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Cubs, Omnigeese and other critters. Good enough? A recent discussion of the new DPA microphone wandered off into issues of work in cars and the grail quest for something that will yield reliable results in that challenging environment. All of the frustrations of unpredictability and the inability to control any part of the environment are found in car work. Cameras point every which way, clanging noise can’t be heard until the vehicle is underway and everyone expects to shoot NOW and the acoustical environment of a vehicle interior ranges from overstuffed luxury to antique pick-ups with no insulation at all. The best way to make a recording – a premium microphone advantageously placed – is often not available and some alternate must be determined without benefit of adequate time and testing. Something small in the visors is the obvious quick-and-dirty rig but no one is entirely happy with the results. Or, at least, no one likes them in every instance: Jeff Wexler: Well, I'm probably not the best to respond to your question since I am NOT a fan of the Sanken CUB at all, used to own 2 of them but never liked them for car work (or anything else for that matter). Phillip Perkins: +1 flat surface re CUB. That said, they do have a "sound" I think, that is diff from the normal run of boom mics (esp Schoeps). I use Peter Engh's Omni Goose mics for this purpose (plugged into a TX for a quick plant, or in a car visor), but I'd love to try the DPA re this. RP Sharman: I have to say that I recently used the "OmniGoose" in a car. At first it sounded ok, but the more I listened to it, the more I hated it. When we reshot the scene later, in the same car under the same conditions, I popped a couple of COS-11's in the visor and the quality was immeasurably better. I’ve had similar experiences. The CUBs are considerably improved by mounting on a plate of plexi but they still seem to lack presence, at least to my ears. But, time and expediency sometimes compel less than perfect solutions and I’ve recorded some scenes using CUBs where I had to accept compromised results. In a few occasions where I’ve heard the results I’ve been surprised at how good the results sounded away from the field and clamped-on headphones. Some of that is the product of how recordings often sound different (usually better) heard through speakers but I think that some of the improvement was the result of good “sweetening” in a post session. This becomes almost a philosophical question – how good is “good enough?” Our assignment isn’t (usually) to record wonderful, resonant, beautifully tonal audio. Rather, it’s our task to record audio that provides good raw material that can be manipulated suitably to yield a natural-sounding track to accompany the visuals of the project. What is good enough and what artifacts are too “present” to be entirely cleaned away. And, how do we test for this? David