Topic: Mic recommendation? Interview use / Low self noise

[Japanofile]

I've decided to buy a new mic, and I'd appreciate advice/recommendations.  My main use is for recording interviews, sometimes outdoors, so something with a tight pattern that can be handheld would be good. (I also have a shock mount with hand grip that I can use, if necessary.)  I'd like something with XLR connection and low self noise.  I'd also like to keep this under $500.  Any suggestions?

[John Willett]

The BBC standard is an omni mic.

It's less prone to wind noise and does not need to be aggressively waved around like a directional mic.

So a Sennheiser MD42 would do fine, or the equivalent from Beyer or Electrovoice.

[pohaku]

The BBC standard is an omni mic.

It's less prone to wind noise and does not need to be aggressively waved around like a directional mic.

So a Sennheiser MD62 would do fine, or the equivalent from Beyer or Electrovoice.

In that vein, an EV 635A is pretty commonly used. It is also indestructible and inexpensive.  Lots of them on the used market.  They sound good too!

[Japanofile]

Thanks!  I checked, and the availability/price situation here in Japan is as follows:

ElectroVoice 635A = 10,800 yen (about US$108)
Beyerdynamic M58 = 11,000 yen (about US$110)
Sennheiser MD62 = Unavailable, even on the Sennheiser Japan official website.
Shure KSM141SL, with windscreen 59,800 yen (about US$598). It's more than I want to spend.

If I buy either an EV 635A or a Beyer M58, would ordinary handheld use be sufficiently noise free? Or should I plan on using my shock mount with handgrip? 

Also, are there A-weighted self-noise test results for these two mics? (If so, where?)   I want a mic with a strong, clear signal that tolerates ordinary handling and is not noisy or hissy.
 

[Japanofile]

Shure KSM141:  After searching the websites of all my usual audio sources in Japan, including Sound House (59,800 yen), I just tried Amazon Japan, and lo and behold they have the KSM141SL for 39,900 yen!  That's a tad less than $400.  I can live with that price, especially if the self noise and sensitivity are very good.  Thanks.
(By the way, my field recorder has phantom power.) 

Thanks, too, for the other information about mics, in general.

[pohaku]

Musicgoround has a couple of used ksm141 mics on their site for $279 each.  You could see if the musicgoround store carrying them would ship to Japan.  I've had pretty good luck buying stuff from them in the past.

[DSatz]

> would ordinary handheld use be sufficiently noise free? Or should I plan on using my shock mount with handgrip?

Pressure transducers offer considerably better resistance to handling noise than directional microphones, just as they are considerably more resistant to wind noise. (Pressure transducers are by nature omnidirectional--and that includes the omni setting of the Shure KSM 141, which uses the same mechanical pattern-switching principle as the Schoeps MK 5 two-pattern capsule. But it's not a stolen design; the patent on the principle of the Schoeps capsule expired many years ago, and Shure is to be commended in my opinion for using this approach. This way they avoid proximity effect, wind and handling noise, and the general weirdness in polar patterns that results from a dual-diaphragm design.)

--When comparing the noise levels of microphones, the A-weighted specification (which is generally rms, i.e. smoothed over time and thus ignoring impulse noise) is NOT the one to go by; it's a marketers' dream number. If you can get a CCIR-weighted quasi-peak measurement, that may be 9 - 12 dB higher, but will much more accurately reflect the effective noise level of the microphone in a quiet background. Unfortunately, many manufacturers provide only an A-weighted rms specification, which makes them look much better.

Plus, of all the specifications for microphones, the noise spec is the one on which different manufacturers differ most in the results they get. A standards committee of the AES that I belong to did an experiment a few years back, in which all the leading microphone manufacturers measured the same test microphone. They mostly agreed about its frequency response, polar patterns, distortion, max. SPL and so on--but their noise measurements (using supposedly identical methods) differed by as much as 6 dB.

--best regards

P.S. Kudos to Jon S. for his remarks about noise in dynamic microphones. Unfortunately, a lot of people assume that because dynamic microphones generally don't have active circuitry, they have "no inherent noise" when in fact, their noise levels can be quite high--and the frequency spectrum of that noise is generally quite a bit nastier than it is in condenser microphones.

[thunderbolt]

I use this for interviews and really like it:

http://www.electrovoice.com/product.php?id=104

It has higher output than the standard EV RE-50.  I use it with a modified PMD661.

[John Willett]

Thanks!  I checked, and the availability/price situation here in Japan is as follows:
Sennheiser MD62 = Unavailable, even on the Sennheiser Japan official website.

Oops - my mistake (now corrected in the original) - it's the Sennheiser MD 42.

[F.O.Bean]

I would use a shockmount just to be safe there was no handling noise. But then again, I dont know sh*t about dynamic mics! Just my 0.02