Beyerdynamic MM1/Sennheiser shotgun as room mics for audience recordings

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Daniel Postilnik

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Jan 14, 2011
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In a week I'll be heading out with a video crew to a certain week-long music festival in Austin, TX. Last year they didn't have an audio person so their approach to getting B-roll recordings of live show audio involved standing halfway into the audience and recording onto the built-in condenser mics on a zoom H4N.

This year we're still using the H4n, but I'm hoping to improve the quality of their show recordings. What do you guys think about using a Sennheiser directional shotgun mic, the Beyerdynamic MM1 measurement mic, and the on-board condensers to get a better room recording? Obviously if it sucks in the room I'll try to get a board feed anyway. Thanks for your thoughts!
 
Re: Beyerdynamic MM1/Sennheiser shotgun as room mics for audience recordings

Daniel,

If you're outdoors or in a large indoor space, you should be fine. For interviews, a shotgun can work nicely if manned by a good operator. In smaller rooms with close boundaries, the lobar patterns can pick up a lot of LF build-up and can cause the sound to be muddy. A hypercardioid mic is a better choice in most respects (A/T 4053b, for one).
 
Re: Beyerdynamic MM1/Sennheiser shotgun as room mics for audience recordings

Jordan Wolf said:
Daniel,

If you're outdoors or in a large indoor space, you should be fine. For interviews, a shotgun can work nicely if manned by a good operator. In smaller rooms with close boundaries, the lobar patterns can pick up a lot of LF build-up and can cause the sound to be muddy. A hypercardioid mic is a better choice in most respects (A/T 4053b, for one).
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The shotgun is for interviews of course. I realize now that an omni-directional mic at a small indoor venue is a terrible idea since the sound is coming from one direction primarily, and I don't want to be picking up reflections. What about a couple of AKG C1000s mics arranged as an X on a dual mic stand attachment?

I know I don't have the right tools for the job, so I'm wondering which of the tools that I do have will produce the best results.
 
Re: Beyerdynamic MM1/Sennheiser shotgun as room mics for audience recordings

Jordan Wolf said:
What are all the mics you have at your disposal?
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As I mentioned, I have those AKG C1000s, a boatload of SM58s and SM57s, a couple of beta 58s, a couple of EV PL80s, a couple of Sennheiser MD421-IIs, a couple of Sennheiser wireless omni lavs.
 
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Re: Beyerdynamic MM1/Sennheiser shotgun as room mics for audience recordings

Honestly, since you have to do the run n' gun thing, I'd just use the built-in mics on the H4n. Set them to the wider 110-degree pattern instead of the 90-degree and get it over the peoples' heads a little. The hardest part is going to be finding a good spot on the floor where the audience is. You could use the C1000s, but I think they're going to be clunky with you moving all over the place. You can always try it...

If there's a separate monitor world and the group is on IEMs, maybe the engineer can send FOH an audience mic mix to patch into the board feed?
 
Re: Beyerdynamic MM1/Sennheiser shotgun as room mics for audience recordings

Jordan Wolf said:
Honestly, since you have to do the run n' gun thing, I'd just use the built-in mics on the H4n. Set them to the wider 110-degree pattern instead of the 90-degree and get it over the peoples' heads a little. The hardest part is going to be finding a good spot on the floor where the audience is. You could use the C1000s, but I think they're going to be clunky with you moving all over the place. You can always try it...

If there's a separate monitor world and the group is on IEMs, maybe the engineer can send FOH an audience mic mix to patch into the board feed?
Click to expand...

There's no IEMs, and I have no problem walking around the venue with a mic stand to get the recorder up high. After listening to some demos online I'm getting the sense that the onboard mics may not be so bad after all, and what was holding back the quality of past recordings was probably the recording position.
 
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