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Using shotgun mic indoors


Viscount Omega

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4 hours ago, Viscount Omega said:

I appreciate all the comments and no, I have not tried to test out my theory.  You all have talked me out of it.

 

Perhaps the sound I'm looking for has not been made by Sennheiser yet?

 

What I want is the sound of the 416 mic--upper-mid-boost, bright, gritty, punchy, consonant-pounding, movie/film sound and using it indoors. 

 

Eliminate the interference tube?

 

I'm not looking for a smooth, "natural" sound like Schoeps at all, btw.

 

This would stand out.

 

Unorthodox?  Yeah, I know.

 

 

Again, the 8060 might be worth checking out. Still has an interface tube, but much nicer indoors than a 416 in my opinion. All the qualities you listed I feel are present in that microphone.

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2 hours ago, Viscount Omega said:

Not sure who you're responding to here.

 

Are you the guy who's trying to sell the books?


He‘s responding to you. Recommending, as so many others have done, to fix this in post. 
The other obvious option would be to get rid of the room (sound) then you can keep using your beloved 416. 

also, re-visit John Blankenship‘s comment as well as the book recommendation made by Jim Feeley.

Btw., Jim isn’t trying to sell that book to you, he is recommending it to you. Not sure why you can’t see the difference...

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Oh, so you've been following all along and not contributing shit other than "read a book".

 

I wish I had that kind of panache.  Just dismiss someone or have them executed on a whim.

 

"Your Grace, his impudence is insufferable.  Would you like him hung or drawn and quartered?"

 

"Both, I think. Matilda? Yes, both."  

 

 

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4 hours ago, Viscount Omega said:

Constantin, I don't like any of your solutions.

 


then you are lazy
so you don’t want to treat the room so it sounds better, something which is SOP for many of us, but also don’t like how the room sounds in your mic and you‘d rather treat the mic (in horrendous ways) than the room?

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8 hours ago, Constantin said:

He‘s responding to you. Recommending, as so many others have done, to fix this in post. 
The other obvious option would be to get rid of the room (sound) then you can keep using your beloved 416. 

also, re-visit John Blankenship‘s comment as well as the book recommendation made by Jim Feeley.

Btw., Jim isn’t trying to sell that book to you, he is recommending it to you. Not sure why you can’t see the difference...

 

 

Constantin, I'm sorry I was brusque with you.

 

"Fixing it in post" is anathema to filmmakers of my temperament.  Maybe I want to get it right the first time.

 

"Getting rid of the room sound" is not always an option.  Minimizing it, yes.

 

As for the books? Fuck all them.

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37 minutes ago, Viscount Omega said:

 

 

"Fixing it in post" is anathema to filmmakers of my temperament.  Maybe I want to get it right the first time.

 

 

When I think of "fixing it in post" I think of a lot of things that are done to overcome problems created in the field however, EQ'ing a properly recorded track to suit your tonal preferences is not one of them, that's called "mixing". The response issues that the 416 has in your application can't be overcome by modifying the "plumbing" of the mic whereas the character differences of the 416 vs a Schoeps MK 41, as they relate to dialog, can be overcome with EQ .

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If you want an upper-mid boost, suggest you get a flat recording and do the tweaking in post. Where you've got much better monitoring that headphones on the set, and you've got an undo button. 

 

If you record with that boost and a low-cut for brightness and grit, and then you want to put the lows back in post... they won't be there. No amount of EQ will help.

 

BTW, I wrote that book Jim is recommending. He doesn't get a commission. In fact, all I get is about $4 per copy, after Amazon and the publisher take their share. 

But it is used by a lot of US film programs, and has been favorably reviewed by some A-listers. I wrote it to share what I've learned, both from experience and from friends in the industry. Details and samples - so you can judge for yourself - at greatsound.info.

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1 hour ago, Viscount Omega said:

"Fixing it in post" is anathema to filmmakers of my temperament. 

 

If you make any type of edit, you're fixing it in post. Anything else is a matter of degree.😉 There's nothing wrong with doing post work to get the feel, sound, and impact you want.

 

Trey's suggestion of using an 8060 sounds good (<-- Ha! "sounds good"! I crack me up). What other mics to people here know of that have a response similar to a 416?

 

Jim "doesn't use his 416 much these days" Feeley

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3 minutes ago, Jim Feeley said:

 

What other mics to people here know of that have a response similar to a 416?

 

Jim "doesn't use his 416 much these days" Feeley

 

The MKH 60 with the Hi-boost engaged can come pretty close IMO and you can disable that rear bass lobe with the low cut but truth be told, nothing sounds like a 416, that's why it's still in use, mostly for VO work and sports broadcasting. Big, meaty ball impact for basketball, Volleyball, etc. = 416, nothing else will do.

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On 9/19/2019 at 6:08 AM, chrismedr said:

...what would happen if you designed a zeppelin of acoustic fully absorbent, non-reflective material...

 

I imagine you'd need The Hulk to run boom. 

