If Rycote fails, try Reinhardt :
http://www.reinhardt-film.com/products.php they make a lot of windshield for all kinds of unlilkely mics. They'll be able to make one up for the Sony i'm sure. They even say to email them with your request : info@reinhardt-film.com hope this helps |
Sony ECM-MS957 or Rode NT4
Thanks everyone for the feedback
Everyone posted a lot of good info. Thanks! I check out prices an M-S stereo AT835ST will cost about $600 and so will the SURE VP88. That's over my budget! So as far as M-S mics go, the only one I can afford is the Sony ECM-MS957 It seems like I can only afford X-Y stereo. So I'll have to choose between the AT825 stereo or the Rode NT4. Or I can go with the cheap Sony ECM-MS957 M-S mic. Any recommendations? Rodger had asked which Beachtek I am using. I will be using DXA-8 that supplies phantom power. It will be used either on the mindisc equip or with my video camera. I will also use DXA-2 on the remaining equipment. There is a company advertising on Ebay that can make furry covers for any mic. Is there any difference in these furry covers? I mean, does the quality or performance differ? |
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Whatever you get, you should check out this free software: http://www.voxengo.com/product/msed/
It is an M-S to L-R encoder/decoder in a VST plugin. So you can run it in Vegas Video, for example, and any other editing software that accepts VST. It decodes M-S to L-R, allowing you to control spatialization, and encodes L-R to M-S (the other way round). It also has an "inline" mode, which simulates putting two instances of the plugin in sequence, hence allowing you to adjust mid-side values even if your source is L-R stereo. It is very cool! |
Nice tip on the MSED software.
Here's what I'm thinking of doing on my next production: I'd like to record a mono shotgun and a M-S pair simultaneously. The shotgun is for the talent, and I'd stomp on it with noise reduction. I'd add back in some ambience from the M-S pair. The idea is that the shotgun with noise reduction and EQ will get me the cleanest dialog. I only need mono, as I'd keep it in the center. With a nice clean signal, I can ride the levels syllable by syllable, if needed. The M-S is for the ambient noise tracks. I'd keep it away from the talent. I'd EQ out the primary dialog frequencies to dampen the dialog, and phase align it with the shotgun as best I could. If I still get phase problem with the dialog, I'd just loop some quiet parts behind the dialog with a wide stereo spread. If I need the ambience to be sync'd with the video, I'd just mix it down low enough that the phase problems aren't too bad. This technique should give a clean dialog track, a natural, wide stereo ambience without the hollowness of a shotgun, and the ability to mix down to mono without phase issues. I'm working theoretically on this. Does anybody have any practical experience with this technique? -Jon Fairhurst http://PoorlyProjectedPictures.com |
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Three separate mic's ("shotgun plus M-S pair")? It seems to me you'd still have that hollowness if you are using a shotgun, either if it's an M-S mic or not. |
The M-S would be a standard condenser mic. Not a shotgun.
The reason a shotgun sounds hollow in a small room is because the ambience loses its highs. Only the direct signal has a flat(ish) frequency curve. By using noise reduction, you get rid of a lot of the dull ambient noise from the shotgun. By mixing in some flat ambience from the M-S mic you get back to a more normal sounding environment. * Clean dialog in the center * Flat, controllable ambience at the sides * The ability to mix down to mono without phase problems Does that make sense? Something like this would work... http://www.studioprojectsusa.com/lsd2.html Though, I'll probably go for two cheaper large condensers with switchable patterns and a couple of stands. The large condensers can do double duty for studio voiceovers. You certainly won't get a hollow ambience from large condenser mics. My only real concern relates to phase issues when mixing this in with the processed shotgun. Maybe the best solution - especially if you only have a stereo recorder - is to record "silence" with the m-s pair before/after the shoot and use it as a pad underneath the noise reduced mono shotgun track. -Jon Fairhurst http://PoorlyProjected Pictures.com |
[QUOTE=Jon Fairhurst]The reason a shotgun sounds hollow in a small room is because the ambience loses its highs.http://PoorlyProjected Pictures.com[/QUOTE
You sure about that? That's not how I'd describe the hallowness, such as you say "the ambiance loses its highs". I could be wrong but it sounds to me more like a reverb effect such as "inside a tank". |
Since shotguns become omni's in the low frequencies, the low frequencies are enhanced, and maybe this is being perceived as a lack in high freq's vs the actual bump in the low mid and low?
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That software sounds interesting, but I'm not sure exactly what it does, or what advantages it offers. Could I use that software with the Sony ECM-MS957? Can anyone tell me if the specs on this mic are good or not? Any practical experience? Should I make a new posting? I really do want to find out if the Sony is worth buying and whether it can provide the type of M-S recording that can be manipulated to bring out the sounds and degree of stereo separation that I want to emphasize (this is the advantage of M-S as I understand it). Please advise!! Quote:
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Is this true of the cards and hypers as well? |
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It can also do the reverse transformation - extract mid and side information from a left/right recording. Finally, it does the equivalent of sticking two instances of the plugin in a row - encoding L/R stereo as mid/side, adjusting the mid/side balance, then re-encoding it back to L/R. So starting with a conventional L/R stereo recording you can modify the apparent spatial distribution. It will work with any mid/side mike or any L/R stereo mike. You might need to invert the phase of one channel, but that is easy to do. |
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It can take an X/Y recording and convert it to M-S, so that you can work with it as you normally would work with an M-S recording? I'd be curious to hear what some others here have to say about this. I guess we don't need M-S mic's anymore. |
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recommended ... maybe. For some reason I feel a bit skeptical about it but I don't really know. |
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Mid = (L+R)/2 Side = (L-R)/2 |
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If you've ever encoded an MP3 using the joint stereo mode, you've used a type of M/S encoding. See here: http://harmsy.freeuk.com/mostync/ The concern with, say the Sony mike or the AT 835ST in L/R mode, is that they don't do a straight transform between M-S and L-R: they apply multipliers to give the narrow or wide field effects. (It would be nice to know what these multipliers are...) So you'd have to do some tweaking to reconstruct the exact, original M-S inputs. However, since the MSED plugin is doing two symmetrical transforms, you can still use it to tweak "spatialization" of an incoming L-R signal, even if you don't know how that signal was constructed from the original M-S. You're basically applying differences. |
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Any opinions about my decision before I go out to buy? Thanks for the rental idea, but at $45 per day, its not worth it for me to rent and I don't know what I'm listening for yet. I'm going to make my decision based on those finely-tuned & experienced ears of the people who know |
Here's a thought: get some video you like (maybe a clip from a movie) with stereo sound, drop it into your NLE and use the MSED plugin to fiddle with it. That will give you an idea of what is possible.
For example, copy the stereo tracks. Use the plugin on the original tracks in "inline" mode to drop the gain on the mid and leave only the sides. Use the plugin on the copy in "encode" mode, gain up the mid and kill the side to extract only the center channel. Mix all the tracks together. Experiment with panning the center channel back and forth. You should be able to do stuff like moving only the dialogue from left to right, while the background sound stays put. It's no substitute for actually having a bunch of different mikes, but you can have some fun, and learn some stuff. |
BTW, several other of the free VST plugins at that site are nice too--a real time frequency distribution display, a mono to quasi-stereo processor, etc.
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I have a review of both in my archive. Regards, Ty Ford |
Ty, although you found the LF roll off patterns of the ATs interesting I gather that you liked the overall sound of the VP88 better. Is that right?
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I'll check out your reviews. |
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I do remember that the wider settings of the VP88 resulted in noticeably more noise (presumably from the gain being turned up on the side capsule.) Regards, Ty |
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