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Field recording with a Blumlein pair of Rycote BD-10s

June 26, 2024
Rigging two fig 8s end-to-end for Blumlein or mid-side field recording in a Rycote Modular WS4.

With a pair of the final production versions of the BD-10s in hand, I thought it was high time that I followed up my earlier studio tests of the mics in a Blumlein pair with some field recordings. It’s not often you come across Blumlein pairs (or, indeed, mid-side pairs with two fig 8s) used for anything but music recording. I suspect this has to do with two different things: first, field recordists rarely have multiple fig 8s, perhaps only having one for mid-side recording; and, second, I wonder whether there is a bit of concern about the inversion of the rear ‘image’ of the mics. What might be a boon in the studio – arranging a group of musicians in an arc in front of the mic and doing likewise with a facing group to the rear, so that all combine beautifully into stereo with the rear musicians naturally flipped the right way round (listen to John Cuniberti’s wonderful OneMic recordings if this seems alien to you: and you can read about my Cuniberti-inspired recording of the Lucy Grubb band in an earlier post) – might seem problematic outside, where things usually can’t be controlled so well. What will happen if that bird sings from the front right instead of the rear left?! And what about those grey areas to the sides of the pair, where imaging transitions from the ‘correct’ to the ‘wrong’ way round: won’t the world in those areas come crashing down into a phasey mess? In a recording world where much about Blumlein and mid-side with two fig 8s puzzles beginners (and many who should know better), it is easy to see why the techniques see little use outside.

Just to kick things off for those not familiar with how Blumlein and mid-side with two fig 8s (which decodes to Blumlein) reverse L and R to the rear of the mic, here are two simple recordings (made indoors) in which I walk round the mic pair at the same distance, calling out the degrees as I do so. First up is a recording with a pair of BD-10s, in this case set up as an MS pair to allow simultaneous recording of a comparison with omni mid-side:

At face value the recording might appear to show that there is real reason to avoid using pairs of fig 8s: certainly, for example, a Blumlein pair (or mid-side with two fig 8s) wouldn’t suit recording a group of singers forming an unbroken circle around a pair of mics (which is essentially what this test did, albeit sequentially and, thankfully, without my singing involved!), although, nonetheless, some do this. But what single stereo pair of mics (as opposed to a surround set up) would work best for such a scenario? MS with an omni mid would seem obvious, although, of course, there would be no distinction between, say, 45 degrees and 135 degrees, and the equivalent this produces with a 50:50 ratio (i.e. equivalent to back-to-back cardioids) means that sensitivity of the pair isn’t constant around the 360 degrees. You can hear this in my second demonstration, recorded at the same time as the above test, but using omni mid side with a Rycote OM-08 as the front mic and a BD-10 as the side mic:

But what do most field recordings have to do with direct sound coming to a mic pair at equal amplitude from 360 degrees? Many, if not most, field recordings will involve sounds that are louder in one direction, or across an arc: a car or train passing, the main animal of interest in the foreground, a clearly localized person undertaking some activity. The full 360 degrees might be wanted for ambience, but whether a background bird rear left is heard front right in the stereo field rather than front left is likely to be immaterial: and, in the absence of surround sound, is mislocated anyway. Likewise, if the main focus of the recording is within the main arc of the Blumlein pair (say 70 degrees) then any ambiguity – and any phasiness – to the sides is of little significance. And what makes such care worth it for a Blumlein pair in the field? Well, the answer is twofold: first, Blumlein (or an MS fig 8 pair decoded to Blumlein) gives a uniquely accurate stereo image across those front and rear arcs; and, second, it does this while still recording sound from 360 degrees. In short, it’s another tool for the job: not suited in many cases, but useful to be able to deploy when the occasion arises, even outside.

Two BD-10s side-by-side in a stereo Cyclone: those markings are still useful for orientation even when not in an end-to-end configuration: at this point I hadn’t reversed the lyres or removed the rods.

