Need Mic for Recording Outdoors...

tjwett · Post by **tjwett** » Tue Oct 08, 2002 2:22 pm

I'm planning to put together a sample CD of "Urban Soundscapes" and I'm looking for a good mic that will pick up sound over a large area. Ideally I'd like one of those big mics they use on the sidelines at football games but I don't have a clue who makes them or what they cost. If anyone as any other suggestions I'd love to hear them. I don't know much about mics but if there is one out there that will do the job and I could get it at Guitar Center that would rock. Thanks.

peterkirn · Post by **peterkirn** » Tue Oct 08, 2002 5:11 pm

Given the idea of a soundscape I might just go with a decent stereo mic, honestly . . . certainly to get the stereo field and for portability (if you want to pick this stuff up quickly, spontaneously, without too much setup). I'll be embarking on a similar project here in NYC for a collaboration I'm working on. Interested to hear what others have tried, though.

tjwett · Post by **tjwett** » Tue Oct 08, 2002 6:20 pm

peter,
yeah i was thinking that stereo would be the way to go. what if i setup a kind of array. like 4 mics spread over a distance and pan 2 left and 2 right. i also think it would be useful to get seperate sounds like just cars on one track and just people's voices on another. this way users of the samples could layer them to their liking. what do you think a CD like this would be worth? think there is anyone who would actually buy it should i just spend my time do a drum or synth CD? i'm just getting into the sample CD business very recently.

peterkirn · Post by **peterkirn** » Tue Oct 08, 2002 6:40 pm

Separating out some foreground / background sound could definitely make this more useful. Sound effect CDs have been a far cry from this in the past. I suppose the question is who your audience is. There's a way to approach this for sound designers and one for composers . . . the latter being far more likely if this is a "sample CD". Diversity and control then become more interesting . . . and finding unusual sounds.

tjwett · Post by **tjwett** » Tue Oct 08, 2002 7:58 pm

thanks for all the good points. i think this will be sold as a CD of wav files for use however. most of my stuff gets bought by New Media designers. i guess i'm more in the sound design business at the moment. hopefully when more Flash developers realise how lame it is to use free loops from Flashkit and elsewhere on the web i'll get some more custom music scoring work. thanks again. and enjoy this most awesome day of weather in NYC. i think summer may finally be over. thank god.

joshcarter · Post by **joshcarter** » Tue Oct 08, 2002 9:36 pm

I'd suggest looking into mics used for location sound recording. Best place to start (at least for finding out what's out there), is probably:

http://www.locationsound.com/

I bought some stuff from them for documentary work, and it was great.

-Josh

tjwett · Post by **tjwett** » Tue Oct 08, 2002 10:55 pm

very nice. just what i was looking for! thanks.