The venues are small ensambles were often one is a meter away from players, in churches and very small halls. If it summer and youre practically wearing nothing (even in a church :-) yes difficult to hide things. As i said ive tries OKM-II for classical and have tried other mics and pres. Plus, i want a low cost solution that is comparable to the internal mics of the M10.
It is understood therefore that the M10 uses 1 pre. If that is so does anyone know what is the noise and output (sensitivity?) of the M10's internal mics so that any external mics (like the AT853/DPA's) i might try are compared with it? - thanks
I have cracked open the Sony PCM-M10. It has 10mm omni microphones, two-wire connection, rated self-noise 18dBA. These are quite good mics, especially for quiet recordings. They are *excellent* for voice, but find the quality insufficient for (serious) music listening. Also, they *may* overload a bit at loud levels, though I have not experienced this myself.
I would recommend you use external mics, but no battery box or preamp. With careful selection, you can get very good performance.
What capsules to use? If you can tolerate higher self noise (say 24dBA), I would get a pair of Countryman B3 lavalier mics. Wire these directly to a miniplug and you will be astonished by the clarity and realism of these mics, both for ambient and music recording. If you're worring about connectors, get a right-angle miniplug and tack it on with some hot melt glue, then cover with gaffers tape. Start recording, set levels, lock unit, and gaffers tape over the level control and you can tolerate any stealth situation.
If you need lower than 24dBA, then you will *probably* need some more effort. But to be honest, 24dBA is pretty quiet. Even if there is a (slight) hiss, it is nothing when played back on a recording with full dynamic range. You really only need to go lower for either nature recording, or (quiet) spoken voice recording. Any "performance" venue, theatre or music, will have acoustics and/or sound reinforcement suitable for getting over this pretty low noise floor.
Now, that said, please do not tear the mics out of your M10. These always serve useful in cases of impromptu or "point and shoot" recording where you don't have time to setup gear.
Richard