Topic: cool new Rhode stereo mic for Video recorders.....but what if?

[Nick's Picks]

you just plugged this into an M10 instead.   
talk about a tiny rig that probably pulls way above it's weight.
I think they are high charging $800 for it.  It would have to sound really, really good.
But stuffing all this into a tiny little package, and its metal and not plastic...., could be cool for "hat taping" crowd.

http://www.rodemic.com/svmx

[Life In Rewind]

Seems a little big for that...

Looks like a cross between Darth Vader and an pool ball...

[Gutbucket]

Cool tool, but should be about half that asking price I'd think.

[rant]
Currently hip audio for cinema/video marketing term now rendered completely meaninglessness by this campaign = Immersive.
A camera mounted single-point stereo microphone with X/Y cardioids is about as far as one can possibly get from immersive audio this side of single channel mono.
[/rant]

That and the 10yr warranty confim to me their intended target audience is videography (no suprise there) which I translate as convenience, ease of use and a decent warranty being of far far greater importance than sound quality.

[Nick's Picks]

well, as someone who's often very impressed w/the performance audio recording from my $80 Zoom Q2hd ...
I love finding good sound on the cheap.  Only, this isn't cheap.

[Gutbucket]

This thing would be a killer deal at $80!

[edit- but still will never produce immersive audio when used on its own, regardless of radical rebates]

[voltronic]

Cool tool, but should be about half that asking price I'd think.

[rant]
Currently hip audio for cinema/video marketing term now rendered completely meaninglessness by this campaign = Immersive.
A camera mounted single-point stereo microphone with X/Y cardioids is about as far as one can possibly get from immersive audio this side of single channel mono.
[/rant]

That and the 10yr warranty confim to me their intended target audience is videography (no suprise there) which I translate as convenience, ease of use and a decent warranty being of far far greater importance than sound quality.

I completely agree with all of these points.  Where and when did X/Y cardiods become the default pair of mics?  It's usually not the best thing to do unless you're very close.  I was lucky enough to discover the benefits of spaced omnis on my own years ago, and more recently when I discovered this board you and other helpful people here educated me in SZ techniques to make natural sounding recordings with cardiods.  I am constantly trying to convince other audio-head friends, some of whom own very expensive mics, to stop using X/Y in every situation! 

Wouldn't it be just about as easy to make something like this Rode setup, but have the mics aimed outwards in an ORTF or DIN-A sort of arrangement?  It wouldn't be quite as compact, but I imagine the results would sound better for the majority of recordings it's used for.

As you said, it's aimed toward the video market, and maybe things like this are concerned with mono compatibility, which I suppose X/Y is best for.

[2manyrocks]

I read dpa 4061s stuck in Nerf balls are the stuff.   

Esp if you mount them on a shiny TV antenna.  Sure the video crowd will jump all over them.

[Gutbucket]

Point taken muohorocks!

[Colin Liston]

Esp if you mount them on a shiny TV antenna.  Sure the video crowd will jump all over them.

He painted them black now, they look way more professional!

[Gutbucket]

Pisses off the video guys a bit less that way. 


On the x/y thing, it's probably a good generic video camera mic choice for most applications, just not very optimal for video for music.   And its a common and compact setup video customers already know and understand.  I don't think mono compatibility in itself is so much the issue any more, but the mostly-mono solid center image works well for dialog and is generally not problematic, if not very exciting sounding either.  Actually this thing should probably be a short-shotgun M/S mic instead.  An ORTF or DIN version would certainly be better for music or ambient environment sounds, but that's a more specialized application.   They could offer three or four versions of this thing.