Topic: Microphones for an Opera Singer--needin' some help.

[blackfish]

Greetings all--hope these quesiton won't be too 'newbie' for you regulars.

I am an opera singer, and most of my recording is in the vein of stealth(y) recordings of my performances from the hall (large concert halls), recordings of rehearsals onstage and in smaller rehearsal rooms, recordingsin live acoustics like churches (voice and piano), and my lessons (small dry rooms--quality not so important).  Full orchestra plus soloists, so a wide dynamic range, obviously.

I have an Archos 402 with a small preamp set up that I purchased from Soundprofessionals  (Little 9volt battery with sliding level controls with 1/8 plug ins that lead to the digital in on the Archos.  http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/gold/item/SP-PREAMP-4

I am now shopping for a mic.

I was looking at the DPA 4060, since I want something compact, but am unsure if I should go omnidirectional or cardiod, low sens or presence boost.  Or should i look at the compact 4052?  I have concerns over whether the microdot conncectors on the 4060 will be adaptable to the set up I have.

Any suggestions, given what my needs are?

best

Blackfish

[Church-Audio]

Greetings all--hope these quesiton won't be too 'newbie' for you regulars.

I am an opera singer, and most of my recording is in the vein of stealth(y) recordings of my performances from the hall (large concert halls), recordings of rehearsals onstage and in smaller rehearsal rooms, recordingsin live acoustics like churches (voice and piano), and my lessons (small dry rooms--quality not so important).  Full orchestra plus soloists, so a wide dynamic range, obviously.

I have an Archos 402 with a small preamp set up that I purchased from Soundprofessionals  (Little 9volt battery with sliding level controls with 1/8 plug ins that lead to the digital in on the Archos.  http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/gold/item/SP-PREAMP-4

I am now shopping for a mic.

I was looking at the DPA 4060, since I want something compact, but am unsure if I should go omnidirectional or cardioid, low sens or presence boost.  Or should i look at the compact 4052?  I have concerns over whether the microdot connectors on the 4060 will be adaptable to the set up I have.

Any suggestions, given what my needs are?

best

Blackfish

I would get the DPA battery box to go with your DPA mics I think they would be a good choice for taping opera. I think adaptors are lame its better to avoid them at all costs and get a proper battery box for the mics you own The SP battery box is great but you dont want to have to adapt two 3.5 mm. I think the other problem is to my knowlage DPA does not make a two microdot to one stereo 3.5 mm plug adaptor so you would have to go micrdot to mono 3.5 mm then to a Y cable seems like more work then its worth.


Chris Church

[divamum]

Dude - welcome! Here's a +t to get you started.

Check out this thread here (was just going to email it to ya, but you beat me to the punch) - a lot of my own questions on the DPA front were answered recently :

http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=71564.msg967602

I know you're plannning on running into the Neuros, but that also is a 1/8" mini input so some of this info may help  you out too.

BTW, for the record, the DPA406x series are all omnis.  I personally have had better luck w/omnis for stealthing simply because the omni pattern makes positioning accurately somewhat less critical, but cardiods will help minimise audience noise and keep the sound more focused on the singing.  However, for me, omnis have definitely played out better (in fact, I just sold my cardioids). 

Edited to add: this thread also highly relevant http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=73843.0

[OOK]

BTW, for the record, the DPA406x series are all omnis.  I personally have had better luck w/omnis for stealthing simply because the omni pattern makes positioning accurately somewhat less critical, but cardiods will help minimise audience noise and keep the sound more focused on the singing.  However, for me, omnis have definitely played out better (in fact, I just sold my cardioids). 

omni are the ticket if you are close to the stage pa.  Omnis are very forgiving interms of head movement.  If you are wearing cards on your head you can tell if you move your head in either direction, so you have to stand rather still.  Omni's you can't tell movement as much, as I said they are very forgiving.