Topic: Radius Windshields and Shockmounts - former Rycote owner's new company

[voltronic]

I have been following the development of Radius Windshields for the past few months. Radius is run by Simon Davies, the former owner of Rycote until it was sold in 2018 to the Vitec Group. All Radius products are made in Devon, UK.

EDIT: Here is the thread on Gearspace where I first learned about these.

Like Rycote, Radius makes a variety of windscreens and shockmounts for various applications. You will see right away that Radius shares a bit of DNA with Rycote products, and in fact the hoops for their shockmounts are able to be mounted in Rycote bases, by design. Initially I thought these mounts looked great, but the full RAD-1 and RAD-2 mounts have somewhat higher visual footprint than I would like for what I do, where my mics are directly in view of the audience.

Recently, I came across this post from Roland Harris which shows a pre-production sample of the RAD Field Edition mounts. This is an incredibly compact design! You lose the angle pivot, but that can be accomplished other ways if need be, such as a ballhead or Posi-Lok clutch under your mic bar. Roland encouraged me to reach out to Simon directly, which I did. Simon was extremely helpful to me in the past when I was trying to sort out the different compliances of Rycote mounts. In my conversation with Simon, it became clear that I need to try a set of these, and I will be ordering a pair when they are released.

If you want to see what the Field Edition will look like in greater detail, this post on the Radius blog shows the LOM BasicUcho mount. This product is exactly thing as the RAD Field Edition except it only includes one set of hoops.

Other details Simon has shared with me:
- The RAD Field Edition will go on sale via resellers starting on January 15, 2025 and start shipping the following week.
- Pricing is not yet final, but the preliminary pricing Simon quoted December 7 was around £54.00 incl. VAT for a single mount and £88.00 incl. VAT for a pair.
- Each mount will include a pair of standard 72D hoops AND a pair of soft 62D hoops, along with a pair of 19/21mm mic clips.
- The upcoming very-soft 55D hoops can be substituted for either of the included ones if ordered from Radius directly. Otherwise, they will be available as separate parts.
- All of the RAD mounting bases have 3 mount points to allow for different hoop spacing, or use of a single hoop if mounted in the center position.

This PDF details the different hoop options. It does not include an upcoming 55D very soft hoop option, which will be dark green.

I will check back in once I have a pair of the RAD Field Edition in my hands. I have no need of their windscreens at the moment, but they may be interesting to other people here.

[Niels]

Thanks for the heads up.
The EU store seems only to be doing B2B sales - am I mistaken?

[voltronic]

Thanks for the heads up.
The EU store seems only to be doing B2B sales - am I mistaken?

It doesn't look that way to me, but you can buy Radius products through any of the resellers in the EU if you prefer. There's a separate B2B ordering page here.

The Radius EU webshop says it is managed by Ambient, so you could always contact them directly.

[EmRR]

Nice to see another option

[goodcooker]

Neat. I like this design much better than the lyre shape from Rycote. Those things always seemed very unwieldy and took up too much space.

[Niels]

It doesn't look that way to me, but you can buy Radius products through any of the resellers in the EU if you prefer. There's a separate B2B ordering page here.

The Radius EU webshop says it is managed by Ambient, so you could always contact them directly.

No reseller in Denmark - maybe that was why I ended on the B2B website. I am not in the market for shock mounts now so I will not pursue the matter.

[SMsound]

Recently, I came across this post from Roland Harris which shows a pre-production sample of the RAD Field Edition mounts. This is an incredibly compact design! You lose the angle pivot, but that can be accomplished other ways if need be, such as a ballhead or Posi-Lok clutch under your mic bar.

I often do open-taping in places where I need super light, compact, fast-to-set-up gear. I have a scale and measure every gram I carry.

I love this solution.

I often don't use any shockmounts because they are big and heavy. I would absolutely use a pair of these guys. Do we see multiple versions for different weight mics? Schoeps CMC1 weigh more than Line Audio CM3, and I use both.

[SMsound]

Recently, I came across this post from Roland Harris which shows a pre-production sample of the RAD Field Edition mounts. This is an incredibly compact design! You lose the angle pivot, but that can be accomplished other ways if need be, such as a ballhead or Posi-Lok clutch under your mic bar.

