Topic: Sony M10 Auto Everything

[gormenghast]

OK, Don't laugh    Taking the family to see Tears For Fears next month and thinking of running the M10 in a hat--actually have my son do this.  He's interested in taping Tears For Fears after hanging out with old dad for the 5 show SCI run.  He doesn't want to run the full schoeps rig, and might not want to run mics, so the M10 omnis might be all we need.

So, what are the con's if any running the M10 in full auto--tough to monitor levels where the recorder is in a hat or on top of a hat--depending how we do this.

Kid is 15 and 6'2" 

[TheMetalist]

If he wants to make things easy I would recommend a small battery powered elektret microphone like this:

Sony ECM-719

It uses a tiny LR44 battery.
It has a clip on the back. As it is omni he can put it on his shirt under his jaw and the cable inside the shirt to make it invisible.
As long as he is silent (turning head and whispering is no problem) he can move around a bit without losing too much of quality.
It has a 'voice/music' switch and it can handle pretty loud shows.
The cable is long enough so he can have the M10 in his pocket or in his hand to check levels and stuff.

I used this mic back in my MD days when I was lazy and wanted to be stealth without external battery power. The mic is small enough to avoid attention. I always had it under my jaw, on my bag strap or hoodie. Noone ever noticed the mic. Hit and run.

I'm sure the M10 has better mics but to gain interest in taping it should be simple. To have the M10 in a hat sounds like a task even if it's small. You don't have any control at all as you can't watch the display. Doing all the work and the sound turns out too hot or maybe not recorded at all. That is a big disappointment. Any omni will pick up some audience chatter but putting it above the head won't really change that.

You can find sound samples if you search "ECM-719" on Dime.

Just a suggestion. We all need to start somewhere and making better and better recordings is a great trigger. Hope it helps.

[adrianb]

I understand the desire to keep things simple, but I wouldn't use auto mode for the levels, I suspect they'll be over the place. I'd be tempted to set low and try that.

What I'd really tempted to do is use some mics up to the task of loud volumes, with a battery box, into the M10 and just set the levels at 3 or 4. You could gaffer tape it all together so it's just a simple single unit, little different to the M10 on its own.

[morst]

off the top of my head, set the mic to low sensitivity, and the level knob at about 1.75 out of 10. Use the limiter and the hold function! Should be fine if you don't stand in front of the stacks.