1 all purpose mic

nivek535 · Feb 28, 2015

Hi there!

Like the title says,
if i want to mainly shoot shorts (indoors outdoors, basically any location), and sometimes interviews,
which type of mic would you recommend?

Lavalier?
Shotgun?
Or what else?
I know each have their pros and cons, but what will suit me best in general?

Thanks in advance

!!

Sweetie · Feb 28, 2015

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nivek535 · Feb 28, 2015

Sweetie said:

twice as long as half it's length? i dunno.
oh come on, if you had nothing nice to say you might as well not >_>...
this IS a newbie section after all.
and i did state that i understand there are pros and cons of each.

maybe it'll help you understand my question if i add this:
which which mic, will have its pros outweigh the cons more than the other??

Sweetie · Feb 28, 2015

The correct answer is the right microphone for the individual situation.

You haven't described your situation. Audio is very tough to do well. There are a bunch of factors. What quality do you need, what budget, what happens if you cannot afford what you need, what team do you have access to, what will the talent be wearing, how many talent, what will they be doing, what environment will you be in, do you need rf shielding, what will it hook into/attach with, who will be using it, what is their experience, what are your options in post for audio.

I guess you won't know all the answers.

See, how long is a piece of string? My go to microphone (budget and performance wise) is a NTG-3, which is very similar to a 416, though it won't work for every situation and may be outside your budget, so I'd be wasting my time typing this all out.

stef · Feb 28, 2015

nivek535 said:
and i did state that i understand there are pros and cons of each.

which which mic, will have its pros outweigh the cons more than the other??

If you knew the pros and cons of each, you could answer that question yourself.

It obviously depends on each situation. It's like asking which prime lens is best for filming, and that all depends on what you're filming, what size camera sensor you have, where you're filming, etc. If you're shooting a underwater, that kind of makes a difference to the answer.

Similarly, mics depend on what you're doing. If you had actually committed, and told us what you are primarily shooting, that would've been a hint. But there are thousands of brands and dozens of types of mics out there. Why is that? Why isn't there just one really good type? The answer is obviously because different types perform differently.

So, without further information, your question is meaningless, and it's like asking "How long is a piece of string?"

Edit: I needed to do some indoor shooting, and bought a fairly cheap hyper which works pretty well for indoors. It almost works outdoors, but isn't as good as a shotgun + lav outdoors, and isn't as good for interviews. I also have a nice dynamic mic for hand-held interviews, but it's shit for booming or planting. But great for karaoke.

Edit 2: Ah, it appears you are acknowledging there must be pros and cons, but don't know them yourself.

In a nutshell, and I'm sure a pro audio guy here will correct me where I'm wrong ....

Shotguns are good for separating an actor from the environment, without losing the environment. They work great outdoors where there's often a lot of extra noise. They work very well with the camera, as a wider angle will capture more environment (which you probably want), and a tight closeup allows you to place the mic much closer and isolate the actor much better (which you will also probably want on closeups).

Lavs deliver very good speech if placed correctly. They can be difficult to place correctly. They do not have much environment, or else they have too much environment since they're usually omnis. They can also be "planted" on objects, such as inside a car or on a desk, to give a very consistent sound when there's a lot of dialog in that area. These can be combined with booming to give multiple sources that are mixed into a final.

Hyper cardioid mics pick up a lot more environment but are still quite directional. They work well indoors, and when you can get reasonably close to the actor, without making the actor too isolated, and not causing some strange effects to the room tone due to echos cancelling when using a shotgun indoors every time you turn it slightly.

Cardiods are somewhat directional, and are good for plants and close interviews of multiple people in a mostly quiet setting, especially when combined with lavs. Also good for hand-held.

nivek535 · Feb 28, 2015

Sweetie said:
The correct answer is the right microphone for the individual situation.

You haven't described your situation. Audio is very tough to do well. There are a bunch of factors. What quality do you need, what budget, what happens if you cannot afford what you need, what team do you have access to, what will the talent be wearing, how many talent, what will they be doing, what environment will you be in, do you need rf shielding, what will it hook into/attach with, who will be using it, what is their experience, what are your options in post for audio.

I guess you won't know all the answers.

See, how long is a piece of string? My go to microphone (budget and performance wise) is a NTG-3, which is very similar to a 416, though it won't work for every situation and may be outside your budget, so I'd be wasting my time typing this all out.

thank you

.

my situation is, im a beginner that cant stand the in-camera (dslr) audio recording quality.
I am also on a very low budget of <$300.
What I plan to shoot will be shorts. what kind of shorts? the settings could really be anything and anywhere. but if it helps, i guess itll consist of people talking, indoors/outdoors.

thanks again,

nivek535 · Feb 28, 2015

stef said:
If you knew the pros and cons of each, you could answer that question yourself.

