วีดีโอ

Not a chance, unfortunately, the opening in the A81WS is way too thin.

Great question: yes, the circuitry and sound quality are identical between both versions. Mine is actually a T, sold to me by an experienced older audio engineer who used it professionally for years. Whether by its dedicated power supply, or using an adapter that allows it to function over 48v phantom power, the quality is the same, and is just as good as a modern 416. In fact, if you’re buying used, you might be better off grabbing a T, since it’s less likely to be a counterfeit (fake 416s have become more and more common the past few years, but no one would bother counterfeiting a T). If you find a good deal, snag it up without hesitation!

This is the $41 adapter I grabbed in order to use my 416T for location sound w/ a field recorder; I now use it in my studio as well, since it’s a bit more convenient than my bulky old power supply: www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/275819-REG/PSC_FPSC0010A_A4812_48V_to_12T.html

@@davidautovino thanks!

@@davidautovino That is AWESOME. Thank you for the data :-)

Personally, I'd still pick the Shure. I don't own the 875r, but I've used it on set once before, it's certainly a fine shotgun mic for the price... but I've found that even the shotguns that I do own that are a step above the 875r (namely, the Audio-Technica AT897 and the Rode NTG2) let in a bit more "room" than a dynamic like the Shure will.

@@davidautovino even for voiceover ?

@@GloriousPanic ESPECIALLY for voiceover, yeah. One unfortunate side effect of the Sennheiser MKH416's popularity is that it's sort of perpetuated this myth about shotgun mics being in any way desirable for VO. Most will do in a pinch, sure... and in the case of the Sennheiser, besides it being "THE shotgun mic that's actually used for VO," it also makes a good "travel mic" for pros, since it's a bit better at room rejection than most large-diaphragm studio condensers. But very rarely does ANYTHING beat a dynamic microphone for untreated spaces. If you don't need to hide a mic outside of a video frame, then there's really no need to prioritize getting a shotgun mic UNLESS you are 100% after the sound of a Sennheiser MKH416.

@@davidautovino thank you so much David for taking the time to respond. I'll definitely go with the sm57 now. Alot of vo guys keep saying it's only good for instruments but I trust your opinion.

@@GloriousPanic The SM57 is a hands-down great mic, and a solid investment: anyone who records things for a living will never find a time when they have ZERO uses for one. Now, admittedly, as a voiceover guy, is it the first mic I reach for in my treated studio? No. But if I'm traveling and I can't predict what the acoustics are going to be? I always make sure I pack one, because no matter where you are, it's almost impossible NOT to make a useable recording with a SM57 ❤

Well, uh... nope! I'm not sure where you may have heard that, but even when booming film dialogue, the goal is to have the mic's diaphragm (in the case of a shotgun mic, it's pointing outward from the end, making it an "end-address microphone") pointing toward the source of sound (i.e. the speaker's mouth) as much as is possible. Any degree to which you deviate from this will cause the mic to pick up the sound "off-axis," and it will sound quieter and more muffled... and some mics are more forgiving in that regard than others. When the source of your sound is a moving target (like an actor who's walking, running or fighting while talking) it can help to use a boom mic with a wider pickup pattern. But considering VO is relatively stationary, it's pretty easy to aim your mic directly at the source of sound. Is it possible you're referring to the debate as to whether or not booth mics should be positioned from above, pointing down, vs from below, pointing upward? This theory goes that mics that are positioned at chest level (but still pointing up toward the speaker's face) will capture more low-frequency chest resonance, and that this can be a desirable sound for certain purposes (like a deep, booming commercial delivery). As far as I know, this hasn't really been proven to be conclusively true, but some people have strong opinions about it 😆 I hope that helps clarify things for you!

