I was referring to you talking about the signal chain. The way you're talking about this concept is how a lot of people who come from the video side of things tend to think about it. But when it comes to audio, the concept plays out a little differently.
A shit mic is going to sound like a shit mic, no matter what comes after it. You’ll never get a RØDE NTG2 to sound like a Schoeps. The second link in the chain is the pre-amp, which can only pass on the mic’s signal at full quality, or do its own work to degrade the signal quality.
A rode mic is agreeably not the greatest sounding mic ever built. But it operates on a professional level and is a solid starter mic. Really, there are a lot of mics for between $300-600 which I believe are great budget options.
Well, pre-amps are typically found in mixers/recorders, not in mics.
Most microphones come equipped with a pre-amp built in. This is actually the more traditional use of the phrase where you might know of a pre-amp in terms of a mixer where the signal chain can become more complicated. But even for mics with a built in pre-amp, it's very much in an engineers best interest to consider the pre-amp part of the mic. It's a big part of what separates a $1,200 mic from a 10k mic. Second to desirable frequency response.
The DR-60DmkII doesn’t sound awful, as long as the pre-amp gain isn’t pushed too high. The AT875r is a remarkably good-sounding shotgun mic (especially considering its price) that has a higher sensitivity and lower impedance, making for a hotter output signal and minimizing how much pre-amp gain is needed. These two together actually work quite well. I still keep a 60DmkII on the shelf, right next to my 888, and I’ve delivered audio recorded on it to national cable programming with absolutely no issues from post.
Fair enough, but you can still get better quality, cheaper, smaller more versitile. (recorder) the microphone I take less issue with, he should just understand going into a purchase like that the AT875r is a very short range mic, it's designed to be held by a boom pole operater for very tight shots where it's less than 2-3 feet from the subject. Which isn't the end of the world necessarily. Maybe it's my bad, I thought we were talking about traditional shotgun mics
This… I don’t… what?
So you clean the damn glass. And if you were trying to mix audio on Genelecs that were wrapped up in winter blankets, you wouldn’t try to fix it by cranking up the high-mids and highs with EQ in your mix; you’d remove the blankets.
This makes no sense at all and has absolutely nothing to do with the original recorded signal.
I think we're both lost on this one, I wasn't talking about eq'ing. The point I was trying to make is once the signal is degraded, increasing the volume going into the pre-amp is only going to do so much. Yes, the noise floor is a little less of a problem but you're still degrading the overall toneallity of the input signal. Maybe a better anology would be to liken it to having a cinematographer set up amazing lighting and a beautiful scene, but then you record on cheap film: The pre-amp is just as much "the first part of the chain" as the diaphragm in the mic.
Any good recording package has a selection of good mics, rather than just one. As for that second part… regardless of the mixer/recorder in use, always start with the best mic you can.
Completely agree, that's why I think my suggestion to spend a little less on a better, newer field recorder so you can spend more on a higher quality microphone that is versatile, is better (respectfully) than the suggestion to spend $200 on a field recorder that was the best of its level you could get for a long time; I agree, but to pair that with a AT875r and it's his first microphone. I feel like that's not taking advantage of how much better of a position he is in then I or I'm sure you were in when we started.
Well, you’re not going to get anywhere trying to record into a headphone jack. Headphone jacks send monitor signal out. They don’t take signals in.
I'll take this one as a cheeky joke. You got me. I said headphone jack instead of 3.5mm microphone input port.