Before even thinking of using a pair of fig 8s outside, the first thing is to house them in decent wind protection. This is a pretty simple matter with small SDC fig 8s like the BD10s, which can easily fit end-to-end in a fairly standard windshield: in this case a Rycote Modular Windshield WS4. This doesn’t have stereo cabling, of course, so you end up routing the second cable along the basket and have to squeeze it out of the cable exit by the end cap. Neither are major issues, but admittedly aren’t perfect. But as ex-BBC mid-side and Blumlein expert sound engineer Roger Long has long advised, it’s so easy to get bogged down in theory: practical experience – with ears with that have more finesse than mine – shows that the shadowing effect of placing two fig 8s side-by-side is essentially undetectable. This opens up scope for using more conventional mid-side rigs, and just using them vertically. The best fit windshield that Rycote make for their SDC mics is the Cyclone Stereo Kit 5, so that’s what I have used for the side-by-side Blumlein rig too: I made a couple of minor adjustments, rotating the lyres to remove a clunky bit of plastic away from the side-address capsules and also removing the metal rods that spanned between the lyres (and were redundant) so that I could then move the lyres closer together.

And here with one half of the basket attached, showing the lyres reversed and the rods removed, which is helpful for the BD-10s and essential for the shorter Rycote SDC mics (OM-08, CA-08 and SC-08).

With a couple of rigging options for outdoors sorted, let’s get on to some recordings. First up, here is one of my now all too familiar front garden recordings, with birdsong, my footsteps, cars driving past (crossing right to left), and a neighbour doing a bit of DIY.

Getting out of the garden, and picking up on the idea of testing a wide passing noise, here is a test on a track of a horse walking past. I was to one side of the track aiming the Blumlein pair (rigged side-to-side) across it, with the horse approaching from the right and walking past. The sound changes as the horse comes up to me for the simple reason that he veered onto the grassy verge to keep as far away from me as possible (who can blame him, seeing a bloke with headphones and a stand with a dead cat on it?!), but I think the recording still works and demonstrates that even from an angle of almost 90 degrees, passing through 0/360 degrees and ending at just over 270 degrees, the sound moves clearly across the stereo field.

Blumlein recording in the field (or a field!): the horse that whinnies in the recording below isn’t the miniature Shetland seen through the gate, but out of view, at over ninety degrees to the right.

In this next sample recording I set up in front of a field gate (see photo above), and you can hear me open and close the gate and then a horse whinnies in the distance. The horse was located slight to the rear of hard right so, due to the reversal of the rear of the Blumlein pair, appears to come from the front left.

Blumlein recording under an oak tree.

This next recording is a quiet ambience of surprisingly subdued birdsong, along – as gain was cranked up, with the distant sound of traffic, recorded under an oak tree in a fragment of ancient woodland.

Ok, so nothing stunningly conclusive here, but, I hope, food for thought. The attractions of Blumlein (and mid-side with two fig 8s) recordings for music are well known – at least among those making recordings of acoustic music in decent sounding spaces – but the approach can work equally well outdoors, even for 360-degree ambiences. Given that a pair of SDC fig 8s is not hard to rig in a windshield, either end-to-end, side by side, or fore and aft, it is easy enough to try if you have – or can get hold of – a pair of fig 8s such as the BD-10s. And, for my part, I have an upcoming recording session that combines acoustic music and the great outdoors – recording a pipe band – so will be including a Blumlein pair in tests for that: more anon.

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Audio Gear

Rycote BD-10: the final production version

June 26, 2024
The final production version of the BD-10 with its laser-etched alignment markings on the end.

Back when I was testing the Rycote BD-10 production version fig 8 mics with a Blumlein recording of Lucy Grubb’s band, my ageing eyes struggled rather with aligning the two black mics end-to-end at ninety degrees: what should have taken a couple of seconds seemed to take an age in subtle studio lighting. The fairly standard dot indicating the front lobe of the BD-10 is great for orienting the mic for mid-side recording, but I began to think how a few more discreet markings on the end of the mic body would help hugely with Blumlein or, indeed, mid-side with a pair of fig 8s. I sent off a quick Photoshop mock-up to the folks at Rycote and, a little to my surprise, they have run with the idea, laser-etching the four markings as shown in the photo above. I was so chuffed when a pair of the updated mics winged their way from Wilsonville, Oregon (where the Rycote mics are now made in the Audix factory) to rural Norfolk here in the UK. But I should say sorry, though, to those of you who had to wait a little longer for the BD-10 to start shipping as a result! A tiny detail, and a short post, but I hope others find the markings useful too.

Using the markings to rig a pair of BD-10s end-to-end.

