Are you simply interested in Foley (not Folly!) recording, or is that the area of sound recording you want to be in from the start? Foley is a very specialised form of the recording art, and, in my view, is somewhere to aim for and not the place to begin.

I think you would be better served by starting out being a part of a small team making many different types of live recordings, where you would naturally learn the craft from those with experience. This might well lead to you acquiring gear yourself with which to carry out certain types of recordings on your own, and then you take it from there.

In no way am I'm trying to deter you from taking up sound recording as a hobby or even as a profession, far from it. However, you are much more likely to be successful in it if you get a good grounding in the basics as applied over a reasonably wide set of circumstances.

Thanks for the clarification on the spelling haha! Foley I just used as the term to probably more accurately describe what I am doing. I am a video game developer looking at buying a rig to start capture sounds for my game. So im not sure what the classifies under to be honest. I have experience mixing sounds together on my computer making gun shots sounds for several games I have made in the past, but these have all been sounds I got off those free sounds sites a few years back in high school. So now I was looking to get into recording my own sounds to use so I dont run into licensing issues, plus just recording sounds in general for me is fun. For some sound I used a Blue Yeti Microphone for some stuff in the past, recording to a laptop id bring out. Now I want to get a rig with some better microphones more meant to do what I want to do. So I am not sure if that classifies me as a beginner? But I do have some experience!

Maybe you should forget Mid/Side recording and forget about shotgun mics.

Mid/Side is powerful, but not easy to begin with. And a good shotgun is expensive and more useful on outdoor recordings.

Get a couple of affordable mics like the Behringer B5. These come with cardio and omni capsules and will allow you to try out both styles.

Start thinking about the room you will be recording in. Unless, of course, you count on recording outdoors. In that case, start with a recorder like the Zoom H4n. The built-in mics are quite decent and will allow you to learn.

And beware of youtube. A lot of the stuff on there isn't real. Some suggestions on good reads are to be found in this thread:

https://homerecordi…

cyrano, post: 459161, member: 51139 wrote: Maybe you should forget Mid/Side recording and forget about shotgun mics.

Mid/Side is powerful, but not easy to begin with. And a good shotgun is expensive and more useful on outdoor recordings.

Get a couple of affordable mics like the Behringer B5. These come with cardio and omni capsules and will allow you to try out both styles.

Start thinking about the room you will be recording in. Unless, of course, you count on recording outdoors. In that case, start with a recorder like the Zoom H4n. The built-in mics are quite decent and will allow you to learn.

And beware of youtube. A lot of the stuff on there isn't real. Some suggestions on good reads are to be found in this thread:

https://homerecordi…

Thank you for the response, im not sure if you read my response to Boswell but I do have some experience in the field, and I feel that I am a bit past built in mics as seeing I have been in public with my Blue Yeti and laptop in hand recording various sounds. I was looking for a shotgun mic because I was planning on going in public and the outside to get these sounds. So im not sure if your response would change in regard to my repose to boswell.
Also I did notice alot of youtube videos tend to not tell you all the facts and just tend to tell you the most relevant information which can have alot of downside, I have been doing alot of reading though.
Lastly would shotgun mics also perform well in a studio environment? Assuming you suggest I should get one.

Joe Meyer, post: 459162, member: 51424 wrote:
Lastly would shotgun mics also perform well in a studio environment? Assuming you suggest I should get one.

Shotgun mics usually have a very narrow pickup patern, it's rare to see them in studio except for voice over. But they are not your standard studio mics..
For starters if you are on the move a Zoom recorder with X/Y mics can be a good start. Eventually, upgrading to a pair of Small condenser mics would be a good step foward. With those you can grab small ensembles, chamber musician, ambiant noises and scenery, acoustic guitars and foley recordings too...

pcrecord, post: 459170, member: 46460 wrote: Shotgun mics usually have a very narrow pickup patern, it's rare to see them in studio except for voice over. But they are not your standard studio mics..
For starters if you are on the move a Zoom recorder with X/Y mics can be a good start. Eventually, upgrading to a pair of Small condenser mics would be a good step foward. With those you can grab small ensembles, chamber musician, ambiant noises and scenery, acoustic guitars and foley recordings too...

Okay I see what you mean, it seems since I would be having to recreate a environment in a video game, im probably going to need a few different mics. I am probably going to start with shotgun mics, because I think I am going to try to get more isolated sounds more than I would be getting a broad range of environmental sounds at the start. Would you suggest x/y over mid side for my use case of capturing gun ranges, sounds potentially located in a city, etc?

