From: Rob Danielson <>
> That's an terrific line-up for side by side
> testing. Being able to assess noise performance
> with full gain thru a great pre like the 722's
> and then evaluate M-S imaging performance-- this
> would be very valuable for the recording
> community. I'm not sure I'd try to run all of
> the rigs at once. The chance of over-looking a
> setting or factor is high. There are ways to
> create repeatability. For the M-S imaging part
> the toughest requirement may be the large, quiet
> space.
Note that M/S is not the only stereo setup. It would be good to compare
some other field setups.
It's best to get out and find a nice quiet natural site for testing. I
use a pond at a wildlife preserve that's 30 miles south of here for a
lot of this. You need to examine the performance of these systems in the
type of site you wish to record.
> Very true about the amazing power of EQ in
> digital posting. I can patch the Rode M-S pair
> on the front of my quad speaker system and the
> mkh-30/40's on the rear and play with EQ to make
> the MKH's sound very similar to the Rode's and
> vice versa. I'm not sure there's a lot of tonal
> difference to make a big fuss about between most
> well-made mics that have appropriate polar
> patterns and are positioned well.
As Bernie has pointed out, at the high end there is no best mic, you
should choose a mic at this level based on the sound you like.
> The MKH's produce a pronounced, remarkably
> accurate sense of source direction, but, with
> equalization, the Rodes seem to portray a better
> sense of the distance from the source to the mic.
> I suspect that the NT2A (fig 8) would also
> benefit from partnering with a wider, more
> tonally uniform MID like the 30 enjoys. We know
> the (large diaphragm'd) NT1A is limited to about
> 6o degrees of uniform tonal coverage and this
> narrow coverage is probably reducing the amount
> of informative overlapping especially around 2
> o'clock and 10 o'clock.
This issue is part of why I went entirely MKH in my M/S. A ME mic, for
instance, coupled with a MKH-30 would make a M/S at a cheaper price
point, but using a MKH mid is a better match for mic character. There
are only a few choices in mic series that include a figure 8, and it's
fortunate that MKH is one that does. It would be nice to see Sennheiser
put out a ME figure 8 for a lower priced alternative.
> Both of these Rode mics are repeatedly reviewed
> as "Vocal mics in the tradition of the Neumann
> UA-87." Manufacturers are not spending a lot of
> money trying to make and market mics for people
> who go to places filled with broadband noise,
> crank up their preamps and try to image animal
> (and other) communications. What we do in the
> field is different, perhaps so different that,
> sometimes, it serves us better to ignore the
> assumptions. Rob D.
I don't find the descriptions of mic usefulness in studio as being very
helpful for nature recording. We make do with mics designed for
different uses, and pretty much have to get out in the field and record
to find out how well they work. The raw technical data and lab tests are
really only good enough to decide what to try in the field. And we won't
know what will work until we have some field experience with it,
preferably over time at many sites. I'm always a little mistrusting of
singular recording tests of mic setups that the recordist does not have
a lot of experience using.
Walt
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