Another thought: perhaps you're referring to the notion that you shouldn't position a microphone directly in front of your mouth? THIS is true. You want to make sure that the mic's diaphragm is clear of the path of the air you expel as you speak. The breath you force outward when speaking hard, propulsive consonants like "p" impacts the mic's diaphragm and results in a loud, low thud, called a "plosive." While this can be mitigated by using foam covers or round fabric windscreens, the most effective way to avoid plosives is simply to position the mic at a 45-degree angle to your mouth, instead of directly in front of it. The diaphragm should still be pointing toward your mouth, however; we're just moving the mic clear of the path of your breaths :)

@@davidautovino oh ok gotcha. Yea I was just wondering. Thanks man! Do you still recommend this mic today?

@@philliptamez The Sennheiser MKH416? Absolutely. I still use it in my booth every single day. It's pretty widely-used in the industry, which means pro-level producers are gonna be happy to hear that you use one. There are def MANY cheaper microphones that sound just as high-quality... but this one has a very particular "voice" that nothing else can quite replicate.

Great question, and unfortunately the answer is "it depends" 😆 For starters, the Røde NT1 picks up more HF detail than a Blue Yeti, and with more clarity, which will make your voice sound more professional, but yes, it's possible you'll hear more of the room reflections in your space when using the Røde. If your floor is carpeted as opposed to hardwood, that'll help. How much treatment is "enough" depends largely on your purposes. I sell my audio services to production clients at fair market rates, and I want them to be able to hear that ALL of my recordings sound clean, present and reverb-free, even before ANY kind of digital processing. I want to give them a reason to choose ME over a different performer, so I want them to be impressed! So a recording space that's virtually completely dead-silent is important to my business. If you're a podcaster or a streamer, or if you're just doing it for fun, it's not so important that it sound perfect.

Is there any any chance we can sound audio technica at4040 like Tlm 103?

Hello everyone!

Thank you so much! That's really nice to hear :)

Woke to to this and my day has officially been made 😍😍😍 Thank you so much for your kind words!!!

Bottom line: both mics are among the very best in their price range, and both will produce a great vocal track. That said, I personally prefer the sound of the King Bee II for most applications. But there may be certain times when the AT2035 could give you a performance advantage. Why? Let’s look at the main technical differences between these two mics: the AT2035 is less sensitive, and doesn’t provide as rich and warm a bass response. For big impactful vocals, i.e. if you’re a rocker, a metal screamer, or a hip-hop artist who really spits fire, these factors may actually help produce a cleaner take that sits better in a mix. But for crooners, classical vocalists, indie singer/songwriters, or rappers with a laid-back flow, they’ll appreciate the extra warmth and sensitivity of the King Bee II. Hope that helps!

@@davidautovino thank you so much for such a great explanation. I know now I will buy neat king bee 2, I am a quite vocalist, no belting out , or high range. Appreciate it a lot .

Fair question! Short answer: I hadn't really seen anyone else compare them and someone asked me to! :) The longer answer is that, while you're absolutely right about those more expensive Rødes being closer sonic matches, I think most people who have looked into that sort of thing probably already know that. And better folks than me have already made great comparison videos (like Mike DelGaudio of Booth Junkie fame) so that if you really wanna hear how close the NT3 is to the MKH416, that's pretty easy to find. But in my neck of the woods (a smaller metropolitan video production market), the NTG2 is way more ubiquitous because of its low cost (every video production house around here seems to own at least one, whereas, by contrast, I've only ever met one sound guy in 20 years of professional work who owned a NTG3). Furthermore, if you DON'T know a lot about mics yet, it stands to reason that you might think all shotgun mics sound the same, or at least, more similar to each other than they do to studio condensers. So I set out to illustrate that you're not necessarily getting that particular sound that people are looking for in a MKH416 JUST by switching to any old shotgun. Hope that clears things up!

