Small Diaphragm Figure 8?

[drumsound]

How about a small ribbon fig-8 ? Beyer 130.

bob

Oh I know about those and other ribbon and LDCs with figure 8. I'm just curious aboud SDC (or dynamic) figure 8 as something different.

That Octava is quite interesting. I already have a pair of th mics.

With your pair of Oktavas you could do a fair sounding mid-side drum overhead. Now I want one of those thingies. I would be very interested in a bi-directional dynamic. especially if it sounded like a Sennheiser 408 or a 441.

I was thinking of the M/S Ocatave thing too.

Do you know about the IL TapeOp hang this Saturday? Look here.

[A-Barr]

I actually find the lack of fig. 8 sdc's kind of frustrating, since a mid-side sdc set-up just seems like such a good idea on acoustic guitar.

But for the price of that Oktava capsule you could buy a pair of omni MK012's, put them back to back and flip one out of phase. And still have enough $ left for a Billy Joel ticket and enough booze to obliterate the experience from your memory. If that's what you're into.

[thunderboy]

What? No love for Schoeps?

jt

[Max]

Oktava offers an figure of eight adaptor for those who already have the cardioid capsules. I haven't found prices yet.
http://www.oktava-online.com/mk012-8.htm#appl
For SD MS I'm using an Sennheiser MKH 30 together with an AT 4051 most of the time.

[cgarges]

Sennheiser makes one. At least they did a couple of years ago.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[drumsound]

Does anyone have any thought on the spacing of the Octava? It seems weird no no have the 2 back to back.

[Jeff White]

Oktava offers an figure of eight adaptor for those who already have the cardioid capsules. I haven't found prices yet.
http://www.oktava-online.com/mk012-8.htm#appl

Nice!

[Professor]

It seems like the Oktava one would be placing the two cardioid capsules too far apart which would start to mess with off-axis sound, which is kind of important if you were going to use it in M/S.
Unfortunately the only SDC fig-8 mics out there are from the expensive German folks. Sennheiser has them in the MKH line, Neumann has them in the KM-100 system-mic line, MBHO has them in their system mic lineup (I own a pair of those and love 'em dearly), and I think the cheapest of the bunch would be AKG if they still have one in the Blue-Line series. I've been hoping for Audio Technica to add one to the 4049, 4051, 4053 family... but I suppose I should just talk to them and suggest it at some point rather than waiting & hoping. Even if they didn't want to engineer a new capsule, it might be as easy as taking the 4050 capsule and re-work it into a smaller 'lollipop' permanent fig-8 for the smaller preamp body.

I guess the bigger question would be whether a budget SDC fig-8 will come out of a Chinese factory any time soon. And that's really hard to say. I have to imagine that they have a hard enough time selling omni mics to the home studio crowd who only tend to use cardioids. Putting the effort into a mic that most folks don't understand might not be economically viable. But like I said, it's really hard to say, and maybe they would sell better in certain markets.

-Jeremy

[Max]

I've been hoping for Audio Technica to add one to the 4049, 4051, 4053 family... but I suppose I should just talk to them and suggest it at some point rather than waiting & hoping. Even if they didn't want to engineer a new capsule, it might be as easy as taking the 4050 capsule and re-work it into a smaller 'lollipop' permanent fig-8 for the smaller preamp body.

I was under the impression that the 4051 series was discontinued. I was looking for a second 4051 a couple of months ago and couldn't find any.

[doc]

You mentioned being interested in figure eight dynamics... Well, I've got a weird one, the Beyer M380. It's a figure eight, medium/large diaphragm dynamic. Supposedly one of Albini's favorite kick mics. I like it on bass cabs and horns (tenor sax in particular). Never seen one before I grabbed mine off craigslist and haven't seen another one since, but I also haven't really looked too much. Cool mic, different sound, but not one you'd use in place of a large diaphragm condenser. It was designed as a low frequency mic and from my limited experience of using it I think it would probably sound really odd in a mid-side on acoustic guitar or drums or somesuch.

-doc

[Professor]

I was under the impression that the 4051 series was discontinued. I was looking for a second 4051 a couple of months ago and couldn't find any.

That would be a sad thing, but I suppose business is business and if they have to go, then they have to go.
Luckily though, they don't seem to be gone yet... at least not all of them. The 4051 (cardioid) & 4053 (hyper) are still listed on the AT website, but the 4049 (omni) is no longer listed. B&H Photo Video in NYC shows AT-4051 as 'in-stock' and shows AT-4053 as 'out of stock' but no longer has a listing for AT-4049.
I guess that might demonstrate the likelihood of convincing them to make a Fig-8 capsule.

I have four of the 4051s at the studio here and use them all the time. Two are set aside in a hard case along with a pair each of 4049 & 4053 elements to make them a system mic set for location recordings. I'd been thinking of adding the extra capsules for the second pair, but perhaps that ain't gonna happen.

-Jeremy

[Scodiddly]

That little Sony stereo mic for minidisc, the MS-907, is a mid/side mic in disguise with a L/R stereo output. If you open it up you'll find a figure-8 SDC mounted behind the forward-facing cardioid.

Now then...
L = M + S
R = M - S
and then
M = L + R
S = L - R
which means that in theory you could sum the left and right outputs with the right output polarity-inverted and end up with the side output.

I'll have to fool around with that, it sounds kind of fun.

[drumsound]

You mentioned being interested in figure eight dynamics... Well, I've got a weird one, the Beyer M380. It's a figure eight, medium/large diaphragm dynamic. Supposedly one of Albini's favorite kick mics. I like it on bass cabs and horns (tenor sax in particular). Never seen one before I grabbed mine off craigslist and haven't seen another one since, but I also haven't really looked too much. Cool mic, different sound, but not one you'd use in place of a large diaphragm condenser. It was designed as a low frequency mic and from my limited experience of using it I think it would probably sound really odd in a mid-side on acoustic guitar or drums or somesuch.

-doc

We had one at the studio where I used to work. I should borrow it from the boos. I used to like it on guitars and outside BD.

[Professor]

That little Sony stereo mic for minidisc, the MS-907, is a mid/side mic in disguise with a L/R stereo output. If you open it up you'll find a figure-8 SDC mounted behind the forward-facing cardioid.

That's a great point I hadn't considered. There are several single-point stereo mics that use a Mid/Side array to capture the stereo image. If I recall, that Sony has an adjustable width, but won't output a split M/S signal. But I just checked the Shure VP-88 and sure enough, it does have the option to output M/S (it's a Mid/Side naturally with a built-in decoder). And Audio-Technica makes two stereo shotgun mics that can be switched between L-R and M-S output.
The only catch with those is that they are really only good for M/S use. I mean, I guess you could stack two of them to create a Blumlein pair, or use just the Side output and position it to be a fig-8 for certain instrument effects, but it's not as elegant or flexible as a true Fig-8 SDC capsule.

-Jeremy

[tilputt]

Check out this little guy, the Ambient Audio Emesser (bottom of page)

http://www.ambientaudio.com/products/tiny.html