Soundfield Mic need info

[mwagener]

Great natural sounding mic, works well for surround sound. Make sure it comes with all neccessary accessories. Which version is it? I've been looking for a Mark V system for a long time. What are they charging for it?

[PlugHead]

Originally Posted by kbjazzman

I've found this one on my local Pro audio shop. It's look good to my eyes. What is the best application for this mic?? Anybody use it in Studio? or Vocal tracking?

Was playing sessions a few weeks ago, and a Soundfield was used on the 9 ft Steinway - with the stereo decoder box (don't know the model #), and it sounded great with no other mics on the piano. Really full sounding, tons of detail, but then again, the instrument was fab too! That's my only experience with this mic.

Not for the faint of heart price-wise: more than a few g's, but you can choose the decoder box (stereo/5.1 etc) for your personal needs...

Hope this helps!

regards,

[kbjazzman]

It was SPS 422 (old model) not MK V The shop ask for $2,300 (I'm working on it) I used to see this mic on the the top of the Choir recoding group. I'm not sure about the sound character of this mic. Is it good for the main mic for studio?

[DannyDay]

The imaging is great... no, fantastic. Kind of scary realistic. I'm not in love with tone quality however and it seems to lose focus at distance.

Where I'm staff, we've got two and use them quite a bit for live classical recordings where there'll be a lot of different ensembles and styles of music at hand (as in Bach to Beethoven to Mahler to Cage). The ability to change patterns, move front-back, move up-down, point from side to side is great. As mentioned, the surround thing is wonderful.

The old 422 is a good piece but lacks the B format outputs, I believe. Personally, I'm not sure _I'd_ get it for the price you mentioned. But that's just me. It'd depend on what else I had in the mic cupboard.

DD.

[ultimate_fish]

It's nice to be able to sit in the control room and vary your stereo pair configuration without getting out of the seat.

[lowland]

kbjazzman,

Was going to post this yesterday and ran out of time - some points already covered by other posters, but you may find something of interest...



I've used various Soundfield mics since the early nineties to record loads of different sources: vocals, acoustic guitar/bouzouki/mandola, uilleann pipes (the best mic for this I've heard) string quartet, piano, drums and percussion (great on djembe), double bass, sop./alto/tenor saxophone, choir, centre pair for an orchestral array - you name it.

Upsides: breathtaking neutral-but-warm sound (how do they do that?), at least stereo ability - surround with the right model. Buy the less expensive SPS422B which now has B-format outputs and you have surround for the price of stereo as you can record B-format to four tracks and decode any way you like with the Surround Zone plug-in (costs a fraction of the hardware decoder, - check the website for platforms). Excellent vocal (and speech) mic - very good for calming a ssssibilant ssssinger now, though the older Mk 4 always sounded a bit bright to me.

Downside: the neutral nature of the sound - you may prefer something more coloured on occasion. Wasn't that keen as drum overheads - in the rooms I tried more conventional mics worked better, but drum *ambience*, a different story. Very good on grand piano, but whenever I had the chance to shoot out against B&K omnis I preferred the B&Ks tonally. Not a cheap mic, but SF is like having an entire mic locker in one unit.