On the Rode Again

Via Harmony Central:

Rode Introduces the NTG-3 Shotgun Microphone

The NTG-3 is the result of years of development by RODE engineers, providing the professional broadcast and film industries with an affordable yet uncompromising microphone.

Using a technology known as RF-bias the RODE NTG-3 is almost completely resistant to moisture, making it the only option when recording in any demanding environments where condensation is an issue. Be it in a tropical rainforest, arid desert or sub-zero snowstorm the NTG-3 can be relied on to faithfully record audio where traditional condenser microphones would fail.

Key features:

* Designed to withstand adverse environmental conditions
* 50% less self-noise than the majority of shotgun mics
* True condenser (externally RF biased)
* Extremely low handling noise
* High level of immunity to radio frequency interference

As you can see above, it looks a heck of lot like the Sennheiser 416, a veritable workhorse of the industry. I haven't seen a number yet, but if the Rode can deliver the goods at a lower price point, things could get interesting.

Link.

"The Hitler Bottle" (No, Not the One With His Brain...)

Found via jwsound.net:

NPR's All Things Considered recently profiled John and Mary Peluso of Peloso Microphone Lab. Snip:

But unlike some of their rural neighbors, who may rise before dawn to cast their lines in the local creek, this couple rises early to meticulously assemble microphones by hand. The Pelusos' microphones are modeled after some of the world's legendary mikes, but at a price more affordable for today's musicians.

The Pelusos are part of a boutique microphone-making movement — an effort to inexpensively replicate the look and sound of classic mikes. Peluso microphones have been used to record the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the bluegrass band Blue Highway and the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra, among others...

As a recording engineer, [John] eventually worked with all the classic RCA, Sony and AKG microphones, and particularly the German-made Neumann mikes. But it was when he went to work for a mysterious physicist named Verner Ruvalds that he learned about what he calls the "black art" of making microphones...

Ruvalds had helped produce the Neumann bottle mike, designed in 1928 by Georg Neumann, and considered a technological breakthrough. Neumann took the old carbon-grain broadcast microphone, which uses bits of carbon sandwiched between two plates, and turned it into a mass-produced "condenser" microphone, which has one fixed plate and another that forms a diaphragm moved by sound waves...

The Neumann mike — the CMV3 — was so widely used by the Fuehrer and Nazi Party leaders that it acquired a nickname: The Hitlerflasche, or the Hitler Bottle.

Be sure to listen to the full story, which includes recording samples made with Peluso mikes.

Link.

Pass the Mic

Dan Brockett has written up a very extensive and useful article over at kenstone.net entitled As I Hear It - Choosing the Right Microphone. In it, Dan reviews several industry mainstays as well as some recent upstarts, posting his personal impressions along with recording samples of "popular short shotgun, supercardioid, hypercardiod and cardioid microphones." Snip:

I am not an engineer and I don't know all of the answers but I can tell you that after reading this article and carefully listening to the recorded samples, you will have saved yourself several days of shopping, internet research to hunt down disparate sound samples and lots of misinformation that you might hear from uninformed sound forum posters, salespeople or retailers who just didn't do their research or have a vested interest in not being unbiased. There are no clear-cut winners and losers amongst these microphones; this review is not a contest. All of the microphones I tested and reviewed are capable of excellent sound. Not a single one of the microphones sounded "bad". Some were better than others or stood out from the rest for specific sound qualities though, the purpose of this article is to help you find the best microphones for your needs, taste and budget.

Amen to that.

Link, via kenstone.net.

Mr. T (Power)

Finally, it seems like people are starting to catch on to the comparative lack of info for production audio, relative to the reams available about video. To that end, Skylor Morgan, Product Specialist over at Trew Audio, has started a monthly tech column. Snip:

Since I receive calls from around the world with questions from basic to complex, my mind is quickly filling with technical jargon, model numbers, specs, history, and techniques of audio recording. Trew Audio, Inc. has decided that my somewhat delusional self-conversations and mumblings are more useful if I share them with you. Periodically, I'll write about a topic in the audio profession. From the most basic "how microphones work" to complicated "timecode pull-up frame rate" chaos, I'll try to cover it all.

Since Skylor works for a dealer, obviously there will be numerous references to Trew audio, but the info is still valid and useful. To that end, I'm choosing to link first to an older post about T-power, which explains it in a very accessible way:

The T in T power is Tonaderspeisung. Let’s break this German compound word into its parts…

Ton- Tone or sound

Ader- vein, artery

Speisung- Supply

Simply stated T- power is sound line supply power.

The engineers accomplish this feet sending the voltage up the same lines the audio came down. During the last 50+ years, the polarity of the voltage has switched pins as did the Nagra. Pins 2 and 3 carry the voltages through a 180 Ohm resister, and the audio is carried back down the same lines. The ground is not involved in the powering circuit.

Link to post, via trewaudio.com.

Shotgun Shootout

Good morning, sportsfans.

Whilst perusing the internets, I came across this comparison by Bryan Beasleigh over at DVFreelancer. Entitled Shotgun Shootout, the article details how Bryan made some basic field comparisons of some of the most popular short shotgun and hypercardiod microphones on the market.

Snip:

I managed to record samples of the Sanken CS-1, CS-3e, MKH 416, MKH60 and even Sennheisers top hypercardoid small condenser, the MKH50. This past week I returned and recorded some sample of the AKG Blue Line and the C480b ULS system as well. I also own an MKH60, a Schoeps MK41 a Sennheiser K6 / ME66 and two Oktava MCO-12 kits

Comparisons have been done singularly and with mics mounted in tandem directly in front of the speaker. Distances are between 12 and 24”. No effort was made to boom because of time and space constraints


Some files have been recorded using a Sound Devices Mix Pre or 302 fed at line level into a Marantz PMD670 flash recorder. The others were recorded directly into the marantz PMD670, using the onboard phantom and preamps.

Bryan's made the recordings available in either uncompressed WAV or MP3 formats. As I've mentioned before, this kind of comparison is worth its weight in gold for people who are just starting out, who live in smaller markets, or for whatever reason can't afford to travel to a pro dealer in order to try out a mic before they purchase it.

Link to the shootout, via dvfreelancer.com.

Snowball's Chance

Steven Douglas over at kenstone.net has posted a review of the Snowball USB Mic from Blue Microphones. Snip:

It is not a toy mic with horrid colorations, no bottom end, and a sound that reminds one of someone stuck down a well somewhere in Kansas. However, the Snowball is fairly inexpensive, and well worth the small investment for such an easy to use and neutral sounding mic. Sure there are going to be many mics much more hi end than the Snowball, but isn't it about time that there was a USB mic that you could use, be happy with, and not have to apologize for? Blue Mic's USB Snowball is here.

Link to the review, via kenstone.net.

Miclopedia

Back from the dead; or, in my case, the mixing suite. :)

While perusing the R.A.MP.S. boards the other day, I found a link to what appears to be the online catalog of mics.

Sponsored by Rycote, microphone-data.com is an exhaustive reference site for pretty much anything you'd want to know about professional microphones, including pictures.

Snip:

Microphone Data deals in facts, not opinions, with pictures, response curves and technical data from the manufacturers themselves for every currently listed microphone (and even a few that aren't).

To put the data into context you will also find a library of articles by some of the most eminent people within the audio industry that Rycote has commissioned specially.

Link to website.