It obviously depends on each situation. It's like asking which prime lens is best for filming, and that all depends on what you're filming, what size camera sensor you have, where you're filming, etc. If you're shooting a underwater, that kind of makes a difference to the answer.

Similarly, mics depend on what you're doing. If you had actually committed, and told us what you are primarily shooting, that would've been a hint. But there are thousands of brands and dozens of types of mics out there. Why is that? Why isn't there just one really good type? The answer is obviously because different types perform differently.

So, without further information, your question is meaningless, and the answer is "How long is a piece of string?"

i did say what i will primarily shoot.
and type, not brand.
and is it not obvious that i know there isn't "one really good type"? hence the point of this thread.

edit:
forgot to say thanks!
and i just read your edit. thanks again!

stef · Feb 28, 2015

I made another edit that might help you answer your question.

The examples you gave all use different mics, which is why it sounds like... how long is a piece of string

Sweetie · Feb 28, 2015

i did say what i will primarily shoot.
and type, not brand.
and is it not obvious that i know there isn't "one really good type"? hence the point of this thread.

Since you selectively answered the questions, we're back to:

Told you I wasted my time writing it out.

nivek535 · Mar 1, 2015

stef said:
I made another edit that might help you answer your question.

The examples you gave all use different mics, which is why it sounds like... how long is a piece of string

interesting! thanks!
hmmm... is rode videomic pro specs say its super cardioid, im assuming thats in between hypercardioid and cardioid?

Sweetie · Mar 1, 2015

A simple internet search finds:

A cardioid microphone is effectively a superposition of an omnidirectional and a figure-8 microphone; for sound waves coming from the back, the negative signal from the figure-8 cancels the positive signal from the omnidirectional element, whereas for sound waves coming from the front, the two add to each other. A hyper-cardioid microphone is similar, but with a slightly larger figure-8 contribution leading to a tighter area of front sensitivity and a smaller lobe of rear sensitivity. A super-cardioid microphone is similar to a hyper-cardioid, except there is more front pickup and less rear pickup.

nivek535 · Mar 1, 2015

Sweetie said:
A simple internet search finds:

A cardioid microphone is effectively a superposition of an omnidirectional and a figure-8 microphone; for sound waves coming from the back, the negative signal from the figure-8 cancels the positive signal from the omnidirectional element, whereas for sound waves coming from the front, the two add to each other. A hyper-cardioid microphone is similar, but with a slightly larger figure-8 contribution leading to a tighter area of front sensitivity and a smaller lobe of rear sensitivity. A super-cardioid microphone is similar to a hyper-cardioid, except there is more front pickup and less rear pickup.

thank you sir.

stef · Mar 1, 2015

nivek535 said:
interesting! thanks!
hmmm... is rode videomic pro specs say its super cardioid, im assuming thats in between hypercardioid and cardioid?

That's a light shotgun, between a hyper and a long shotgun. It's slightly more directional than a hyper cardiod, but the angle is still reasonably wide.

It's actually suitable for booming inside or out, and should be a decent mic for booming all around, including inside. You can get decent sound out of it in many situations.

They have a newer version that's supposed to handle better, and iirc, have better gain. Neither version has XLR outputs by default, so long cable runs can pick up extra noise. They also take batteries. They're made for recording into your camera, but that's generally a poor sound recorder without adding extra equipment.

AudioPostExpert · Mar 1, 2015

nivek535 said:
I know each have their pros and cons, but what will suit me best in general?

I completely understand Sweetie's answer and I understand your frustration with it. The reason for both Sweetie's reply and your frustration is that while you are aware each mic type has it's pros and cons you don't understand the relationship between those pros and cons, which is crucial. Let me draw an analogy (using cars) which may help you to understand a little better:

"What would be the best single all purpose car?" You need it to take the kids to school/do the shopping, perform competently in very rough, "off road" conditions and perform competently on a racing circuit. The problem is that the features/attributes necessary to make a car perform competently "off road" (high ground clearance/high centre of gravity, long/soft suspension, 4 wheel drive, etc) are the precise opposite of the features/attributes required for a car to handle a race circuit competently, and vice versa! The best all round car would probably be a family saloon, say a Ford Focus. Unfortunately, a Ford Focus will not perform competently the majority of the time either "off road" or on a racing circuit! So a Ford Focus is a terrible, next to useless choice for any of your requirements except maybe taking the kids to school/going shopping! However, a Ford Focus will perform better off road than a racing car and better on a race circuit than an "off road" car.