NB see this post for my original review and tests of the BD-10

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Sennheiser MKH 8030 part 2: mid-side recording

February 10, 2024
The Time and Mercy Band, comprising (left to right) Richard Ward, Jason French, Rob John and Kevin Burton.

Thursday evening was an inauspicious time to be heading out for a recording of a bluegrass band: it was a soggy wet evening here in rural Norfolk, with the narrow roads full of potholes lurking below rivers. It didn’t feel much like the Appalachian Mountains. Was it left, right, left, right, left and right again on the maze of roads around Mannington and Wolterton, or the other way round? And if I didn’t remember my left from my right, how on earth would I remember how to connect up the mics for some more mid-side recordings, building on my earlier comparative tests of the new Sennheiser MKH 8030?

I was heading back to The Forge, the studio of Kev Burton, where, a few months ago, I recorded Lucy Grubb and her band using a Blumlein pair of Rycote BD-10 fig 8 mics. This time it was a similar venture: a different band (albeit with the common factor of Kev on bass) – the Time and Mercy Band – and with a mid-side pair instead of a Blumlein pair. This was partly driven by only having a single pre-production Sennheiser MKH 8030 fig 8, but, also, because I wanted to test further the MKH 8030 in combination with the MKH 8040 cardioid as the mid mic, and throw the new Rycote BD-10 fig 8 and its cardioid (CA-08) sibling into the mix. Back at base, I’d decided that to compare the four mics in a mid-side array and allow any combination (but always using an immediately adjacent pair as mid and side mics), I needed a vertical array of five mics: that was BD-10 top and bottom, MKH 8030 in the middle, and the two cardioids between the three fig 8s. Getting them close together (I managed 4mm apart, which is better than many a back-to-back clip) was tricky and meant I couldn’t use individual shock mounts: but still wanting some isolation from a wooden floor and anticipated tapping feet, I then bolted the whole array to a pair of hefty (Duo Lyre 68 shore) Rycote Invision shock mounts, and, for belt and braces, put the stand on foam pads.

Heath Robinson would have been proud of this…

It was a little easier setting up than with the Blumlein recording, this time having all the musicians on one side of the mics and having no drum kit to manage in a fairly compact studio, but the principle remained very much as before – needing care to balance the different instruments and voices – for which having the studio’s control room, with its wonderful Midas desk (originally made for Frank Zappa) feeding into Logic, and Kev’s experience with it, was invaluable for reviewing each take. The primary feed from the mics was, again, to my field recorder.

We recorded three songs, but, for the purposes of this post I am going to focus on one, which the band call ‘Sugar Honey Babe’. It’s a traditional bluegrass song and has been recorded with many similar titles (and, of course, variations in the lyrics), and perhaps is most well-known nowadays as ‘Red Rocking Chair’.

OK, that’s more than enough preamble: to the results! First off, here’s a very quick and dirty video: one camera stuck on a tripod pointing towards the band and with the mics largely blocking the view of Rob on banjo. My excuse is that the focus was on the audio. The video switches between the various mic combinations and, as the previous tests showed that the two Rycotes are lighter in the bass department than their MKH 8000 series counterparts, a few options where the BD-10 and the CA-08 have some EQ: imperfectly applied, no doubt, but it reduces some of the more obvious differences between the mics. Other than the EQ on these few clearly labelled snippets, all the sound is as it was recorded: no reverb, no compression etc.

For those wanting to listen to the sound files without whatever YouTube does to them, here they are. I’ve not included the EQ’d versions as I am sure others can do better, or would at least want to try. These LR stereo files can, of course, be decoded back to the original mid and side channels, should you so wish (I’ve enabled downloading permissions on SoundCloud for them).

I’m not sure all the versions of the tracks with the Rycote mics given some EQ (as used where flagged up in the video above) merit inclusion, but here is just the one – the recording with the MKH 8040 and the EQ’d BD-10: although the EQ is fairly rough and ready, it does show the potential, should you wish it, to bring the mic nearer the MKH 8030.

And, finally, for a bit of fun, here’s a version of the video with the MKH 8040 and MKH 8030 pair throughout, rather than chopping and changing mic pairs. I’ve added a little reverb to this version.

