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Gear / Technical Help => Microphones & Setup => Topic started by: (Evan) on March 01, 2009, 10:02:57 PM
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So I know that the difference is apparently quite large between the UniLine and 943 cardioid caps...but what about the shotguns? Does anyone here have experience using both? I need to buy one or the other, and would like to know which ones you guys prefer. Thanks!
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I thought the unilines were the same as the shotguns, but I could be wrong of course.
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No, the 943 and U853 shotguns are different.
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Anyone?
Just to specify, I'm asking about the differences between the AT943, and the AT853(UniLine) shotgun caps.
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Anyone?
Just to specify, I'm asking about the differences between the AT943, and the AT853(UniLine) caps.
Personal preferences will abound here. I use the U853s (cards especially) because they sound more natural and full to me. My AT mics originally came with 943 card caps, but I never used them.
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Thanks but I'm asking about the shotguns.
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I have owned and used both of them. Normally I would recomend the 853 capsules over the 943, but in the case of the microline vs uniline, the microline(943) sounds better. The 943 is clearer and has plenty of bass. The 853 uniline sounded muffled to me....
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Wow...unexpected! Thanks!
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yeah, it was unexpected for me too. I sold my microlines at a loss to fund the larger 853 unilines thinking they would sound better. To my suprise I was disapointed. Now granted I didn't record the same show with both mics, so I don't have a direct comparison, but I am very confident the 943 sounds better. That said the 943 or 853 shotguns are my favorite capsule in the 853/943 series. They sound very natural for an interference tube design and have a better bass response than all of the capsules except the omni....
pull the trigger, you will be happy....
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When to use shotguns? When your much further from the sound source?
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When to use shotguns? When your much further from the sound source?
That is one philosophy. My philosophy is use them when you are trying to reject off axis sound... chatter, reverberation off the walls, etc. It's not bombproof, but it helps.
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The whole idea of using shotgun microphones for stereo music recording is a shaky proposal from the start. They aren't "audio telescopes" the way people seem to imagine, and they aren't very good general-purpose microphones--they are mainly designed for speech pickup. Their special directional effect is only at speech frequencies, specifically in the range where consonant articulation occurs. Their directionality is no greater than that of normal directional microphones such as supercardioids until you get up into the kHz region.
Also, their off-axis response at high frequencies tends to be quite uneven. The manufacturers of low-cost microphones don't generally give polar response diagrams at different audio frequencies, but that's where this shows up. Even at normal pickup distances for live performance music recording (out in the audience), a lot of the musical sound that you pick up is off-axis because it's been reflected from various room surfaces. Most people underestimate the percentage of reflected sound in their recordings but if you can imagine how things would sound in an anechoic chamber (like outdoors acoustics only more so, very creepy) you might begin to realize it.
Anyway, to put it bluntly, the off-axis response of all but the very best shotguns--only three or four multi-thousand-dollar models--positively SUCKS at high frequencies: muffled AND spitty at the same time. And those three or four tolerable-sounding ones for music, by the way, are all short shotguns, so the effect they have of seeming to bring the sound source closer is not as great as you might hope.
Sorry to seem like such a downer here but ever since I got to this place I noticed that there's a huge amount of swallowing of myths here on this topic. People who work professionally with shotgun mikes--film and video sound recordists--would never think of using a pair of them to record a concert (although M/S with a shotgun mike for M isn't out of the question) and mainly, would never think of using them at the distances people here typically use them at. The whole point of an interference tube is to create shadows in the high frequency response for off-axis sound. When you're so far away that most of your sound is coming at the mike from off-axis, that's just not the type of microphone to use.
--best regards
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DSatz is right. The frequency response of most guns really sucks. In a good environment, cards will beat guns every time, no question.
But I'll disagree a little, in that when you have a miserable environment, and you don't have any choice but to run from there, guns will frequently allow you to pull a somewhat better tape than you would have otherwise. Is the music perfectly preserved? Absolutely not. Is it "more listenable" because it has less chatter and boomy-ness. Yes, that's about it. Again, it's a matter of choice.
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I find my Nak gun tapes ether really rock or really suck. I am currently really enjoying tgakidis AKG c480B/ck69 Phish pulls from the weekend.
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Rather than starting a new thread, I figured I'll ask this question here.
How do the 943 hypers and U853 hypers compare?
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Funny thing is, I actually usually use 943 OMNIs with my head as a biaural baffle when stealthing nowadays (which I don't do often but when I do, or when I want to create biaural ambient recordings). Anyway, I've actually found that despite the added ambient (talking, etc.), if I can get myself into the sweet spot, I prefer the omnis to even cards, plus they are much more forgiving when it comes to head movement, lol. But YMMV of course.