That shotgun mic my friend was going to give me

[Rokket]

I had asked about a shotgun condensor my friend was going to give me awhile back. Well he brought it over last night and we were goofing with it. Again, I didn't think to get the exact model, but it comes with a "AA" battery. It won't work without the battery installed, and the phantom power on my mixer has no effect on it because it doesn't have an XLR connection. It's made apparently to be mounted on a video camera (the big ones news crews use, not your average camcorder).
It looks like a nice playtoy, but not something I'd record with (although I had toyed with the idea of using it as an over-the-shoulder mic for my acoustic, but it's too unidirectional to be of much use that way).

Anyway, someone had asked to be kept informed if I had much luck with it, and there you go. I may still try to record my guitar with it, just to see what it will do, but it's really bright, almost tinny sounding when I was speaking into it.

The battle continues. I still need to get some real good mics down the road. Thank you for your attention!

 

[wesley tanner]

any sound clips? what about on a snare? maybe can't take the high Spl tho. still, I'm curious.

 

[DJL]

Thanks for the update Rokket... have fun with your new shotgun mic.

 

[Rokket]

any sound clips? what about on a snare? maybe can't take the high Spl tho. still, I'm curious.

I am still goofing with it. I don't have a live drum set to play around, but I can probably get my stuff and take it to the church on base and play around with that set (I know it's not tuned, but at least it will give me some ideas).

As far as my guitar, I am going to play around with it and see in the next day or so. I will post some clips then...

 

[Rokket]

Thanks for the update Rokket... have fun with your new shotgun mic.

I told my wife I was going to set it up where she can't see it and record her snoring because she flat out refuses to believe she does!

 

[giraffe]

does any one use a shotgun mic in studio recording?
just curious

 

[Rokket]

does any one use a shotgun mic in studio recording?
just curious

I doubt it. In my last thread most people stated they were used more for film studios to record vocals for movies and such. The one I have mounts to a video camera for a news crew type of thing. I was just going to play around with it and see what I could do with it...

 

[darrin_h2000]

They do beat the hell out of the mics that come in your camcorder I use mine all the time.

 

[Rokket]

They do beat the hell out of the mics that come in your camcorder I use mine all the time.

Yeah, it's got the range that would make it effective, I guess. It's really uni-directional, though. I was speaking into it and at about 4 inches away from the diaphram I had to be right in front of it to pick up my voice...

 

[whyseye]

They are a pain in the bum for VO performers, as popular as they are.

You have to be able to emote and sound perfectly natural while not moving your head - at all - in any direction - at any time, AND they pick up every little lip smack and mouth noise and inhalation/exhalation with amazing clarity, and push it right out front at you!

Of course, it's not supposed to be TOO easy, otherwise everybody'd want to do it!

 

[Rokket]

They are a pain in the bum for VO performers, as popular as they are.

You have to be able to emote and sound perfectly natural while not moving your head - at all - in any direction - at any time, AND they pick up every little lip smack and mouth noise and inhalation/exhalation with amazing clarity, and push it right out front at you!

Of course, it's not supposed to be TOO easy, otherwise everybody'd want to do it!

I notice when I see the "making of" featurettes on animated movies they always show the mic way above the actor's head (they don't look like shotgun mics, though. I don't have a lot of mic knowledge... ), with the pop filter. Of course, they have the top of the line stuff I could only dream of owning.
My friend bought this one in Singapore, and he was going to use it for his camcorder, but it didn't have a plug for an external mic so he brought it to me. I am still trying to decide if I am going to keep it...

 

[whyseye]

Where'd you get that picture of George Burns?

 

[dgatwood]

Dunno. I'm pretty sure some sound engineers have been known to use shotguns for that purpose. That said, I sure wouldn't. The reason that movie folks can get away with the poor sound quality inherent to most shotguns is that the studio audio is usually thrown away and replaced on a sound stage later anyway.

Personally, I prefer to actually control the environment so that overdubbing isn't needed, where possible. Thus, I've always been partial to a stereo condenser for an overhead mic when doing movie shoots (back when I still had time to do movie shoots). It gives you believable dialogue with a lot less effort. But as mentioned on many occasions, when it comes to mic selection, I'm probably just weird.

The best place for a shotgun is when you really absolutely have to have incredibly tight unidirectional patterns. Good examples typically are ENG/EFP (electronic news gathering/field production) work (mostly outdoors). For example, sidelines cameras for football games (though usually you'd want a parabolic mic if you could). And my personal favorite would be shooting pretty much any footage during a hurricane or tornado.

Bottom line: figure out how to record your drums during a tornado.

 

[DJL]

I told my wife I was going to set it up where she can't see it and record her snoring because she flat out refuses to believe she does!

I've tried that and trust me, it doesn't work... she will say something like "who are you trying to fool, that's not me".

 

[pietro79]

when I started recording a couple of years ago, the ONLY condenser I had access to was a 2 foot sennheiser shotgun. I've since bought matched ADK Vienna's.

But I used that sennheiser on everything that needed a condenser for two whole albums... vocals, percussion, acoustic (space-paired with a Shure Beta 52! haha)... even as a mono overhead... all the cymbals sounded like you were listening through a cardboard tube, very focussed.

but actually on vocals it wasn't that bad... I've done lots of boom operating, so I was able to capture warm, round intimate vocals