So the verdict this time? As with the Blumlein pair recording, that’s one for others perhaps. The balance of the recording is far from perfect: we didn’t have endless time to fiddle around with placement, and, even if we had spent hours on it, it would have been hard to balance, say, Rob’s backing vocal and his (much louder) banjo. On a different note, rain can be heard on the studio window too: so not ideal. But putting the MKH 8030 into more real-world action with a largely acoustic band (there was a little bit of amplification for the bass) was useful, not least seeing how it performed with the MKH 8040 and just how much difference was noticeable when swapping out to different (and less expensive) mics, and what a bit of EQ might do to that. As before, my take is that the MKH 8030 is a first-rate mic, pairs well with the excellent MKH 8040 (as entirely expected), but that the considerably cheaper BD-10 is decent too and that, with some EQ, comes much closer to the MKH 8030 – especially when used as the side mic in a mid-side recording. As I’ve said before, it’s good to have these two new choices in the limited field of SDC fig 8 mics: happy days!

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Audio Projects Film Projects

A little bit of Blumlein

October 10, 2023

I’ve long been a fan of simple set ups for music recording, often using a mid-side pair only. That’s partly due to the fact that I like the idea of a stereo capture (rather than close-miced instruments and vocals panned across the left-right field), but also reflects the nature of what I do: location recording, with no studio and the natural tendency there – since the 1970s – to use multi-mic and multi-track recording, overdubbing and tinkering for as long as you wish. This is not to deny that there’s a hugely creative side to the typical studio recording approach, and it allows you to record instruments in ways just not possible without it. Of course, a simpler approach has remained the case with much recording of acoustic and classical music, although, even there, the number of spot mics can be vast these days. But recording of bands – with drum kits, electric guitars etc. – has been largely the province of the multi-mic and multi-track approach in recent decades, with only the occasional exception.

One such exception I have enjoyed has been John Cuniberti’s OneMic series of recordings. John is a hugely experienced engineer, with years of the studio multi-tracked approach under his belt, so it has been fascinating to see and hear his journey into a simpler approach: in his case using a stereo pair of ribbon mics, arranged as a Blumlein pair, in the form of the single stereo AEA R88. John has an excellent YouTube channel with examples of his recordings and videos, as well as behind-the-scenes videos, which are invaluable for others attempting something similar.

With a pair of the latest pre-production Rycote BD-10 fig 8 mics in hand, I was keen to try something in this vein: that is, to capture a whole band at the same time just with a Blumlein pair. Besides, what’s the point of a fig 8 mic without a good Blumlein work out? With a fraction of the skills and resources of a Cuniberti, expectations were much lower, but that’s not a reason not to have a go!

For anyone not familiar with the approach – which, like so much in stereo, goes back to the work of the brilliant engineer Alan Blumlein in the 1930s – a Blumlein pair comprises a pair of fig 8 mics usually arranged directly one above the other, so that the two mic capsules are angled at 90 degrees to each other: in that sense, like an XY pair. This gives you a stereo field in front of the mics and, with the rear lobes of the mics, to the rear: the stereo field to the rear, of course, is flipped. There’s plenty of signal at the sides of the pair, but it’s not the place for a direct sound source: at right-angles to the pair a source would be, say, on the left from the perspective of the front lobes, and on the right from the perspective of the rear lobes. Quite evidently, a recipe for a phasey mess. So, a Blumlein pair isn’t the answer to micing a group ranged in a circle around the mics, but does let you spread them in an arc of 70 degrees in front of the mic and a similar arc to the rear. Setting relative levels of different instruments and vocals is, needless to say, a question of adjusting loudness of the sources and/or distance from the Blumlein pair.

So much for the theory: the task is to translate that into action. With Lucy Grubb and her band willingly volunteering for the exercise, choice of venue was largely dictated by the need for good monitoring: with ‘mixing’ created in the setup, it was essential that the band and I could listen back and adjust the set up as necessary. The bassist, Kev Burton, happily let us use his studio – The Forge – where the band has previously recorded their multi-track releases: the wonderful Midas desk (originally made for Frank Zappa) was reduced to monitoring duties (from a passive split and feeding Logic), while the primary feed from the Blumlein pair was to my Sound Devices MixPre-3 recorder. Kev’s experience with his studio and the expert ears of the band were crucial to getting the balance right.

