Neumann KM-184's or KM-183 for outdoor field recording ?

[Ramji Meena]

I do recordings of folk musicians.Sometime it is a single musician and sometime a team of three to six.I have a SD 702T recorder without mixer(just cant afford one).It is mostly the outdoor recording and there is no video.Now I urgently need a pair of mics .I want your opinion only on Neumann KM-184's and M-183'. Which one is the best ?

In my opinion if the musicians are playing in a room or hall this will be the biggest influence on the sound captured. If the room sounds bad then mic choice and their placement will be able to alleviate the negatives to a certain extent. If the room sounds good then the wrong mic choice and placement could do quite a bit of harm, as it were. If they are literally in a field then I think a matched pair of Neumann KM-183's. These are much the same as 184's but omni-directional instead of cardioid. The good bit about this is that they'll be a bit more forgiving in terms of placement (a badly placed near-coincident cardioid pair can lead to some really nasty sounding comb-filtering and a bad stereo imaging, to name a couple of things).

Please help me in selecting .

[John Willett]

Originally Posted by Ramji Meena

I do recordings of folk musicians.Sometime it is a single musician and sometime a team of three to six.I have a SD 702T recorder without mixer(just cant afford one).It is mostly the outdoor recording and there is no video.Now I urgently need a pair of mics .I want your opinion only on Neumann KM-184's and M-183'. Which one is the best ?

In my opinion if the musicians are playing in a room or hall this will be the biggest influence on the sound captured. If the room sounds bad then mic choice and their placement will be able to alleviate the negatives to a certain extent. If the room sounds good then the wrong mic choice and placement could do quite a bit of harm, as it were. If they are literally in a field then I think a matched pair of Neumann KM-183's. These are much the same as 184's but omni-directional instead of cardioid. The good bit about this is that they'll be a bit more forgiving in terms of placement (a badly placed near-coincident cardioid pair can lead to some really nasty sounding comb-filtering and a bad stereo imaging, to name a couple of things).

Please help me in selecting .

For outdoor recording I would, personally, go for a Sennheiser MKH 8020 (omni) or MKH 8040 (cardioid) stereoset, rather than the Neumanns as the MKH are RF condensers and work well even in damp, wet or humid conditions.

But, unless you are thinking of using a Jecklin or Schneider Disk with the omnis, then I think I would go for the cardioid option and use it in ORTF.

[Paul R Johnson]

The Neumanns are lovely sounding microphones - but you need SERIOUS wind protection. Even slight breeze sounds like heavy wind. Rycotes or similar are very handy.

[Gary Nattrass]

Great mics and std use for booms in TV studios here in the UK, but far too sensitive for use outside.

There are better mics available that are designed for the job and you best stick with them.