I often do open-taping in places where I need super light, compact, fast-to-set-up gear. I have a scale and measure every gram I carry.

I love this solution. It's also ideal-looking for Schoeps CMC1.

Note to others reading the thread: Scroll down on the page Voltronic linked. It's here: https://drbadphil.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RHI6205.jpg

I hope someday it comes in black.

I often don't use any shockmounts because they are big and heavy. I would absolutely use a pair of these guys. Do we see multiple versions for different weight mics? Schoeps CMC1 weigh more than Line Audio CM3, and I use both.

[Thelonius]

I have been following the development of Radius Windshields for the past few months. Radius is run by Simon Davies, the former owner of Rycote until it was sold in 2018 to the Vitec Group. All Radius products are made in Devon, UK.

Like Rycote, Radius makes a variety of windscreens and shockmounts for various applications. You will see right away that Radius shares a bit of DNA with Rycote products, and in fact the hoops for their shockmounts are able to be mounted in Rycote bases, by design. Initially I thought these mounts looked great, but the full RAD-1 and RAD-2 mounts have somewhat higher visual footprint than I would like for what I do, where my mics are directly in view of the audience.

Recently, I came across this post from Roland Harris which shows a pre-production sample of the RAD Field Edition mounts. This is an incredibly compact design! You lose the angle pivot, but that can be accomplished other ways if need be, such as a ballhead or Posi-Lok clutch under your mic bar. Roland encouraged me to reach out to Simon directly, which I did. Simon was extremely helpful to me in the past when I was trying to sort out the different compliances of Rycote mounts. In my conversation with Simon, it became clear that I need to try a set of these, and I will be ordering a pair when they are released.

If you want to see what the Field Edition will look like in greater detail, this post on the Radius blog shows the LOM BasicUcho mount. This product is exactly thing as the RAD Field Edition except it only includes one set of hoops.

These look really cool.

I can see a number of use cases for these from a small light and inconspicuous set up for small venues where I want to be less visually intrusive to running a second set of mics on one stand or just trying to minimize gear when travelling.I love that they come with 2 sets of loops for added flexibility.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts on these when they come in.

[voltronic]

Recently, I came across this post from Roland Harris which shows a pre-production sample of the RAD Field Edition mounts. This is an incredibly compact design! You lose the angle pivot, but that can be accomplished other ways if need be, such as a ballhead or Posi-Lok clutch under your mic bar.

I often do open-taping in places where I need super light, compact, fast-to-set-up gear. I have a scale and measure every gram I carry.

I love this solution. It's also ideal-looking for Schoeps CMC1.

Note to others reading the thread: Scroll down on the page Voltronic linked. It's here: https://drbadphil.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/RHI6205.jpg

The photo you linked is to a custom 3D-printed ORTF solution Roland worked up and Radius will eventually manufacture. The RAD Field Edition is shown in this photo.

I hope someday it comes in black.

The RAD Field Edition bases are black, and the hoops are dark grey or black depending on the compliance. The bright blue hoops are for the standard RAD-1 and RAD-2 mounts, but they also come in a Dark Edition if you want the subdued colors.
See the PDF I linked above.

I often don't use any shockmounts because they are big and heavy. I would absolutely use a pair of these guys. Do we see multiple versions for different weight mics? Schoeps CMC1 weigh more than Line Audio CM3, and I use both.

Again, see the PDF which describes the different hoop compliances. The upcoming 55D hoops are not shown in that product guide.

Also, if you scroll halfway down the main homepage, there is a 'Find What Fits Your Mic' section. I was pleasantly surprised to see Line Audio CM4 on the list. Radius seems to recommend two compliance levels for many mics, and that's because if you are boom micing with a heavy windscreen it's going to change the situation.


Another option is using just one hoop for very small mics, and that's currently being discussed in the Gearspace Thread on these mounts (now added to the OP).

[voltronic]

Here's a photo showing how single Radius hoops work well with actives, in this case Sennheiser MKH 8000 with MZL cables. Credit once again to Roland. Source

[aaronji]

^ That's fairly large compared to the typical active. I wonder if it is too stiff for something lighter?