Monitoring in the control room, through the Midas desk, Logic and some Tannoy Little Gold monitors.

It was a tight squeeze in the small studio, with the hardest thing controlling the level of the drums, even with brushes and a special kick-drum beater: there was only so far we could move the drums away from the mics, so the drummer, Paul Weston, detuned his snare to great effect, and we put a gobo in front of the kit. The electric bass amp was placed on a chair in front of that (to get the bass central and nicely balanced with the kick drum), with Richard Poynton, on electric guitar and singing backing vocals, nearer the mic, and a little to one side. Closer to the mic, but centrally on the other side, was lead singer (and song-writer) Lucy Grubb, playing acoustic guitar (with a little amplification behind her). Left and right of her amp, were amps for Richard’s guitar and for the keyboard of Piers Hunt: all three were on chairs/beer crates to get them off the floor. Placement of the keyboard and the bass players themselves didn’t matter: it was all about the position (and volume) of their amps.

Getting distances and angles from the mic pair for lead and backing vocals was essential: Richard’s guitar amp (a Fender Champ) was at the same angle to the mics as his guitar, but on the other side of the mics, behind Lucy.

There was precious little room for any lights or cameras, but, nonetheless, a rough and ready film of the recording seemed worthwhile, so here – with a video of one of the three songs we recorded – is what I managed. The sound has seen no processing other than addition of a little reverb: there is no compression, EQ etc.

So the verdict? Well that’s one for others perhaps. But from my perspective and, more importantly, that of the band, what we got was a very faithful sound of the band in the room. Everyone was engaged in the idea of balancing or ‘mixing’ at source and I suspect we’ll be back having another go before long. Oh, and the BD-10s faired rather well as a Blumlein pair, I thought!

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Audio Gear

Radius Windshields: RAD-1 and RAD-2 shock mounts

September 12, 2023
The RAD-1 (interior) suspension (right) and the RAD-2 (exterior) suspension (left). Both suspensions come with pairs of hoops of different compliance: the ‘lite’ (62D shore) blue hoops, and the standard (72D shore) black hoops.

I first became aware of Radius Windshields this spring, and a bit of delving showed a familiar figure at the helm – Simon Davies, formerly of Rycote (and whose mother, Vivienne, had succeeded the founder, John Gozzard, as owner). Evidently Simon hasn’t lost the bug for designing and manufacturing shock mounts and windshields, and, along with his wife Odette and daughter Megan (both with strong Rycote credentials) and a small team, has tantalized many of us with details about the nascent business, its ethos and, increasingly, the steps on the road to its first products. As I understand it, the new company is focused on making its products locally (Radius is based in Devon, with some production in Stroud) and on working closely with its customers: it very much sounds as if the plan is to stay small, so I doubt if we will see another company offering the huge range of Rycote’s products – at least in my lifetime!

After all the social media updates on the fledgling company it was good to receive examples of the first two products and put them through their paces. These are a pair of microphone shock mounts geared for the end of a boom pole, one – the RAD-1 – being for interior use and the other – the RAD-2 – being for exterior use. Both come with two pairs of suspension hoops: 72D shore standard hoops in black, and more compliant 62D ‘lite’ hoops in a light blue. The hoops can be mixed and matched, and can face either way (but – the included notes say with obvious reason – always opposing). The mic clips hang from the top of the hoops – so are inverted compared to a Rycote lyre – and have rubbery straps: as the (comprehensive) instructions note, these are primarily designed to retain mics in the clips when in transit, so optional when in use. The hoops fit to the mount that is evidently designed for use with a boom pole, and which has an integrated XLR holder. The angle of the shock mount can be changed by a pivot knob that does not just rely on friction. The injection-moulded thermoplastic construction feels very precise and good quality. So far, so good: they look great (OK, perhaps the Cambridge-blue of the lighter hoops isn’t everyone’s cup of tea…) and feel great. And, the details, such as the retaining O-ring on the pivot knob, the cable cleats, and the boom pole mount, all show careful – and experienced – design. But, and this is the crux, how do they perform? On to some tests then…