@@davidautovino you are right on. Thing is when people watch a person on youtube there is the forget of why that video was made . You re right makes sense. It is about who is looking for the info. I am also looking to buy a shotgun and i dnt have a sound guy. I come from a music studio background and to me these comparaison sounded wrong, bcz what i am looking for is more what is the video sound world like so i know how to buy my stuff. Bcz online it seems like there is only info about what people are researching and not a catalogue of these mics are from the same xategkry from all these brands lets tell you bow each is different. I saw that audiotechnkca had a shktgun bp4073 more expensive than the mkh416 but no one compares them. But everykne is making video about how an atrr875 for 170 bucks sounds compared to sennheiser 416. So i guess i shd stop looking around this was and just buy the standard. Hahah . Cheers

@@rumorscameras Heh, yeah, I totally get you. FWIW: I was just on a shoot with a sound guy I know well, and I noticed he wasn't using his usual MKH416, so I asked him what it was he had mounted on his boom pole: it was a Sennheiser MKH 50! He says he loves how much more of the room it eliminates, thanks to its hypercardioid pattern, but otherwise it sounds almost identical to the MKH416. Only thing it sacrifices is a little distance, so you have to get it slightly closer to the subject, plus it's slightly more expensive... but he says he's kicking himself for not buying one years ago! Might be worth a look :)

@@davidautovino thanks. cheers

Great question, Eggbert! Without knowing exactly which model of mic you're using, I feel pretty safe going ahead and guessing that it's your microphone itself that is generating the noise. The electronics inside ALL condenser mics make them produce a given amount of hiss, and THIS is what we refer to as "self-noise," i.e. the noise a mic produces all by itself. It takes engineering, R&D, and high-quality components to produce a microphone that produces less self-noise. More noise is also produced by the gain in the analog-to-digital (or AD) conversion circuitry in an audio interface (or in the case of a USB mic, built-in to the mic itself). Same deal: it takes purpose-driven design and high-quality components to produce low-noise circuitry. This is why the clearest, hiss-free audio interfaces (your Apogee Duets, UAD Apollos, RME Babyfaces, etc.) start at around $500, and the quietest mics (like Røde's brand-new NT-1 5th Gen, with an amazing self-noise rating of only 4 dbA) start at around $250. I think you see where this is going: with the quality of components that can be sourced to sell a microphone for only $20, there's no way a mic that cheap is going to have circuitry anywhere near as quiet as you need it to be to hit a -60db noise floor. I would bet that your mic itself is probably making your signal a good 30 decibels louder than it should be. Will the Shure (or the clone I use in this video) be better in this regard? Almost certainly, but you'll likely still hear more noise in your recordings than is ideal. That's because, although dynamic mics produce no self-noise themselves (they are passive, unlike the active circuitry in condenser mics) they are WAY less sensitive to sound waves than condensers. This is a double-edged sword: it means that it's harder for them to pick up the sounds you DON'T want, like room reflections, or your computer fan in the background, or traffic outside, and that's great... but it also means that they require way more gain from whatever is pre-amplifying them (whether that's an audio interface, or built-in USB AD circuitry) and THAT means more hiss if that circuitry isn't high-quality. So you'd need to spend a few hundred dollars on a really good audio interface to make sure that the Shure (sure that the Shure, heh heh) can clear ACX's noise floor requirement. If I were you, I would look at the Neat King Bee II. It regularly goes for only $120, and has an incredibly low self-noise rating for the price (6dbA!). It'd be great for narration and is a true bargain (check out my video about it!). Paired with a relatively-affordable high-gain, low-noise interface like the MOTU M2 or the SSL 2, you should have a much easier time clearing that noise floor hurdle. Good luck!

@davidautovino holy cow, thank you for the long and detailed reply! What you said about self noise makes a lot more sense! I haven't signed up for acx and I'm not necessarily looking to do book narration, but anytime anyone brings up the noise floor, they refer to that -60db for acx. Would I be able to get started on fiverr with the current microphone and current -40db to make voiceovers until I buy the other equipment? Or is -40db still too high even for fiverr customers? Thanks again!

@davidautovino also, would you recommend the neat king bee ii condenser paired with the motu m2 over the shure dynamic paired with the same audio interface? I guess I was just under the impression that if you don't have a treated space or a booth then you will have issues with a Condenser mic. However if the neat king bee II would be better (in both quality and in noise floor) than the shure or any dynamic, I would gladly pay more for it

@@davidautovino sorry for the third comment, I just realized I never put the mic in my first comment. It is called JOUVINO jv906. How do I find the self noise rating on manufacturers website?