Hopefully this analogy illustrates why there can be no "1 all purpose mic". It's not that different mic types have different pros and cons, it's the nature of those pros and cons and that they're often mutually exclusive!

nivek535 said:
hmmm... is rode videomic pro specs say its super cardioid, im assuming thats in between hypercardioid and cardioid?

Yes, to an extent! The basic rule going from the widest pick-up pattern to the narrowest is: Omni, Wide Cardioid, Cardioid, Super Cardioid, Hyper Cardioid and Shotgun, which we can think of as sort of Mega Cardioid. Omni, wide and cardioid are mainly used in music recording rather than TV/film, except in special cases, so we'll ignore those for now. In practise, it's worth knowing that Shotgun mics are in reality actually super-cardioid capsules, placed at the back of an "interference tube". This interference tube alters the pick-up pattern to significantly narrower than a hyper-cardioid mic because the tube in effect "phase cancels" sound waves which don't hit the capsule directly, by entering the tube at the front end and travelling in a straight line to the capsule.

Because a shotgun mic achieves it's tight pick-up pattern using phase cancellation, when used in an environment where there are sound reflections, which are slightly delayed (out of phase) echoes of the original sound, these reflections will literally interfere with the "interference tube" of a shotgun mic! The result is that the sound recorded by a shotgun mic in a room (all rooms produce sound reflections, the smaller the room and harder the surfaces the more reflections you'll get) will usually sound phasey, coloured or just plain odd and relatively tiny changes in mic position can cause significant changes in this tone colour. In other words, of all the available mic types, the shotgun is likely to be the worst for indoor use and the best is likely to be a super or hyper-cardioid. However, outdoors or in very large and/or very dead rooms (which don't produce many reflections), what you generally want is the tight pick-up pattern of a shotgun and in this situation the worst mic type would likely be the super and hyper-cardioid types. In other words, as with our car analogy, what makes a shotgun mic by far the best mic type for outdoor/large space use is specifically what makes it the worst mic type for most indoor use!

Lastly, bare in mind that there is no specific value or point at which a super-cardioid becomes a hyper and also there are very few industries which use as much BS in their marketing as the consumer/prosumer audio industry! The result is that you might be able to find a super-cardioid mic with a tighter pick-up pattern in practise than another mic which is described as a hyper. I'm not too familiar with consumer/prosumer production sound mics so I'll let others provide more specific advice. I will say that in my experience the RØDE Videomic Pro falls more at the consumer end of the market, although I'm not saying that it might not be the best choice with your current situation/budget.

G

nivek535 · Mar 1, 2015

AudioPostExpert said:
I completely understand Sweetie's answer and I understand your frustration with it. The reason for both Sweetie's reply and your frustration is that while you are aware each mic type has it's pros and cons you don't understand the relationship between those pros and cons, which is crucial. Let me draw an analogy (using cars) which may help you to understand a little better:

"What would be the best single all purpose car?" You need it to take the kids to school/do the shopping, perform competently in very rough, "off road" conditions and perform competently on a racing circuit. The problem is that the features/attributes necessary to make a car perform competently "off road" (high ground clearance/high centre of gravity, long/soft suspension, 4 wheel drive, etc) are the precise opposite of the features/attributes required for a car to handle a race circuit competently, and vice versa! The best all round car would probably be a family saloon, say a Ford Focus. Unfortunately, a Ford Focus will not perform competently the majority of the time either "off road" or on a racing circuit! So a Ford Focus is a terrible, next to useless choice for any of your requirements except maybe taking the kids to school/going shopping! However, a Ford Focus will perform better off road than a racing car and better on a race circuit than an "off road" car.

Hopefully this analogy illustrates why there can be no "1 all purpose mic". It's not that different mic types have different pros and cons, it's the nature of those pros and cons and that they're often mutually exclusive!

Yes, to an extent! The basic rule going from the widest pick-up pattern to the narrowest is: Omni, Wide Cardioid, Cardioid, Super Cardioid, Hyper Cardioid and Shotgun, which we can think of as sort of Mega Cardioid. Omni, wide and cardioid are mainly used in music recording rather than TV/film, except in special cases, so we'll ignore those for now. In practise, it's worth knowing that Shotgun mics are in reality actually super-cardioid capsules, placed at the back of an "interference tube". This interference tube alters the pick-up pattern to significantly narrower than a hyper-cardioid mic because the tube in effect "phase cancels" sound waves which don't hit the capsule directly, by entering the tube at the front end and travelling in a straight line to the capsule.

