Field recording with the Rycote HC-15 and HC-22 mics

Following on from my initial tests and review of the Rycote’s first mics – the HC-15 and HC-22 shotgun mics – this shorter post adds some tests of ambience and nature recordings with both mics individually and combined with an AKG CK94 fig 8 mic to give mid-side stereo recordings.

Kicking off at home, I recorded the sounds of what I thought was my quiet Norfolk village street at dusk: birds calling, a tractor passing etc. So I could get the different mid-side recordings at the same time, this meant putting the two Rycote mics and fig 8 together in a blimp as shown in the image below. Experience says that there will be only an imperceptible shadowing effect by the clustered configuration of the mics. The AKG CK94 has a much lower sensitivity, so I added 8dB of gain: it should perhaps have a little more (another 4dB?), but I have posted the individual wav files anyway below.

Here are the various village street ambiences, both the two mid-side recordings and the individual tracks. I’ve included the AKG CK94 track too, since it shows the origins of any hiss: the two Rycote mics, of course, have unusually low self-noise for shotgun (indeed any SDC) mics at 8.5 dBA (+/- 2 dB).

Heading to the beach with just the Rycote HC-22 and the AKG CK94 in a blimp, here are some more recordings, one slightly away from the waves (with bird calls) and one close to the sea. This time I’ve included the mid-side recordings and the HC-22 tracks on their own. And this time the CK94 fig 8 mic has its gain up 12dB from the Rycote mic, to fully compensate for its lower sensitivity. Watch out for listening levels, especially for the waves – much louder than the village street ambiences above.

For something very different, I headed off to Norwich and up the tight spiral stairs into the belfry at the cathedral. The bells have been hung for static chiming since the 19th century, but the five bells (four from the late 15th century, one from 1635) still mark the hours and the quarters. And, needless to say, they are very loud within the belfry. In the recordings – again mid-side (this time with the HC-15 and the AKG CK94, and, for comparison, the hypercardioid AKG CK93 with the AKG CK94) – you can hear the wind whistling through the louvres, the clock setting the chimes in motion, and the automatic clappers chiming the bells.

Obviously using a shotgun mic as part of a mid-side pair for stereo ambiences is a slightly odd choice, and not one I would make normally, but there is a relevance to such tests as location sound recordists do use this combination when they want stereo coverage in addition to the focus of their interest with the mono shotgun. A more typical use of the shotgun mic for nature and sound effects recording, of course, is for focusing tightly on point sources for mono recordings, and with the low noise and good off-axis sound, there is little doubt that the HC-15 and, for a tighter focus, the HC-22 are excellent choices.