Topic: Sony ECM-929lt??

[clover182]

Bizarre question, but how would it be now-a-days for concert bootlegging?

It is a handheld shotgun mic from the early 1980's.

I have some recordings using this Mic that sound pretty good. Is it worth getting one?

[billydee]

There's a thread for that mic from a long time ago. One of the respondents wasn't too impressed with it. I have no idea myself, just sharing the link.
https://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=134679.0

[DSatz]

That isn't, and can't possibly be, a shotgun mike. The interference tube in front of the capsule of a shotgun mike has to be half a wavelength at the lowest frequency at which its pattern is supposed to get narrower. To have any beneficial effect on the intelligibility of speech pickup--the application that shotguns are mainly designed for--the tube needs to be at least 9" long or thereabouts; that's where the range of "short shotguns" begins.

The acoustical principle can't be miniaturized unless you record in a medium denser than air. Anything shorter is just window dressing, of which there's plenty in the marketplace, unfortunately. Quite a few shotguns are longer, so that the narrowing starts at lower frequencies, and so that room sound from outside a narrower angle will be reduced--though this results in a bumpier pickup pattern at any given frequency, and makes them particularly bad sounding in reverberant spaces at any distance from the sound source.

If it were possible to get a similar effect with a shorter interference tube, every manufacturer would do that, because then the user could get the capsule of the microphone closer to the talent without its appearing in the camera frame--the main task of a boom operator.

I'm pretty sure I owned one of these mikes at some point in the pre-digital past. It's nothing special. Sony electrets from this period were made for recording business meetings in an office on non-Dolby type I cassettes, not music in a large space on accurate, wide-range recording equipment. They're noisy, thin in the bass and peaky in the treble, but that used to be considered "hi-fi" by the typical business customer who bought them, apparently.

[clover182]

There's a thread for that mic from a long time ago. One of the respondents wasn't too impressed with it. I have no idea myself, just sharing the link.
https://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=134679.0

The mic that the guy was unimpressed with was the 959A, he misread the topic

[DSatz]

Same comments apply, though that's definitely not a mike I've ever owned.

[goodcooker]

The Sony MS line of electret mics are nothing to "write home about" but they do make clear crisp recordings. As noted the bass is a little lacking .

If you get any mic into a good sounding spot you can make a recording with it.

I used a MS 907 when I first started making live recordings. Cheaper and crappier than the one you listed. It was dirt cheap, battery powered and allowed me to use some tape to mount it wherever I liked. Here's a good example - https://archive.org/details/decemberists2005-10-22/Decemberists2005-10-22_01t02.flac. Taped to the side of a column 25 feet from the stage in a low ceilinged basement club straight into a Sony minidisc.

You can make totally listenable recordings with a mic like the one you describe. Is it perfect? No. Is it usable? Yes. Does the lack of low frequency response represent a shortcoming or a attribute that you can use to your advantage? Both. You can add low frequency content later with EQ if you feel it's lacking. The inherent rolloff can actually be an advantage if recording bass heavy live music where you would decrease the lows in post with eq anyway. Many mics and preamplifiers have low cuts built in for this very reason. Unfortunately it's "baked in" to mics like these.

If it's what you have access to and/or can afford go for it. I wouldn't choose it personally for concert recording due to the lack of bass response. I like to gather all the info I can at the source then manipulate it later in the controlled environment of my mix desk with good monitors and time to work on it then compare.

Too long didn't read - it's not great but it will get the job done if it's what you have to work with. If your goal is to make a recording and you can accept the limitations of the gear get out there and make it happen. Don't sit on your hands because someone on the internet told you it wasn't good enough or quibbles with the semantics.

[mjwin]

I have one of these mics which I bought around 1985 to use with my WMD6C. It's not a shotgun, but a "stereo" mic with mid & side capsules and inbuilt M/S decoding. (i.e. you can't record the individual mics for later processing.) There's a switch to select wide/ narrow recording angle & it requires a coin cell of some sort (no plug-in-power back then!)

Sound quality is "functional". At the time I regarded it as a toy to play with & it allowed me to record a few concerts & do some ambient street sound stuff.  Now it's packed away with the D6C as a historic item!  It was another 20 years before I got back into recording in a serious way, when digital recorders & low-noise mics made it possible to build an affordable and portable kit for nature recording, which has become my primary focus these days.

I certainly wouldn't spend any money getting an ECM929LT right now. It's 1980s consumer tech, and anything current is going to be way better in every respect.

[clover182]

Ah thanks for the info! Nice one about using it with the D6C!

Fair enough assessment. Will see what other Mics' are out there, the ECM-719 looks good. Will probably buy the one I see anyways just for fun and also it has it's box.

Cheers!

[clover182]

I have heard about the MS Mics and the recordings they make sound pretty good!

The recording noted sounds pretty decent and other recordings I have using that Mic also sound pretty good!

Post-EQ will always be a friend after taping concerts, although if there was not low-end at the start it can be easy to over/under do it. A lot of what I would be recording would have bass most of the time

That is a good shout yeah. I think I will still buy it, even if not functional for bootlegging, it looks pretty sick!

[rocksuitcase]

We used a 929lt for a while in the mid 1980's. It was a go to microphone for "stealth" type jobs around the NYC area a taping buddy of mine owned. Then another buddy of both ours bought one to do similar.
My assessment of it's quality is the same as above. Goodcooker is correct that given the right location, it could do an adequate job and make a listenable recording. The second person used it also to record his own band placing the mic near the sound board and running a D6. Again, results reasonable for what he expected.

I have at least one solid recording from that era digitized- PM me if you would like to hear it. It was Jaco Pastorious from the Blue Note (iirc 1984, not at home rn)

[clover182]

Hey apologies for the later reply. I have received mine (from eBay) and yeah, it is pretty small! Would be interested in hearing it please (I'll PM You soon)

Thanks!