 

It's easy to come up with materials that absorb sound, in the sense of letting it pass through the material's surface and not be reflected. The problem is,  what do you do with that energy after you've absorbed it? Something's going to have to vibrate, letting the energy turn into heat, followed by a barrier so the vibrations don't emerge on the other side. That's usually done either by mass or decoupling, either of which will make your zeppelin a lot bigger and heavier. (You can also use a vacuum, but I'm not sure how you'd accomplish it.)

 

If you don't want sound to get to the mic, you have to reflect it away rather than absorb it.

 

Either of which solution brings us back to the OP's idea of stopping the interference tube from doing its job, giving us an omni.

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Sheesh, I don't mean "No fixing it in post!!!'  like it's a law.  I just mean it's much easier if you already have certain mic characteristics that you're looking for already in the bag.

 

I want the bright, gritty sound and punch of the 416 indoors without the phasey, off-axis crap.

 

Can Sennheiser do me a solid?

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🍿🍿🍿

2 hours ago, Viscount Omega said:

"Fixing it in post" is anathema to filmmakers

anathema \uh-NATH-uh-muh\ noun. 1 a : one that is cursed by ecclesiastical authority. b : someone or something intensely disliked or loathed — usually used as a predicate nominative. 2 a : a ban or curse solemnly pronounced by ecclesiastical authority and accompanied by excommunication.

 

35 minutes ago, Viscount Omega said:

Sheesh, I don't mean "No fixing it in post!!!'  like it's a law.

It read like thats what you meant. 

 

2 hours ago, Viscount Omega said:

As for the books? Fuck all them.

OK Fire Chief Beatty. 

 

42 minutes ago, Viscount Omega said:

Can Sennheiser do me a solid?

@SennheiserPS ? Can you do him a solid? 

 

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42 minutes ago, Viscount Omega said:

 

I want the bright, gritty sound and punch of the 416 indoors without the phasey, off-axis crap.


Thing is, the mic sounds like it does because of the way it’s built. Including the interference tube. Take that away and you might also lose the characteristics you like. I think a hack that might prove more successful (although success still highly unlikely) would be to completely remove the capsule and electronics and find a super cheap super cardioid, or cardioid, and remove its intestines and try to squeeze the 416 stuff in there. See how that sounds

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45 minutes ago, Viscount Omega said:

I want the bright,

A slightly elevated notch or bump in the higher frequencies to make it more pronounced. 

 

46 minutes ago, Viscount Omega said:

gritty sound

Not sure what this is. MacBookPro speakers gritty, or 70's analog tape gritty. 

 

48 minutes ago, Viscount Omega said:

punch of the 416 indoors

The punch stays the same dependent on the mic being used properly and placed correctly. What changes is what is rejected. 

 

50 minutes ago, Viscount Omega said:

without the phasey, off-axis crap.

Your describing the microphones inability to reject off axis out of phase information. As @Constantin has mentioned, the best way to achieve this is to properly acoustically treat the room. Reducing unwanted out of phase information from creating second and third reflections that arrive back the the microphone out of phase. 

 

 

 

 

 

1 minute ago, Dalton Patterson said:

phasey, off-axis crap.

Kinda also saying the same thing, as in out of phase would be off axis of the microphone diaphragm. 

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Well, I didn't think this thread would ever devolve into the line-by-line analysis of crack-heads but let me just say for the record: 

 

During this thread all you all have convinced me of is that Metallica can sound like Gordon Lightfoot with the right mics--if you're not a lazy piece of shit.

 

LOL.

 

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15 minutes ago, Viscount Omega said:

 

During this thread all you all have convinced me of is that Metallica can sound like Gordon Lightfoot with the right mics--if you're not a lazy piece of shit.


yeah, that’s right. Actually it sounds to me like your 416 is damaged and literally distorts the sound and somehow you can’t find another mic like that? 
btw. Metallica is not achieving that sound by using broken mics. In fact, most of it is created in post. You can tell when you visit their live show, which - sound-wise - are far cry from their studio productions

 

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1 hour ago, Constantin said:

yeah, that’s right. Actually it sounds to me like your 416 is damaged and literally distorts the sound and somehow you can’t find another mic like that? 
btw. Metallica is not achieving that sound by using broken mics. In fact, most of it is created in post. You can tell when you visit their live show, which - sound-wise - are far cry from their studio productions

 

There are so many things that are wrong here, I have to yell: "Am I in the fucking Twilight Zone?"

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1 hour ago, Constantin said:


Thing is, the mic sounds like it does because of the way it’s built. Including the interference tube. Take that away and you might also lose the characteristics you like. I think a hack that might prove more successful (although success still highly unlikely) would be to completely remove the capsule and electronics and find a super cheap super cardioid, or cardioid, and remove its intestines and try to squeeze the 416 stuff in there. See how that sounds

 Doesn't that already exists? It's called a MKH 435 , same RF circuitry and capsule, just different plumbing, yes?

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