@@eggbertjohnson2591 No apologies necessary, you're asking all the right questions, I hope I can answer them helpfully :) Firstly: you won't find any detailed manufacturers' specs on your mic because they don't actually measure them for mics like this. Here's the truth: these mics are built using a tiny back-electret capsule. This is a $00.02 part the size of a button, and is most commonly used as the microphone element on children's toys that can record sound. They build in whatever AD chip is currently cheapest on the production line, and stick it all inside a body that "looks" like a professional-grade microphone. There's no design or engineering really to speak of, they're selling these things based on looks alone. And then user reviews usually report that they sound much better for video calls than the mic that's built-in to their laptop... but in truth, the only real reason it sounds better is that they're able to place these mics closer to their mouths for a better signal-to-noise ratio. Please don't let this bum you out or discourage you. It's only $20 ;) Now, how do you move forward from here? I posed your situation to a friend of mine who's an expert audiobook narrator and editor (whereas my main expertise is commercials and characters). I asked him about getting down to that -60db threshold, and how much he uses processing or plugins to get there. Here's his response in full: "It's after processing, and you HAVE to process to get to their tech specs. So, yes, you can use anything you like to get to their noise floor - just do it right and don't destroy your audio. I used to record with a yeti in a box (you've seen the pics from back in the day), and I could get to those specs and it sounded fine...and then they compressed on their end and it sounded like garbage...but at that point, I stopped caring because I was onto the next job (other than to say to myself - well that sucks, but I can't fix what they did). With ACX you are your engineer (unless you outsource it to someone like me) and the upload is the final product (barring their own compression - which is awful). Clean up is 100% better and easier when your space is great. I've had people send me everything from a snowball to a yeti to a shure sm7b (which I personally hate) to a sennheiser. In the end, if the space is clean, it will all pass muster and be great for audiobook products. If the space isn't clean, the sennheiser will be a mess with everything it picks up, the shure will sound like you are talking into a folgers coffee can, the snowball will sound like a headset, and the yeti will just have a few artifacts to clean, but echo and reflection can be a problem." ...so my main takeaway from his advice is: treating your space should be top priority (which I agree with!), but on top of that, spend some time learning your way around Audacity's Noise Removal tool, as there's no other reasonable way to consistently keep the noise floor below -60db without it, or something like it (I really like Isotope RX, which can go for as low as $20 on sale). As for mic choice: it depends a bit on the source of your environmental noise. Is the problem that your room is highly reflective (echo-y), or do you have external noise beyond your control (traffic, HVAC, construction, etc.)? If it's just echoes, save up for that Neat King Bee II as your "forever mic" :) It actually does surprisingly well with room reflections, and you can always add more padding to your space (and you can do it cheaply too- check out this great video about how to make acoustical panels out of old towels!: th-cam.com/video/pABvTWSxOes/w-d-xo.html). But if it's outside noise that's beyond your control, then yes, a dynamic is probably the safest bet. I love the Shure SM57 (or cheap clone!)/A81WS windscreen combo in the video because that windscreen isn't just any old foam pop filter: it's dual-density (two types of foam) and is much thicker and longer, so it enforces a distance between your mouth and the capsule, just like its big brother, the $400 SM7B. This keeps the dynamics of your recordings much more even, AND it's virtually impervious to plosives. All this equates to a way more polished and professional sound than this amount of money typically delivers, and is a great safety net for you to learn proper mic technique. If you teach yourself how to use a noise removal plugin gently and transparently (there's an art to it) you can probably get away with using a cheaper interface than the MOTU, like a Focusrite or Behringer. Finally: by all means, try your luck on Fiverr! I'm sure technical expectations are generally a bit lower there, and I truly believe that experience is the best teacher. There's no better motivation for learning to swim than diving into the deep end of the pool! :) Best of luck to you!