Because a shotgun mic achieves it's tight pick-up pattern using phase cancellation, when used in an environment where there are sound reflections, which are slightly delayed (out of phase) echoes of the original sound, these reflections will literally interfere with the "interference tube" of a shotgun mic! The result is that the sound recorded by a shotgun mic in a room (all rooms produce sound reflections, the smaller the room and harder the surfaces the more reflections you'll get) will usually sound phasey, coloured or just plain odd and relatively tiny changes in mic position can cause significant changes in this tone colour. In other words, of all the available mic types, the shotgun is likely to be the worst for indoor use and the best is likely to be a super or hyper-cardioid. However, outdoors or in very large and/or very dead rooms (which don't produce many reflections), what you generally want is the tight pick-up pattern of a shotgun and in this situation the worst mic type would likely be the super and hyper-cardioid types. In other words, as with our car analogy, what makes a shotgun mic by far the best mic type for outdoor/large space use is specifically what makes it the worst mic type for most indoor use!

Lastly, bare in mind that there is no specific value or point at which a super-cardioid becomes a hyper and also there are very few industries which use as much BS in their marketing as the consumer/prosumer audio industry! The result is that you might be able to find a super-cardioid mic with a tighter pick-up pattern in practise than another mic which is described as a hyper. I'm not too familiar with consumer/prosumer production sound mics so I'll let others provide more specific advice. I will say that in my experience the RØDE Videomic Pro falls more at the consumer end of the market, although I'm not saying that it might not be the best choice with your current situation/budget.

G

WOW that was really helpful, I don't have too much worthy insight to reply, but I definitely really appreciate it. Read some wikipedias and couldn't seem to find the right info I wanted.
Thanks a bunch

!! Cheers!

stef said:
That's a light shotgun, between a hyper and a long shotgun. It's slightly more directional than a hyper cardiod, but the angle is still reasonably wide.

It's actually suitable for booming inside or out, and should be a decent mic for booming all around, including inside. You can get decent sound out of it in many situations.

They have a newer version that's supposed to handle better, and iirc, have better gain. Neither version has XLR outputs by default, so long cable runs can pick up extra noise. They also take batteries. They're made for recording into your camera, but that's generally a poor sound recorder without adding extra equipment.

gotcha

!

stef · Mar 1, 2015

Looks like I got it backwards, and super is on the wider side of hyper.

APE's advice trumps mine on all things audio.

AudioPostExpert · Mar 2, 2015

stef said:
Looks like I got it backwards, and super is on the wider side of hyper.

Possibly but not necessarily! Maybe you didn't fully read or understand my post? Pretty much all shotgun mics use a Super-Cardioid capsule but their pick-up patterns are much narrower than hyper-cardioid mics. It's the addition of an interference tube which makes the difference. We have to go down the rabbit-hole a little further to appreciate the implications of this. Without going too deep and keeping it as simple as possible; intrinsically, the longer the interference tube the lower the frequencies the shotgun mic will reject. An average shotgun mic with a 10" long interference tube will reject frequencies above about 2kHz which don't travel in a straight line from the front of the interference tube to the mic capsule (at the back of the interference tube). In other words, you'll get a very tight pick-up pattern (much tighter than a hyper) with frequencies above about 2kHz but for frequencies below 2kHz, our shotgun mic will have a pick-up pattern more similar to a standard super-cardioid mic (which is wider than a standard hyper). The Videomic Pro does not have a 10" long interference tube though, it has a much shorter tube so the point at which it starts rejecting frequencies will be much higher, at a very rough guess, maybe around 5kHz. Note above that I used the word "intrinsically", this is because some mics employ technology which allows them to perform better than the length of their interference tube would suggest, we're looking at the higher end of the pro market here though.

To summerise, the RØDE Videomic Pro is technically a super-cardioid capsule but as it has a short interference tube it may or may not in practise have a tighter pick-up pattern than an average hyper-cardioid mic! And, as that pick-up pattern varies across across the frequency spectrum, so the width of it's pick-up pattern may appear to vary (relative to a hyper-cardioid mic) depending on the environment in which it's used. Sorry, it's likely this post has served to confuse more than help. As with many audio rabbit holes, going deeper may improve understanding but often doesn't get us any closer to a usable answer!

G

stef · Mar 2, 2015

I get it! I just ... uh, didn't read it all that well at first.

Sounds like that can cause some bizarrities with picking up cars or something but not birds.

Alcove Audio · Mar 2, 2015

From a purely practical and, for you at this time, financial perspective a Rode VideoMic Pro would be a good investment. It's sturdy and reliable, sounds okay for the price, and can be used in the future after you upgrade your sound kit. Your next investment is a quality boom-pole.

(BTW, if you plug the mic directly into a DSLR camera you will be hearing the sound coming into the mic, NOT what is actually being recorded. A small but important distinction.)