Current Film and TV

Complete

  • Strad Syle (Feature Documentary)
  • River Dogs (reality)

In Development

Chop Cut

  • CAVEMAN POST
  • An editing and post facility run by yours truly.

DIY GUY's other life
Hobbies and interests besides making movies.

 

 

Omni microphones

Go to www.homemademicrophones.com for more info about this microphone.

Finished Omni Mics

After the Transsounds omni tests, I tried Projects Unlimited capsules. After poring through the specs on the various Projects Unlimited capsules, I requested samples of several capsules. They were alright, but not up to what I needed... except for one - the BOM-6538L.

They sounded great. Amazingly so. I played with a pair of mutants (guts hanging from the XLR Jack) for a couple weeks, recording various things, trying to figure out whether I was hallucinating or not. I emailed a couple tests to a friend of mine who also agreed that they sounded pretty damn good. While doing this I was also trying to figure out what type of body I wanted to put them in. The omni's are much more susceptible to audio coloration based on the body then the cardioids. This makes sense as they're getting sound from all around, not primarily the area in front of them. You can hear changes in the sound by merely putting your hand in different places around or behind the capsule. It means that the body size and shape is of serious importance.

innnards of my diy omni microphone
Omni internal. Capacitors are put in front to minimize thickness of circuit.

It's great having a pair of these mics, and the cost of parts is ridiculously low. For around $10.00-$15.00 in parts, you can have a pair of omni directional microphones that will rival microphones costing ten to twenty times that cost per microphone. 

I KID YOU NOT!

Trust me, if I read this, and saw the cost, I would be very dubious too. 
A sound file is worth a thousand words, so here are a couple of one of the more difficult things to record decently; a violin.

omni sound samples
Sound sample - violin. TSB165 left channel  OMNI Right channel. (split the recording to two mono files to really hear the differences) Raw recording - absolutely no manipulation.

Sound sample - ambience in stereo. OMNI mics in stereo (coming soon)

Sound Sample - Fritz Kreisler's Tambourin Chinois.

Violin played by yours truly. Kevin Annest sequenced the Piano. This was recorded with a pair of the omnis pointing straight at the violin from the scroll from about four feet.  I found this to reduce the scratch of the rosin, yet maintain the sound of the violin fairly well. They were about five inches apart.

Listening to the Piano playback through headphones, I recorded my violin playing through my Green pre into an Alesis io|2 and then into my laptop with Nuendo. The reverb is a convolution file of Zipper Hall in Los Angeles. It was recorded at 48k 24bit pcm and then mp3 encoded. Nothing fancy, this was recorded in my small home office in the evening when neighborhood noise and traffic isn't too bad . No EQ or dynamic compression was used on the violin.

Go to www.homemademicrophones.com for more info about this microphone.