RAD-2 exterior shock mount

First then to the shock mount designed for exterior use: the RAD-2. Evidently designed for a softie type slip-on windshield (Radius are producing the Nimbus softie imminently), I set this up with a Rycote Classic Softie (18cm) alongside the Rycote Classic Softie kit (18cm) on a short stereo bar on the end of a boom pole, with a pair of Rycote’s excellent HC-22 shotgun mics. Recording into a Sound Devices MixPre-3, I held the boom in a conventional manner with the mics angled down as if booming normally, and then moved the mics up and down and then side to side: these were rapid movements, clumsier than normal. And finally, I held the boom pole vertically, bumping it (lightly!) repeatedly onto a carpeted floor to send shocks up the pole. Obviously, all this was something of a stress test for the shock mounts and essential since in smooth and gentle operation, both performed well and were impossible to differentiate. Normally, I include wav files with my tests and reviews, but I think with these tests numerous sound samples of me wobbling a boom pole would make for pretty tedious listening, and the following spectrograms – which very much reflect what I could hear in the field and when listening back – make the findings more easily digestible.

Radius RAD-2 + 72D shore hoops (top) and Rycote Classic Softie kit (bottom) with HC-22 shotgun mics: boom pole held and mics angled conventionally, and mics moved up and down.
Radius RAD-2 + 72D shore hoops (top) and Rycote Classic Softie kit (bottom) with HC-22 shotgun mics: boom pole held and mics angled conventionally, and mics moved side to side.
Radius RAD-2 + 72D shore hoops (top) and Rycote Classic Softie kit (bottom) with HC-22 shotgun mics: boom pole held vertically and bottom bumped on to carpeted floor.

The tests with the classic softies then show fairly consistent results, with noise from motion and transmitted via the boom pole all, as would be expected, at low frequency and, if wild movement was to be attempted for real, easily removable with a, say, 80Hz high-pass filter: this would likely be needed for wind noise anyway. One thing is evident in that the RAD-2 has a slightly more base-heavy profile, which opens up scope for a slightly lower high-pass filter. But I’d be happy using either: evidently choice would come down to whether you want a pistol grip too (the Rycote) or prefer the more boom pole-friendly RAD-2.

RAD-1 interior shock mount: standard (black) hoops

Moving then to the shock mount design for interiors – the RAD-1 – I first compared the mount with its stiffer 72D shore hoops against the Rycote InVision 7 with its, standard, 72 shore lyres. I used the Rycote HC-22 shotgun mics again, with the same stereo-bar on boom pole set up, and repeated the same three sets of movements. The spectrograms below show the results:

Radius RAD-1 + 72D shore hoop (top) and Rycote InVision 7 + 72 shore lyre (bottom) with HC-22 shotgun mics: boom pole held and mics angled conventionally, and mics moved up and down.
Radius RAD-1 + 72D shore hoop (top) and Rycote InVision 7 + 72 shore lyre (bottom) with HC-22 shotgun mics: boom pole held and mics angled conventionally, and mics moved side to side.
Radius RAD-1 + 72D shore hoop (top) and Rycote InVision 7 + 72 shore lyre (bottom) with HC-22 shotgun mics: boom pole held vertically and bottom bumped on to carpeted floor.

Again the first two tests showed fairly similar results, with the InVision 7 just slightly shading the RAD-1 in terms of peak noise, but with the RAD-2 showing a lower frequency weighting: this was subtle, however, and not evident in the boom bumping test. With both mounts, the noise was very low: even a 40Hz high-pass filter removed it.

RAD-1 interior shock mount: ‘lite’ (blue) hoops

So much for the 100g HC-22 shotgun mics: I was interested to see how the RAD-2 worked with lighter mics, so mounted a pair of my CA-08 cardioids (69g): the CA-08 weighs the same as my SC-08 supercardioid and, evidently, use of a light supercardioid or hypercardioid (perhaps with no more than a foam cover) is a likely use for interior booming. With the lighter mics, I switched the RAD-1 to its light blue 62D shore hoops, and the InVision 7 to the softest (i.e. 62 shore) lyres. The tests were as before and, again, the results can be seen in the spectrograms below:

Radius RAD-1 + 62D shore hoop (top) and Rycote InVision 7 + 62 shore lyre (bottom) with CA-08 cardioid mics: boom pole held and mics angled conventionally, and mics moved up and down.
Radius RAD-1 + 62D shore hoop (top) and Rycote InVision 7 + 62 shore lyre (bottom) with CA-08 cardioid mics: boom pole held and mics angled conventionally, and mics moved side to side.
Radius RAD-1 + 62D shore hoop (top) and Rycote InVision 7 + 62 shore lyre (bottom) with CA-08 cardioid mics: boom pole held vertically and bottom bumped on to carpeted floor.

