Vive Surround Microphone

[Gary Nattrass]

Totally agree with that Jon and the calrec soundfield mic is still in use by the BBC at wimbledon and other live sporting events.

[Allan Black]

On the Panasonic3CCDuser site in 2006 the earlier version of this Vive mic called the SSM first appeared. As site moderator I bought one to review the summary of which was, the SSM is a $50 consumer gimmick with the low end non existant below 200Hz. It's designed to mount on a consumer video cam where the pix would take precedence with the 'surround' sound taking a distant 2nd place.

However some members bought one to go with their popular Pana GS400 vidcams and home theatres.

Many reported satisfactory results eg: recording in the middle in school sports crowds where the soccer mums get very vocal.

Around 2008 SSM closed their doors and the mic resurfaced with new owners .. as this Vive, same shape with apparently a better low end. As with the SSM you can plug a lav mic into the Vive to record narration on location.

SURROUND SOUND Microphone - UNIVERSAL - | eBay

Canon also sell their SM-V1 consumer surround mic.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/675990-REG/Canon_4464B001_SM_V1_5_1_Channel_Surround.html

Cheers.

[Gary Nattrass]

Take two mics, any mics will do as long as they work and stick them at a short distance apart and then reverse the phase on one of them and you will pretty much get the same effect!

As for a stadium take four mics and put them in each corner and pan them to the four surround speakers, put a shotgun on the camera and make it the centre mic and as for the LFE you can feed the sum from all those mics to get the low end sub channel!

[Jon Fairhurst]

Holophone's big win a few years ago was that it was used at the Grammys. According to the audio engineers, they struggled to get surround audience mics without phase problems as well as the visual clutter and physical routing that multiple mics would cause. Plonk down a Holophone in the middle of the audience and the problem was solved - for the audience part anyway. They still had to mic the various announcers and stage acts and mix in recorded material to produce the full show.

[Lee Mullen]

Originally Posted by Allan Black

Many reported satisfactory results eg: recording in the middle in school sports crowds where the soccer mums get very vocal.

Thank you Allan for the positive comment.

[Gary Nattrass]

Is it me or does this thread seem like a marketing tool for this toy mic rather than a sensible discussion about 5.1 surround production?

Buy it if you wish and I have no more advice to give other than good luck trying to use it!

[Lee Mullen]

No marketing from me Gary. Just sharing reviews I have found online. Unless you have it you cannot 100% state if it is a toy can you?

PS is DVinfo only for 'professionals'?

[Greg Miller]

I think the laws of mathematics and physics dictate that you cannot cannot produce true 5.1 channel sound with only three mic elements (which is what you'll find inside this mic, according to the review). You cannot produce 5.1 channels of directional and frequency-selective sound and send those discrete channels over two analog wires. So this cannot be a true 5.1 channel mic. And if you don't keep the channels discrete when recording, the matrixing process will create lots of editing issues later. There's no room for discussion there.

Furthermore, the laws of common sense dictate that you cannot make three professional quality mic elements, put them inside a case, attach a cable, and market the whole thing for $100.00, any more than you can manufacture a Rolls Royce for the price of a Mahindra. If that were possible, then competition would have driven down the price of professional quality mics. So, without owning one, it is safe to say that, in comparison to the mics used by the professionals in this forum (and around the world), this mic is a "toy."

If you want to believe it's a good mic, that's your prerogative. Perhaps you also believe in UFOs, or believe that the sun rises in the west; that's your prerogative, too. The review you quote is copyright by "Ocean Street Video" which seems to be a collection of drag racing videos. Hardly a known website interested in high fidelity sound reproduction. (IMHO if you spend enough time around dragsters, which are very loud, you'll damage your hearing, in which case you won't be able to evaluate anything very well.) If you prefer to get your audio opinion from drag racers, rather than from audio professionals, that's your prerogative too. Presumably you came here looking for advice; you've gotten it. Your repeatedly linking to the same [drag racing] review will not convince the people here that they are all wrong.

