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Gear / Technical Help => Microphones & Setup => Topic started by: (Evan) on March 05, 2009, 08:05:00 PM
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Can someone tell me if this is a good idea?
I record a lot of musical theatre, and sometimes when I have to sit in the balcony the recordings are just airy and muddy sounding. Would my results be improved by using shotgun caps? Since I'm stealthing, I won't be able to really aim them that well. I would prolly put them on eyeglasses (at943's). I know they're extremely directional, but for far away recording would it really matter if they were pointed directly at the speakers?
Thanks!
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How long are the shotgun caps? 5"? I guess it could be done but hard to imagine those hanging off of your glasses. Not to shoot down the idea, just never really thought of shotguns for stealthing purposes.
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Well they wouldn't be hanging off...i'd have them extending to the back of the glasses, with the front just barely poking out.
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You want to point the guns at the stacks and this would be real tricky to pull off stxxlth. Nothing is impossible, but you'd have to be very creative.
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So I'd be better off with cardioids?
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Oh...sorry!
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Shotgun microphones aren't very useful when you're all the way into the reverberant sound field. At that distance the angles at which sound reaches the microphone are close to random due to all the different reflection pathways that occur, so the great majority of sound energy reaches the microphones from off axis.
Shotgun microphones have poor high-frequency response off-axis since that's essentially what their design is all about! The interference tube is designed to cancel as much off-axis high-frequency sound energy as possible, so that the high-frequency pickup will feature the direct sound as much as possible.
Using them beyond a certain critical distance (where the direct sound is swamped by reverberant sound) isn't what they're for, and they don't reward that type of use. A pair of good, small supercardioids will generally make much better sounding recordings from far away than shotgun microphones will. Even cardioids are preferable to shotguns when you're forced to record at a great distance. A diffuse-field-equalized omni is preferable to a shotgun for this application, for that matter.
--best regards
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Shotgun microphones aren't very useful when you're all the way into the reverberant sound field. At that distance the angles at which sound reaches the microphone are close to random due to all the different reflection pathways that occur, so the great majority of sound energy reaches the microphones from off axis.
Shotgun microphones have poor high-frequency response off-axis since that's essentially what their design is all about! The interference tube is designed to cancel as much off-axis high-frequency sound energy as possible, so that the high-frequency pickup will feature the direct sound as much as possible.
Using them beyond a certain critical distance (where the direct sound is swamped by reverberant sound) isn't what they're for, and they don't reward that type of use. A pair of good, small supercardioids will generally make much better sounding recordings from far away than shotgun microphones will. Even cardioids are preferable to shotguns when you're forced to record at a great distance. A diffuse-field-equalized omni is far preferable to a shotgun for this application, for that matter.
--best regards
Again another great post with accurate information.
Thank you.
Chris
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Yeah...thanks a lot for the info!