From: "Rich Peet" <richpeet@...>
For my applications I agree a larger diaphragm of 1/2" would be great and going much larger one starts to worry about condensation and humidity in outdoor recordings.
There is a growing number of people that are recording "faint field" and it is the omni's that don't have the proximity effect and it is the figure 8's that are most hard to find.
No one is really marketing a product for this area of recording and what I see dominating the "faint field" right now is the Senn ME 62 condenser, and the MKH 20-P48 which is an RF.
I don't consider my uses to be in the majority but with more people looking at the new digital recorders there is more of a demand for lower noise and higher s/n numbers.
I do nature recording, and would agree in general. However, I'd like to experiment with RF mics with diaphragms larger than 1/2" as well. And various boundary mic designs. Low noise designs are a must.
It makes sense if you are going to the effort to hand make a mic to go for something that competes with the top mics out there. Or is unique enough as to be unavailable. I could certainly use capsules like those in the Sennheiser MKH line. For outdoor conditions those are some of the best for dealing with humidity and so on. I could definitely use a good figure 8 capsule, or one for a multipattern mic.
I don't worry too much about proximity effect. My subjects generally shut up long before I get close enough for that to be any kind of bother.
For outdoor work it's critical to be able to provide good wind and shock protection. This has implications on the mic designs to use, though it does not limit us to any particular polar pattern. It primarily means setups that are compact enough to be protected. One reason why I use M/S stereo.
Walt
wwknapp@...
