Robust, 'budget' condensers for mobile recording?

[Agent47]

HairyLarry - yeah, that's the one thing I'm concerned about - LDCs just suck-up EVERY sound, and I'm not going to be recording in an ideal environment at all. So I'd expect outside traffic, people walking down the corridor, pipes, people upstairs...

My aim is to record round-the-table discussions kind of thing, so, say one anchor and two guests having a chit-chat. But the room will be far from ideal as I'll be travelling to them.

Would you ever consider end-fire pencil-type instrument mics for speech? I've been recommended the SE1a. Those pencil ones seem pretty tough, but I'd be worried about the voice sound on them - maybe too thin?

 

[hairylarry]

lav mics

HairyLarry - yeah, that's the one thing I'm concerned about - LDCs just suck-up EVERY sound, and I'm not going to be recording in an ideal environment at all. So I'd expect outside traffic, people walking down the corridor, pipes, people upstairs...

My aim is to record round-the-table discussions kind of thing, so, say one anchor and two guests having a chit-chat. But the room will be far from ideal as I'll be travelling to them.

Would you ever consider end-fire pencil-type instrument mics for speech? I've been recommended the SE1a. Those pencil ones seem pretty tough, but I'd be worried about the voice sound on them - maybe too thin?

Agent47,

You could try some lav mics. I've been buying vintage EV lav mics for $20-$30 each. Generally speaking they go for less used than studio mics.

If you really want mics out on the table maybe some hypercardiod dynamics like the AKG D690. These are instrument mics but they work well on vocals. You might want to cut your lows on your mixer. Omnis out on the table will pick up a lot of room noise but not like a studio condenser will.

You might try purchasing one mic first and testing it in a worst case scenario.

Thanks,

Hairy Larry

 

[KineticSound]

...so I'd expect outside traffic, people walking down the corridor, pipes, people upstairs...

Would you ever consider end-fire pencil-type instrument mics for speech? I've been recommended the SE1a. Those pencil ones seem pretty tough, but I'd be worried about the voice sound on them - maybe too thin?

If I can chime in here again, I think you'll need to make some trade-off's. IMHO, while a pencil-type condenser such as an SE1a or Sterling ST31 would likely sound just fine on speech, it would likely have the same noise efficiency as a larger diaphragm model. You might make small gains (no pun intended) with the SDC, however the noise challenges would likely be about the same. The best method of rejecting outside noise in your case would be to switch to a shotgun-style microphone. However, in doing so you'd be sacrificing some of the "ruggedness" of the other options already discussed. Larry's suggestion of a lavlier is a good option, as well.

 

[amarach]

How about an iPod and the blue Mikey?
has anybody used these?
it's cheap (if you already have an iPod) and is definately portable.

 

[Agent47]

Hmmm.... I'm now thinking of getting maybe some Se2a's - as they'll do hypercardiod which should reject room reflections better than a cardiod... Plus I guess they're pretty tough and fairly small.