Topic: questions concerning low priced shotguns or gun caps for nak 300s.....

[heyitsmejess]

1.  do low priced yet decent shotguns exist?

2.  how much could 1 expect to pay for gun caps for nak 300s?

thanks in advance!

[Patrick]

I've seen Nak cp4's go anywhere from $150 - $350 on ebay.  Most of them have beat up boxes, and virtually all of the stock windscreens are crumbling and useless, if they are included at all in the auction.  Keep your eyes peeled, they show up every month or so.

[DSatz]

The following note is brought to you by the "Wishing Doesn't Make It So" Foundation: The more you try to make a thing do what it can't do, the more it won't do what you want it to do, and the more it will do what you don't want.

People who come from a general music recording background nearly always seem to want shotgun microphones to be like other good directional microphones, only more sharply directional--and that is simply not what they are. They're special-purpose tools with special characteristics, some of which are highly undesirable for music recording in normally reverberant environments.

Shotgun microphones--assuming that you mean the real thing--are designed for the driest possible on-axis pickup in the range of speech frequencies. People who use the professional-quality units for film and video work put a lot of effort into always following the sound source so that it stays on axis, not only to keep the level up but mainly, because the sound quality may well be unusable when the source veers off axis.

Shotguns (especially the long ones) have grotesquely irregular high-frequency response off-axis as a result of their inherent design--generally sounding spitty and lacking the highest frequencies when sound isn't arriving parallel to the tube. The published response curves for shotgun microphones don't begin to show how weird their response actually is, because the polar graphs are smoothed and only show a few spot frequencies at best. The cheaper units only show one smoothed polar diagram at one frequency, which can make everything look as if it's neat and tidy. But it's very definitely not.

No shotgun microphone is really suitable for music recording as a stereo pair (e.g. coincident or closely spaced), because in medium-distance stereo music recording, so much of the sound energy doesn't arrive on-axis. When you're recording stereo with only two microphones, the sound quality and localization both depend on having reasonably smooth off-axis response. Shotguns simply don't--even the be$$$$t of them are a compromise in this respect. As a result a good pair of small supercardioids will always sound better if you can place them appropriately (and sometimes even if you can't).

Please don't shoot the messenger. I didn't create these facts; I'm just telling them like they are.

--best regards

P.S.: M/S stereo recording with a shotgun microphone can be viable in good recording conditions. It is on that basis that various "stereo shotgun" microphones work--but they don't contain two "shotgun elements." They are just a single shotgun microphone with a sideways-facing figure-8 and a matrix circuit built in.

[Javier Cinakowski]

I was never a fan of shotgun microphones (interference tube type).  

I do like the the Uni-line and Microline capsules for the 853/943 Audio Technica Mics though. They do have some wierd off-axis responce like any shotgun, but it isnt as bad as many.  They have a 90 degree pickup pattern, tight enough for me.  I have found them to be very effective outdoors where there is less reflection and of axis sound.

These microphones were designed to be used as an installation mic for chiors or podum vocal mics.  Their design team seemed to make these very suitable for music recording...  

They also have a better bass responce compared to the hyper caps.

[heyitsmejess]

thanks for the input folks!  +t all the way around!

[datbrad]

I ran Naks during the GD era, and for the far back of places like the Capital Centre or Brenden Byrne Arena where the TS was way back on the risers, the CP4 guns made a more intelligable recording, and even with a few freqency artifacts, getting more signal versus crowd was the better compromise to me at the time. I did later move to the 2 gun/1 card combo indoors and 2 gun/1 omni outdoors with the MX100 mixer. That combo took the edge off the guns that most people don't like, at least to my ears.

However, in '94 when I switched to the AKG 460s w/CK8s, which were considered great short guns then, I started to find them lacking overall. The first time I used the CK63s at Phish NYE '94, I was blown away by how great they sounded in the boomy Boston Garden, and never used the guns again. After they sat in my closet for 7 years, I sold them in 2002 and have never missed them.

Since Nak never made a hyper, I would say that the CP4 is the only option for the original poster to get more signal versus reverberant sound, but these days we rarely tape in large arenas from the very back like in the GD days. I would say that you can still make a great recording with the CP1s in a simple DIN pattern in 90% of indoor rooms, so don't worry about finding the guns unless a pair fall in your lap.

 

[yug du nord]

The following note is brought to you by the "Wishing Doesn't Make It So" Foundation: The more you try to make a thing do what it can't do, the more it won't do what you want it to do, and the more it will do what you don't want.

brilliant...  simply brilliant!!!