Topic: New AT stereo mic?

[Teen Wolf Blitzer]

http://www.audio-technica.com/cms/news/0cf5a0020367127a/index.html

[bluewingolive]

nice catch..thanks for posting.

[digifish_music]

nice catch..thanks for posting.

Indeed.

But with a MSRP of $1,625 for a singe-point stereo mic, I think I would rather have 4 other microphones (2 x stereo pairs) instead

I am sure it will be the perfect solution for a lot of studio work tho.

digifish

[Javier Cinakowski]

nice catch..thanks for posting.

Indeed.

But with a MSRP of $1,625 for a singe-point stereo mic, I think I would rather have 4 other microphones (2 x stereo pairs) instead

I am sure it will be the perfect solution for a lot of studio work tho.

digifish

Have you ever ownen or listened to AT4050 stero recordings?   You will have a hard time finding any stereo mic to compete.  I'd rather have this mic than any 4 microphones you could find at this proce point.  The actual retail price will be a good bit lower than
 $1625..

IMO, this is the best new mic to hit the taper scene in a while

[audBall]

I was excited until I noticed that one capsule is Cardioid while the other is Fig-8....and they're fixed. 

Useful, yes, and I'm sure it sounds great but it's not extremely versatile, for us.

[illconditioned]

I was excited until I noticed that one capsule is Cardioid while the other is Fig-8....and they're fixed. 

Useful, yes, and I'm sure it sounds great but it's not extremely versatile, for us.

That is not bad.  It is like the Sony and other MS mics.  But nicer quality, presumeably.  Also having just one mic means it would be easier to fly it, both in the studio and in the field.  This thing would be great onstage too, either as a live mic (bluegrass, acoustic music) or as recording mic.

That said, most of us would probably prefer a pair of multipattern LDC mics, either AKG 414 or AT4050, or maybe even the new AT2050?

  Richard

[Javier Cinakowski]

This fixed fig8 and card capsule doesn't bother me at all.  Other than running split omni (which is fantastic on at4050's btw) I always run stereo LDCs coincident anyway. Plus you gain the ability to run M/S.

If someone would buy my Rode NT6 actives and various capsules I would buy this microphone as soon as it hits the stores.  I sold my pair of AT4050 to get the NT6s, I might reverse that trend now.   

[DSatz]

The problem with multi-pattern coincident stereo "LDCs" is that they use dual-diaphragm capsules to get the variable patterns--which means that the cardioid pattern widens out at low frequencies.

Cardioids in any coincident stereo arrangement are already at least halfway to being mono (literally--since a cardioid is 50% pressure transducer and 50% pressure gradient transducer, if you put two cardioids in the same place a minimum of 50% of what they pick up will always be identical and therefore mono--and that minimum only occurs if you place them back to back!). It's very undesirable to compromise that even further.

Single-diaphragm cardioids may have a fixed pattern but they can be real cardioids throughout the frequency range, and that's a big advantage for coincident stereo recording, including M/S. If that's the arrangement A-T is using for the mid channel in their new stereo mike, good for them.

[Javier Cinakowski]

great point, I just wish there were more SDC fig8 solutions.  None of the inexpensive modular microphone systems offer a figure 8 capsule (and that thing oktava sells doesn't count).


Even taking into consideration your factual technical points, the 4050 sounds to good to ignore anyway...   

[DSatz]

> I just wish there were more SDC fig8 solutions.  None of the inexpensive modular microphone systems offer a figure 8 capsule [ ... ]

Javier, you might want to be careful what you wish for. The easiest type of condenser microphone to make cheaply with halfway decent quality and consistency is a pressure transducer (single-diaphragm omni). The patterns on the other end of the spectrum are far more difficult and expensive to build, so the mid-priced examples are of considerably lower quality than their omnidirectional counterparts. They tend to sound thin, peaky and not what people call "musical."

I'm fairly sure that the broad, negative opinions that some people have about super- and hypercardioid microphones comes at least partly from this; many people haven't had the opportunity to use any first-quality microphones in this category, so they simply don't realize what's possible.

Plus there is a distinct market for highly directional microphones (including stereo microphones) with a frequency response that's optimized for speech pickup. So again if you're looking to record full-range music and you come across microphones of that kind, you might not realize that their response was specifically tailored for an application other than your own.

--best regards

[illconditioned]

> I just wish there were more SDC fig8 solutions.  None of the inexpensive modular microphone systems offer a figure 8 capsule [ ... ]

Javier, you might want to be careful what you wish for. The easiest type of condenser microphone to make cheaply with halfway decent quality and consistency is a pressure transducer (single-diaphragm omni). The patterns on the other end of the spectrum are far more difficult and expensive to build, so the mid-priced examples are of considerably lower quality than their omnidirectional counterparts. They tend to sound thin, peaky and not what people call "musical."

Yeah, I agree with that.  I did a back-to-back 16mm cardioid capsule prototype.  The fig-8 pattern worked a lot better than I thought it would, given the 15mm between the capsules.  But I thought it sounded boring in the thin and not musical and not much high end either way.  Mostly 500Hz to say 5kHz.  I gave away the prototype to somebody who used it to make a halfway decent MS recording, but apart from the mid mic I don't think it would have been very interesting.

I think there is a fig-8 capsule out there somewhere for the Oktava . . .

I've got a $100 (retail) Sony MS907 MS mic.  It has two reasonable quality (electret) capsules, one mid pointing foward, and a side (pointing sideways) directly behind it.  These are matrixed together to get L-R with a narrow (90degree) or wide (120degree) image.  It would be interesting to listen to the side capsule alone to see how "musical" it sounds.  I don't think it is any great shakes, but it could be OK, certainly better than 500-5000Hz.

I'm not doing as much hacking as I used to, but perhaps the people over at Micbuilders (yahoo groups) have looked at this type of fig8 capsule, or even know a source.

  Richard

[midside]

That Sony mic was my second single point stereo mic.  I bought that and a minidisc recorder just a few days after my house burnt down to get something to record with.  I quickly replaced it with a Shure VP88...for the money, the Shure is hard to beat!

[illconditioned]

That Sony mic was my second single point stereo mic.  I bought that and a minidisc recorder just a few days after my house burnt down to get something to record with.  I quickly replaced it with a Shure VP88...for the money, the Shure is hard to beat!

What's the Shure got inside?  If you (or anyone else) is brave enough, I'd like to see...

  Richard

[midside]

I don't have it anymore...I sold it to get some junky German stuff

[DSatz]

I seem to recall from Sony's product literature that their M/S-based stereo microphones, such as the MS-907, don't use a single-diaphragm figure-8 capsule; they use a pair of cardioid capsules of the same type as the front-facing microphone uses.

Neumann uses a similar approach in their stereo shotgun microphone, the RSM 191--the "S" microphones isn't a single figure-8, but a back-to-back pair of cardioids.

Audio-Technica and Sennheiser both offer stereo shotgun mikes; I'd be interested to know what type of figure-8 they use. I'll ask their representatives at the AES convention in a few weeks.

--best regards