Topic: CA Cards or Omnis for outdoor taping?

[NOLAfishwater]

never taped outdoors with them and was wondering what your experience has been. don't think it is open taping, but when I was out there yesterday it did not look like there was much security. I am going to head out there and just act like I didn't know what the policy was. The worste thing that can happen is they make me break down.

[Keyser Soze]

Last summer I recorded a fairly well known band at a local (larger) outdoor venue.  I ran SP cards both nights and was very happy with the sound.  Only thing I would recommend is make sure to toss a set of windscreens over them if you go with the cards, as I was victim of crosswind during a couple of the quieter songs.

YMMV with the Church mics though, I haven't used those exact mics myself.

[KLowe]

I dont run churches....but my vote is for omnis outside.
plus the omnis are not as sensitive to wind noise.

IMO they provide a much "bigger" sound than cards...but may have roll a bit of bass in post b/c the omni's tend to be a flat freq responce while most cards tend to roll base and provide a small presence bump.

K

[Jeremy Lykins]

So is that the basic rule of thumb for when to use cards or omnis?  Cards inside and omnis outside? 

[adrianf74]

So is that the basic rule of thumb for when to use cards or omnis?  Cards inside and omnis outside? 

Personal preference, IMHO.

I have SP Cards (CMC-8s to be exact) and use them both indoors and out.  When I've done outdoor shows, I throw the condoms on - yes, they're a bit more obtrusive but nobody ever says anything (except, "Hey man, can I get a copy" - to which I always oblige if they're on good behaviour).

I've done many street festivals like this.  I taped Big Sugar here in Toronto a few years back and made, what several BS fans have said, a KILLER recording.  It was at a very windy intersection with around 30-50k people present.  I used the condoms and I heard some very faint wind from time to time when it was really bad -- and I mean VERY FAINT (most people wouldn't even here it).

The thing about Cards is that they pick up sound ahead of you (or which ever way you're positioning them - I always "front fire").  This is good for avoiding the drunk idiot next to you - you'll still hear him but it'll be much less than OMNIs as they pull "ALL SOUND" around you regardless of you how position them. 

Cards are definitely the choice indoors as well.  I've compared recordings made with previous mics (Core Sound Binaurals, and Giant Squid Audio Labs - which are cheap, but effective, mics). 

As far as Church Cards go, I've heard MANY good things about them (and he's a fellow Canuck as well).  I've heard some good recordings done with them as well.

Outdoor shows are easier to tape at - barring Amphitheatres which are always a pain to record in as there's a security idiot every five feet or so it seems.

[DSatz]

JackDog, when you record outdoors there is almost always some wind, even if it's gentle and slow--and directional microphones as a class are extremely vulnerable to noise and overload due to air motion.

Pressure transducers (e.g. single-diaphragm omni condensers) on the other hand are about 20-25 dB less sensitive to wind than typical cardioids, just to pick a figure out of the (moving) air--just as they are less sensitive to breath noise and "popping" on consonants if you close-mike a singer or a person speaking. This is why there are "speech cardioids" but not "speech omnis."

Windscreens on directional microphones can help a lot, but they can also affect the frequency response and directional pattern of a microphone adversely. If pressure transducers can be used instead, for any given level of wind they will need far less physical protection in order to achieve a good "signal-to-wind-noise" ratio.

In addition, there's the fact that you get far less reflected sound when you record outdoors (the term "free sound field" is suggestive of this, no?), so the whole nature of stereophonic recording kind of shifts, since you can't normally get the kind of direct/reflected sound balance that you would aim for in an indoor recording. It's just a different kind of assignment altogether.

Personally, for the outdoor effects recordings that I've done, I've used an ORTF pair of cardioids with windscreens because I really like the kind of stereo image they get. But other people's preferences are very different; spaced omnis, or less widely spaced "wide cardioids," are options which would stand up to moderate levels of wind better. (Wide cardioids are between omni and cardioid in terms of the physics of their operation, and single-diaphragm wide cardioids such as the ones made by Schoeps, Neumann and DPA have a correspondingly "in-between" level of immunity or sensitivity to wind noise.)

--best regards