almost zero handling noise ,
working perfect with lecto uh transmitter .
working perfectly as camera mic ( small Sofie)
and they are f.. cheap
 
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