I also wonder to what extent different mic models (and local conditions) require shock mounts. I have a fancy pair of Rycotes, but, in all honesty, I almost never use them. Even when I have accidentally kicked my own stand (and noted the time) or clamped to something pretty bouncy, I never hear noise from that. Anecdotally, it varies considerably for different mics; maybe my DPAs are just fairly robust to shocks or there is something to the way I mount (clips onto the XLRs with the small C bodies or loops in the cable?) that affect this. That being said, these look pretty cool! Might have to get a pair and see... 

[Gutbucket]

Thanks for comprehensive introduction and thread on these Volt.  Nice new option.  Visually clean. 

I suppose the elastomeric suspension hoops are sized to fit within a defacto standard blimp diameter without interfering?

I'm finally getting around to reworking my setup which I intended to do last spring, and am considering incorporating suspension this time.  If so it will support the full array where the central hub mounts to the stand/clap/foot rather than at each mic. Have played around with that in the past but never got it to where it ended up being worth the the extra bulk and potential droop/wiggle. Have been scheming to try some low durometer sorbothane "pucks" distributed in a "spider" geometry around the central attachment point to the hub  However, a couple of these hoop elements arranged flat in the horizontal plane with the central attachment point of the stand/clap/foot running up through the center might work nicely while remaining compact and potentially be more effective.  Other than getting the durometer correct, the mechanical screw attachment on each side of the elastomeric Radius hoop element looks like it would make incorporating them in that way straight forward.  But realistically since I need this completed within about a month, if it works such an suspended arrangement will probably end up being a secondary revision.

Like others posting in this thread, I go back and forth on use of suspensions in general. IME its a a nice to have but somewhat unnecessary thing for most of the taper situations in which I record.  I can hear the effect of bumping/tapping the stand when its quiet, moreso in the directional mics in the array (miniature supercardioid DPA), but almost never detect that in the resulting recordings.  For me its most likely to be more important when clamping to a railing, table, or anything else that folks end up drumming on or kicking - situation dependant.

[voltronic]

^ That's fairly large compared to the typical active. I wonder if it is too stiff for something lighter?

Once again, see the linked PDF. The hoops currently come in 5 different compliance levels, and the upcoming 55D hoops will make that 6. Then you add the options of using two of the same, two different, or just one hoop and you have even more choices. Scroll down to the next page of that guide and you'll see the different clips. The 19/20 clips will come standard on the RAD Field Edition, but the 8 mm clip would likely work on the rear hoop for actives. You'll see that setup on the last page with the RAD-1 CCM/CMC Edition.

I also wonder to what extent different mic models (and local conditions) require shock mounts. I have a fancy pair of Rycotes, but, in all honesty, I almost never use them. Even when I have accidentally kicked my own stand (and noted the time) or clamped to something pretty bouncy, I never hear noise from that. Anecdotally, it varies considerably for different mics; maybe my DPAs are just fairly robust to shocks or there is something to the way I mount (clips onto the XLRs with the small C bodies or loops in the cable?) that affect this. That being said, these look pretty cool! Might have to get a pair and see...

I'd say to a very large extent. The mass of the mic makes a big difference, as does its pattern. My heavy DPAs (with full-size A preamps) are less sensitive to vibration than my featherlight Line Audio mics, but my 4011 caps still need much more isolation than my 4006 caps as expected. I use a pair of 72-shore Lyres for 4011A; a 68-shore Duo-Lyre (which is MUCH stiffer) on 4006A.

I am kind of amazed that you kicked your stand and didn't hear it in the recording with the mics hard mounted!

[aaronji]

I am kind of amazed that you kicked your stand and didn't hear it in the recording with the mics hard mounted!

Yeah, absolutely nothing, even though I knew where to look. Nothing on the spectral view either. I have done it a couple of times. In December, I was recording a show from inside the soundboard enclosure and a guy pushed a movable metal barrier into my stand. That prompted me to pick up the stand (the top of which swayed concerningly) and move it about a half meter. I can't hear or see that either. All with 4015s on the compact bodies. Maybe I just lucked out and they coincided with snare bombs or something...