Why no love for the AT-8015?

[Pietro Impagliazzo]

Hey guys... On my old research for directional microphones I end up discovering the AT8015, it's a huge shotgun microphone from Audio-Technica.

I see from the polar pattern that its sound isolation is even better than the Sennheiser ME 67 which really aims!

So I ask you this question: Why almost no one talks about this microphone? I've never seen someone using it here in Brazil, what about USA or another country?

Is there any caveat about this mic that I should be aware of?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Noiz2]

I think I have one in a box somewhere. If I remember correctly it was a pretty inexpensive long shotgun that was very popular with the ENG/ no-budget film crowd in the 80's or so. It has relatively low handling noise and was very durable. It is also battery powered and fairly noisy compared to what you can get today.

The big issue would probably be that it is a monster and it's not much use indoors.

 

[gpforet]

One of the drawbacks of this microphone is its low sensitivity. Not a problem when using a mixer on the front end, and I agree that the rest of the data looks pretty good. The current trend of shortcutting sound by bypassing the use of a mixer would make this a poor choice since recorder preamps would have to cranked way up, and even then, this output of this mic is less than half of what the Rode NTG-2 is. And we all know the complaints about level when feeding the Rode directly into a recorder.

Truth is, bypassing a mixer makes microphone selection very limited. There are some GREAT sounding microphones out there but they need lots of clean gain

Hey guys... On my old research for directional microphones I end up discovering the AT8015, it's a huge shotgun microphone from Audio-Technica.

I see from the polar pattern that its sound isolation is even better than the Sennheiser ME 67 which really aims!

So I ask you this question: Why almost no one talks about this microphone? I've never seen someone using it here in Brazil, what about USA or another country?

Is there any caveat about this mic that I should be aware of?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Pietro Impagliazzo]

I think I have one in a box somewhere. If I remember correctly it was a pretty inexpensive long shotgun that was very popular with the ENG/ no-budget film crowd in the 80's or so. It has relatively low handling noise and was very durable. It is also battery powered and fairly noisy compared to what you can get today.

The big issue would probably be that it is a monster and it's not much use indoors.

One of the drawbacks of this microphone is its low sensitivity. Not a problem when using a mixer on the front end, and I agree that the rest of the data looks pretty good. The current trend of shortcutting sound by bypassing the use of a mixer would make this a poor choice since recorder preamps would have to cranked way up, and even then, this output of this mic is less than half of what the Rode NTG-2 is. And we all know the complaints about level when feeding the Rode directly into a recorder.

Truth is, bypassing a mixer makes microphone selection very limited. There are some GREAT sounding microphones out there but they need lots of clean gain

I didn't know this design was so old... Damn. No offense meant about age here, it's just that I was born in 89.

I had great results using an AT897, that has even lower sensitivity, with somewhat good pre-amps. I wouldn't mind too much about this factor personally.

Noiz and Gpforet, what microphones should I be looking for that would offer me the same amount of directionality as this one and that certain sound character I personally appreciate of AT mics?

Gpforet, could you give me examples of microphones that are great but need clean gain to be usable?

Thanks guys.

 

[Noiz2]

I won't mention when I was born ... Lets just say it was back when people watched TV by candlelight in their log cabins.

Are yu sure you want that much directionality? Shotguns are not telescopes, they don't pick up more from the front they pick up less from the sides. The long shot gun was used by the ENG folks because they were often not close and in a noisy environment, low budget folks picked them up because they were cheaper and could be had used. Most narative film shotguns are short shotguns like the 416. Long is not nec better, unless it is for what you need.

 

[Pietro Impagliazzo]

Yeah Noiz, It was more than once than less than ideal situations had stopped shootings for almost half and hour, I know they are not telescopes and I've seen in practice how even very aimy shotguns like the ME 67 can sound like crap, because the boom op thought they were laser microphones of some sort (newbie stuff back in the beginning years of filmschool). I'm just looking for a classy yet somewhat affordable solution to a very aimy shotgun, specially since most sound guys around here don't carry many of these.

Any reason why narrative prefer short shotguns to long ones?

I was talking to this sound guy friend of mine and joking saying that maybe Brazil is way noisier than other countries, how can people not desire a shotgun with more isolation? There's noise and people yelling everywhere! hehehe

I just noticed the CMIT-5U seems to wield the same level of surround isolation than the AT8015 provides, even being a short shotgun. You do get what you pay for.