This is a very preliminary report on the latest of the DPA micro-cardioid line, the DPA4099, based on five recording sessions. There have been a lot of threads lately on finding small cardioids, so I thought it might be of interest, even if by no means definitive.
Let me start by saying that what is an acceptable microphone is going to depend on the kind of things you record, as well as how far-gone you have "progressed" on the upgrade treadmill. I started out ten years ago with clip-on lapel stereo mics and DAT, and was very happy, for a few minutes. It took me a year or two to get to DPA4060 omnis as my main mic squeeze, but I have never found a set of small cardioids that I could consider satisfactory. I have tried:
Core Sound
Audio Technica
Sound Professionals
Microphone Madness Cardioids
Church Audio Cardioids
and, most recently, the DPA4080s with poor bass roll-off for distances.
I record classical music (redundantly called "acoustic" around here), and while I am sure these mics all have their devotees here, for my purposes they are not nearly as good as a decent set of omnis up real close. But for certain things, I have heard recordings with a good serious set of cardioids (say Schoeps MK4 caps) that blow me away. They really bring voices upfront in operas, and are a godsend for solo instrument recitals where the player has chosen to stay far from the stage lip in a reverberent hall. But I can't carry that load.
The DPA4099s are the second in the dpa line of minicardioids, actually they are hypercardioids that look like shotgun mics for your Barbie Doll. They come encased in a gooseneck instrument mount that DPA cut off for me; DPA then reconnected the mics via microdot to a cable length. I had been waiting about a year for the follow-on to the 4080s that was supposed to have improved distance bass response, but the 4099s looked to be targeted at a completely different market. So I called dpa US for an update, and Bruce Myers was nice enough to spend some time talking up these mics. Reports from the field on using them as spots on choruses were coming back very positive, so I decided to give it a shot.
The response from the first run was very positive. To me, they were a clear notch above any of the small cardioid mics I had tried before, though still lacking in bass compared to the Schoeps. But my friend who runs Schoeps, and was next to me on this occasion, was way more positive, just loved the sound. It happens that my Sonosax MiniR82s had just come back from the shop, so I had an idea: why not run omnis and cards together four track (actually using some of the MiniR82 functionality for once), then low-pass the omni tracks to mix with the main recording of the cardioid mics? This is possible because the 4099s AND 4060s (or Sanken COS11s) actually make less of a bulge in a croakie than say MM cardioids or ATs. I have run this setup now four times, once with DPA4060s as omnis (and two MMA6000 preamps, unfortunately), and three times with Sankens, which the Sonosax can power (3.3V, the MiniR82 can also do 48V phantom). As to mixing, I have absolutely no idea what I am doing, just EQing in Wavelab to cut anything above 250 Hz by -20 dB for the omni tracks, and trusting the two approximately equal volume recordings to mix straight. Presumably I will be able to get some incremental improvement when I learn to mix.
Things to do: check into dpa4063s, which can also be powered by the MiniR82 with suitably wired Binder connectors.
learn how to vary mix parameters without having to render the EQed track in Wavelab.
try to get some comps for posting (will take a while).
Jeff