Purchasing additional 'capsules', worth it?

[James Kuhn]

Greetings...you may have seen on a separate post, I recently purchased an AT4053b with the Hypercardioid capsule. Audio-Technica makes two additional 'capsules' for the mic, an Omnidirectional and a Cardioid. My questions are; is it worthwhile purchasing the additional capsules, or is it better to buy another stand-alone mic? My other question is; which, if any, additional capsule do you recommend first?

BTW, I understand other OEM capsules will fit, and work on the AT body, but I don't remember who they are.

Thanks,

J.

[Seth Bloombaum]

As a general practice, additional caps for such mics work fine, and are a good buy if you don't need multiple microphones at the same time.

However, Omni and Cardoid patterns are not commonly used in sound-for-video, excepting Omnis are sometimes used for plant mics. Omnis and Cardoids are very handy for people who need them, especially live unamplified music performance. For dialog, we're usually concerned with how tight we can get, meaning shotguns outdoors and hypercards indoors.

What is your use?

[James Kuhn]

Seth...thank you for your timely and thoughtful response. Currently my 'use' is documentary interviews, so the AT 4053b 'Hyper' and my RODE NTG-3 'Shotgun' should cover the waterfront. At some point, I'd love to cover a live concert, which is something I did in previous incarnation as a 'stills' photog. I also see handheld recorders and a multi-channel field recorder in my future. I've probably gone a little overboard with my initial 'audio kit', but the advice I received from much more learned folks here on DVinfo, certainly validated most of my choices. I believe I've done the best I can within my current budget constraints. Both the AT4053b Hyper and the RODE NTG-3 Shotgun give me excellent audio, at least to my un-trained ears. I'm sure as time goes by, I'll want to make more refined choices, but that's a matter of degrees.

Take care of yourself,

J.

[Gary Nattrass]

I just bought several Takstar cardioid and omni mic's and have found them to be excellent quality, they also have gold diaphragms and sound very good as general purpose capacitor mic's. Their build quality is also good, they have metal bodies and come with mic clip and wind shield, the are both useful as indoor boom mic's and are very low cost so offer very good value for money.

It may be that having a couple more mic's in your kit bag is more useful than other capsules for one mic.

Here are links to the models I bought in the UK:

TAKSTAR CM - 60 Cardioid Condenser Microphone | eBay

TAKSTAR CM - 61 Omni Recording Condenser Microphone Mic | eBay

[James Kuhn]

Thanks, Gary! I've copied the model numbers down and added them to my 'audio' file on my computer. If I try to leave things like that to memory, I'm working with a defective tool. Heh, heh!

Take care of yourself,

J.

[Steve Oakley]

oh.... well since I use a cardoid CMC 64 for most of my sound work... just never mind. its a prefectly fine mic. I don't miss having a hyper C mic right now at all, and almost never use a shotgun since I don't currently have one I like.

[Gary Nattrass]

Originally Posted by Steve Oakley

oh.... well since I use a cardoid CMC 64 for most of my sound work... just never mind. its a prefectly fine mic. I don't miss having a hyper C mic right now at all, and almost never use a shotgun since I don't currently have one I like.

Looks like the Takstar is a copy of the CMC 64, there are times when a cardioid is better than a shotgun and I have also used neuman KM84's a lot on booms for drama work.