Suggestions for PD150 Mics?
 

I just bought a PD150 and want to outfit it with a good all-purpose shotgun or omnidirectional mic. I will use a lav for interviews, etc but need something functional and effective for outdoor/indoor shooting to replace the cheapo one that comes in the box.
I've seen a Senn ME66 recommended.
Anyone have other suggestions or thoughts on mics to avoid?
Thanks.

The ME66 is the one to go for. You'll need a Rycote Softie to slow the wind, but you'll love it.

is a Sennheiser K6 or K6P Powering Module needed to attach the ME66 to the PD150?

yes you'll need the K6 connector. i've been very happy with ME66. i've shot in situations where my own ears can't focus, situations where i was sure that the audio was ruined, and that thing just shines. and, i've had good luck using the agc on the pd150 at times where i don't have the chance to tweak the levels at every moment.

Stereo option
 

Hello All

I have seen quite a few suggestions for replacements for the Mic supplied with the PD150 but these are all mono.

Is there any merit in recording in Stereo?

And if there is any merit, what devices would you recommend for attaching to the PD150.

I guess a replacement bracket would be required?

Thanks P

I use a mini rover. It gives some balance to the rig and I can hold everything quite stable. The mic and a radio receiver can be attached. I use an AT8415 attached to the shoe on the pistol grip.

I am also a sennheiser fan, I have the K6/ME66 and the evol;ution 100 series wireless setup.

There are cheaper grips but I doubt they'de be as comfortable.

http://www.videosmith.com/

Patrick, with some exceptions, professional microphones are monophonic. Shotgun and wireless microphones in particular are almost always monophonic, and a shotgun mic is monophonic almost by definition. It wouldn't make a lot of sense to have a stereo shotgun because the point of a shotgun is to capture sound from one small area, There are a couple of two channel wireless units but the same comments apply to wireless as to shotgun mikes. You are trying to capture from some distant point, so monophonic makes sense.

There's nothing magic about stereo. (Well, some surround-sound stereo is magic, but you're not likely to deal with that in a DV system). It's just two separate sound tracks, one of which is fed into a speaker on the listener's left and the other into a speaker on the listener's right.

Professional stereo music recordings almost always start out as a collection of separate (mono) tracks that get mixed down to a stereo pair. When you hear a bass on one side, drums on the other, a guitar and a lead singer in the middle and a backup group a little to the left, in all likelihood everybody was
recorded in mono, independently and at different times, with different parts of each performance selected out of the best of different takes. The final combined performance never existed in reality; it's an illusion, including the stereo separation.

Motion picture sound tracks are just as concocted if not more so. When you're watching Fred Astair tap dancing, you're listening to taps created by a percussionist in post production. Typically only dialog is recorded on the set, and everything else is added in post. A release dubbed into another language discards even the original dialogue, combining new voices with the original music and effects track [M&E] created in post.

tom.