Due to present circumstances, it seems kind of quiet in here at the moment, so perhaps I might be forgiven for mentioning a device which could have relevance to run and gun location sound recording - even though it's a video and stills camera.
I'm talking about the DJI Pocket 2 gimbal camera. Check it out online and you'll see it has a handle containing a small screen, and at the top is a gimbal head for the actual camera part. If you wanted to make an informal video of a live event, it has some advantages over a mobile phone because the gimbal mechanism keeps the head pointing in one direction even if your hand wobbles about, and it's not so conspicuous as a phone, nor so irritating to the people behind. Nor will it ring in the middle of the event.
But that's not really what I'm posting about. In the handle there are 4 mics - left, right, front, back. They are just the pinhole kind, and I imagine they must therefore be omni capsules in there. Four closely-spaced omni capsules wouldn't normally be the slightest good for creating a wide stereo soundfield. Sony M10, I'm looking at you (only had 2 of course).
But... somehow they are getting an excellent, almost binaural sound from this arrangement. And they are even rotating it according to which way the gimbal head points, presumably using some kind of pseudo-ambisonic technique. Bass extension is, as far as i can tell from the YouTube videos I have seen, very good. High frequencies? Noise? Don't ask me, my ears are too shot now to tell. Younger readers might tell me.
But all in all, I could imagine getting a very servicable run-and-gun concert recording out of this, together with 4K60 video thrown in, for a very modest price - subject to how well it handles high SPL levels. There are only four sound input levels to choose from but that needs not to be a problem if noise level is acceptable. I'm trying to find out what the spec is in that respect.
But there's more. If you buy the 'creator kit' version for a bit more money, it comes with an extension to the handle into which you can connect a stereo external mic. And it comes with a wireless transmitter with its own mono mic, and that too has a (mono) mic input for a lav mic, and a remote start/stop button. When you turn on the transmitter, it automatically switches the input from the built in mics to the radio mic. Could be interesting if you wanted to have the device in front of a band recording from its own mics, then from a distance turn on the radio mic to speak some commentary in between songs. And the handle provides a wireless link to a phone app which gives full control over the camera, including panning and tilt and (digital) zoom. Very unusually, the mic socket is also a headphone socket for checking playback. Apparently there's an impedence sensor which makes sure you don't play back into a mic. I shall test that with a mic I don't mind destroying...
Mine is on order, and in due course I will see whether I can illustrate its potential usefulness as an audio recorder myself. Meanwhile here are some YouTube examples if you are interested.
Ambient sound -
https://youtu.be/WAqeed_b5QsMore ambient sound - note that this is a comparison of the new model with the old and the sound switches between the mono sound of the old and the stereo sound of the new -
https://youtu.be/w5mPe0Pc8-0And yet more - with some music towards the end.
https://youtu.be/mLEfc6vVR_sThis one is just some test footage using the built in mic array in someone's home at night (but indicates what video performance might be like in low light eg jazz club). There's a TV in the room. Notice how accurately the location of the TV is pinpointed in the stereo soundfield as the camera turns in different directions. Right at the very end there's a very low drum (?) beat from the TV which show bass extension -
https://youtu.be/0qhqBPC-rDwI'd love to get this in front of a string quartet... that would probably be revealing.