But if you want to believe that review, and want to try that mic, that's certainly your prerogative. And, in fact, it might make you happy. (IMHO, the less you know about audio, and the less experience you have, the more likely you are to like this mic.) It's your money and if you want to spend it after receiving a lot of good advice to the contrary, please feel free to do so.

[Gary Nattrass]

But as a pro I reviewed what I heard from the demo you posted and it is not a valid 5.1 microphone, it is just messing around with phase to change the spatial image, if you think you know better then go ahead and try to do 5.1 with it.

Fine if you wish to ignore what pro people say and just buy it and waste your money, that is your choice and if you wish to know better than pro people who do this as a job then that is fine too, just don't expect to get decent results and certainly don't ask us pro's to help you sort all the mess out via these forums.

Oh and you best contact some of my ex colleagues from AMS Neve and pro's here as they will be more than happy to buy it if this is an easier solution to all that messing around they have to do to get decent 5.1 surround: Skywalker Sound Warner Bros. Post Production

[Paul R Johnson]

The test is easy. Plug it into your stereo input and see if 5 audio tracks suddenly pop up on the editor timeline. Actually don't bother with the test, if your camera has a 3 circuit standard jack mic socket, then you have two channels. Even if the mic was able to do some clever encoding, how would you decode it? You can have an m/s mic, and record it to two-track, but you have to set your mixer up with a matrix to get stereo back. The cheap panasonics record to multiple tracks so you do have 5.1, but listening to it doesn't really give you what a home cinema system would consider to be 5.1. Dropping the left and right and listening to the rear doesn't sound much different to the front.

[Allan Black]

The thread title says it all. In post 1 Jalan asked for comments on the Vive mic and my post 17 is obviously reporting what happened on the Panasonic3CCDuser site.

Canon thinks enough of the concept to market their 'consumer' SM-V1 mic for $178 and the customer reviews for it on BnHs site, are almost identical to the ones we received back in 2006.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/675990-REG/Canon_4464B001_SM_V1_5_1_Channel_Surround.html

Respected DPA Microphones also likes the concept and offers a professional version at $3699.08 ..

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/631744-REG/DPA_Microphones_5100_5100_Mobile_5_1_Surround.html

Jalan, DVinfo is for everyone :)

Cheers.

[Lee Mullen]

Thank you Allan, a very friendly, gracious response you have served. :)

[Chris Soucy]

Gentlemen..............

Can we put this argument over a $100 mic to bed?

Jalan, DVinfo is for everyone :)

Too true. Allan, I wholeheartidly agree and so will every other contributor to this thread, without hesitation.

However, this thread started here:

I am considering buying this microphone

And from there on in it simply went downhill, to my mind, at least.

We were asked for our opinions, opinions have been put (even though most have never actually tried it and wouldn't in a fit!).

End of story, I think this one should end where I started, which was here:

Look, buy it, try it, you're happy, everybody is happy, but just don't come back here saying you weren't warned, simple as that.

It's either sh*t or bust, Jalan, up to you.


CS

[Gary Nattrass]

Originally Posted by Jalan Salur

God bless..

All the best Jalan and don't take our attitude as pro's too much to heart, we are just very passionate about our subject and personally I don't like any product that claims to do 5.1 surround for such low cost as we spend a great deal of time and effort to produce it properly in post prod.

It tends to de-vaue peoples perception of what we do as pro audio operatives and we end up with people thinking that they can make cinematic pro movies for low cost, you may think it does not affect things at our end but sadly it does as other less well informed pro's in the industry then think this is all that is required to do the job and then don't hire pro people anymore.

It all then ends up in the hands of the post department to sort all the problems out that goes for pictures too and the use of cheap DSLR's has totally de-valued the role of the DOP and lighting cameraman in this country as anyone now thinks that if they have the kit that claims to do the job means that they therefore can do the job!

[Lee Mullen]

No problems Gary. I may not end up getting it as it could may well be just a waste of money, but good to hear different views. :)