In the two mic movement tests, the RAD-1 has the slight edge in terms of overall peak noise levels, although this is matched in the boom pole bumping test: and there is again a slightly bass heavier element to the noise from the Radius shock mount. But both perform well, and the noise, even from such extreme mishandling, is very low in frequency and easy to remove with a high-pass filter (which, again, would be necessary on wind grounds for any rapid boom movements indoors).

RAD-1 interior shock mount: ‘lite’ (blue) hoops vs Nano Shield shock mount

I have been impressed by the new lyres designed for Rycote’s Nano Shields. In use I have found they perform better than the older lyre designs used in Rycote’s Cyclones, modular windshields and InVision mounts, as indeed intended. In particular, I have found the most compliant 55 shore Nano Shield lyres to be the best performers for Rycote’s own lightweight (i.e. 69g) SDC mics, outperforming the 62-shore soft lyres (my previous best fit for such light mics). At present the new lyres only fit the mount within the Nano Shield full basket windshields, so the comparison – unless you also own a Nano Shield – with the RAD-1 is a bit spurious, but, in for a penny in for a pound!

Radius RAD-1 + 62D shore hoop (top) and Rycote Nano Shield (NS2-CA) + 55 shore lyre (bottom) with CA-08 cardioid mics: boom pole held and mics angled conventionally, and mics moved up and down.
Radius RAD-1 + 62D shore hoop (top) and Rycote Nano Shield (NS2-CA) + 55 shore lyre (bottom) with CA-08 cardioid mics: boom pole held and mics angled conventionally, and mics moved side to side.
Radius RAD-1 + 62D shore hoop (top) and Rycote Nano Shield (NS2-CA) + 55 shore lyre (bottom) with CA-08 cardioid mics: boom pole held vertically and bottom bumped on to carpeted floor.

My expectations for the RAD-1, even with its most compliant 62D-shore hoops, against the 55-shore Nano Shield shock mount were low. Indeed, the Nano Shield suspension outperformed the RAD-1 on the side to side test, where the lateral resistance of the new lyres proved most evident; but the difference was more subtle with the up and down motion (and the RAD-1 again had more of its energy at lower frequencies); and, surprisingly, the RAD-1 was slightly better in the boom pole bump test. So a much closer match between the two shock mounts than I had assumed would be the case.

Conclusions

The results of small differences in such specific tests and with such specific mics, cables and boom pole should not be overstated. From these tests (and broader testing that I have undertaken with the shock mounts), however, it is clear that the RAD-1 and RAD-2 perform well and, also, close to the Rycote equivalents, insofar as there are exact equivalents. Indeed, it is the physical differences between, and different features of, the shock mounts that are likely to determine which model anyone could or should choose: the XLR plug holder and better pivot knob of the Radius shock mounts vs the more minimalist InVision series shock mounts (which make the latter more suited to acoustic music recording, for example); or the more boom pole geared design of the Radius shock mounts vs the Rycote InVision softie lyre mount with pistol grip? Of course, as Radius introduce new models, those differences will change. Pricing will come into play too, although the different suspension hoops included will make up for the slightly higher pricing of the Radius shock mounts for many. Anyway, it is good to see such a high-quality start to Radius Windshield’s production, to have another UK manufacturer, and to have more choice in terms of shock mounts and suspensions. I’m also glad that all the experience embodied in the team hasn’t been lost to some unrelated business or the golf course! It will be interesting to see what comes from Radius over the next few years; what their first full basket windshield is like; and, with my personal interests, what they produce in due course in the way of suspensions for more esoteric uses such as mid-side mic pairs.

NB Although I matched the mics and gain in each set of two-mic test, the signals were normalized in Reaper so that I could get a decent level of shock mount noise for each comparison: therefore, please don’t compare noise levels across the different sets of tests or, indeed, start thinking that the shock mounts are all noisy! All the shock mounts I used here are ones I would (indeed, do) happily use and are excellent: this was very much about accentuating any differences between mounts in each set of tests.

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