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Gear / Technical Help => Microphones & Setup => Topic started by: 2manyrocks on May 11, 2014, 01:33:26 PM
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Looking at countryman b3's, I see they come in black, tan, beige and light beige at B & H photo. For situations where no hats are allowed, what color should I get and how would I mount them to a shirt or a sport coat? what about clothing causing noise on the recording? PMs for this subject welcome.
I already have a set of black AT853s. They just seem like they'd be a little too obvious.
The music won't be loud. Running into a Sony PCM m10, I assume I'll need a battery box to provide enough power to the B3s. If I use a battery box, will I still need to have a resister mod done to the B3s?
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PM sent... >:D
Peace OOK
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I ran my b3's straight into the M10 once...results were sub-par. Added the battery box and now they sound great. No idea about any mod's on them. I bought them in the YS here and all I know is they are terminated to a 1/8" stereo jack.
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Thank you both for your help. I was thinking it was more complicated until you straightened me out.
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Color? The B3 are so small that you should really not worry about them being obvious.
I have recorded many shows with CA-14s, fat with windscreens, and with a Microphone Madness pair that are about the size of the AT's. Really, nobody looks after the lights go down.
I wear a dark blue or black shirt with dark mics, and clip them on after the lights go down, but I know they're not invisible. With the B3s...just match your wardrobe.
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Regarding B3 powering and mods, I just got my reterminated B3s back from darktrain yesterday. Beautiful job and he did a 2.2k mod as, in his experience, it works better for the B3s than the 4.7k. Will be running them for the first time tonight and can report back with the results if you'd like.
According to their documentation, Countryman B3s require at least 9v of power to run correctly. Plug-in power on most recorders is usually somewhere in the 3v range so I'm not surprised Fatah Ruark got less than stellar results when he ran them as such.
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Yes, I am very interested in your opinion of the B3s. I am particularly interested to find out if the AT853 sound and the B3 sound are roughly on the same level of audio quality or if one is superior to the other. Another taper has kindly mentioned that he thinks I should be looking at the DPA 4060s instead.
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Well, the AT853s are cardioids, IIRC, and the B3s are omnis so they're slightly different animals; a situation that may be ideal for one might not be the best for the other. Regardless, I'll be happy to share what I pull tonight. I have used the DPA 4061 (low-sens version of the 4060) and have gotten some great and not-so-great results with them depending on the circumstances. That's more of an "apples to apples" comparison since the B3 and 406x are both omnis. They're all great mics, it just depends on what flavor you prefer.
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B3s outperform many full sized omnis for what we do. I've used them for open taping when traveling light.
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Well, the AT853s are cardioids, IIRC
AT853's can be O, C, HC and SC depending on which caps are used.
When it comes down to it, all mics can either work magic or be a complete mess with what is captured. I've used 4061's in the past and have made both good and bad pulls. My B3's never really did anything justice and they were used in different situations.
I'd mentioned to the OP via PM that all omnis are more or less going to yield similar results and that if it's about size, the B3's or 406x's are really the only option. If you can conceal them in a hat somehow, then pretty much anything's fair game.
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Listening to a recording I did yesterday made me realize that most of the venues where I would record have reverberation issues. That being the case, what advice would you all offer in that regard? Maybe I should stick with cardoid mics of some kind?