Joe Meyer, post: 459172, member: 51424 wrote: I am probably going to start with shotgun mics, because I think I am going to try to get more isolated sounds more than I would be getting a broad range of environmental sounds at the start. Would you suggest x/y over mid side for my use case of capturing gun ranges, sounds potentially located in a city, etc?

I really think you should not start with shotgun microphones unless you are thinking of recording sound for a low-budget hand-held movie - they are a recipe for poor results. They also do not work in M-S configurations, as there would be an incorrect overlap in the polar patterns between an M-axis shotgun and an S-axis fig-8 mic for the decoding to work.

In an M-S configuration, the M-axis microphone must be either a cardioid for standard M-S or a fig-8 for M-S Blumlein. Additionally, the M and S axis microphones must give outputs that are in phase, otherwise the sum-and-difference method of decoding M-S to L-R does not work. That means that you can't use a condenser (shotgun or otherwise) as the M axis and a ribbon as the fig-8 S-axis.

The starting point for general recordings is X-Y stereo. This is the reason the default microphone axes in portable recorders like the Zoom are arranged as 90 degree X-Y.

Joe Meyer, post: 459172, member: 51424 wrote: I think I am going to try to get more isolated sounds

Isolation is often done in studio. Sound effect specialists are very kind of using anything to simulate other sounds.. Walking in mud could be done with hands in a melon or some other trickery.. Going outside in a busy/noise environement and trying to isolate a sound is very difficult.. shotgun mics arent magical. If other sounds exist in the air around a source they will be recorded as well. It's why having a mic the closest of the source or isolating the source are the best ways to isolate the sound.
Also it's why TV news onsite people use handheld mics close to their mouth and a lot of vlog are done with lavalier...
So before buying a Shotgun mic.. think it through ;)

pcrecord, post: 459174, member: 46460 wrote: Isolation is often done in studio. Sound effect specialists are very kind of using anything to simulate other sounds.. Walking in mud could be done with hands in a melon or some other trickery.. Going outside in a busy/noise environement and trying to isolate a sound is very difficult.. shotgun mics arent magical. If other sounds exist in the air around a source they will be recorded as well. It's why having a mic the closest of the source or isolating the source are the best ways to isolate the sound.
Also it's why TV news onsite people use handheld mics close to their mouth and a lot of vlog are done with lavalier...
So before buying a Shotgun mic.. think it through ;)

Okay I am going to try to respond to both comments in one, thank you for the info im getting a good understanding of what you guys are saying. It seems I have fallen for the idea that shotgun mics are pretty good for what I was doing, but it seems you're guys comments go around the idea that using 2 condenser mics in a x/y configuration is a good starting point, because it can give the stereo sound and be a better overall mic configuration for recording in a studio. So I have a few follow up questions, I can try to isolate as many sounds as I can but sometimes ill need to go outside, I already have some studio equipment for recording (scarlet 2i2) So my question is what condenser mics are a good option for me, recording sound effects and maybe some voice? Also what is a way to capture audio in a outside world scenario ie zoom h4n?? and Lastly what are shotgun mics good at then? I was given to understand from outside sources that they were good a capture a super specific sound and only that sound.

Shotgun mics are best suited for capturing spoken voice at a distance in situations such as ENG, where intelligibility is more important than audio quality.

Joe Meyer, post: 459175, member: 51424 wrote: Lastly what are shotgun mics good at then? I was given to understand from outside sources that they were good a capture a super specific sound and only that sound.

Let's start with this one. Shotgun are good in focusing the capture of what is in front of it but reject sides. The problem we see by experience is that audio travel in all direction and if you are far from a source with your shotgun you won't capture only the source but every sound that travels between the mic and the source, what hits the source from all directions and what's behind the source if the source doesn't absorb it. The frequency response will also be narrower with budget shotgun compared to same priced condensers mics.
Of course the condenser mic needs to be very close to a source to have any isolation. Where it gets tricky is that it's hard to have a natural stereo image with shotguns because of their narrow patern. If you do X/Y with small condensers the result will be far better than with shotguns.

You can start with the Zoom alone and grow with it by adding better mics in the future and them better recorder etc.. If you don't mind going on site with a laptop and your focusrite interface, then start with the mics...

A pair like these could be a good start : https://www.sweetwa…
And these could be your pro choice : https://www.sweetwa…

Another point is if you are to record into a small room with poor acoustics, condenser mics will grab every single defect of the room will be recorded.. For that reason we usually recommend to musician to use dynamic mics that have better rejections than condensers.. but they often give an un-precise image of the source because of their frequency curves...

pcrecord, post: 459177, member: 46460 wrote: Let's start with this one. Shotgun are good in focusing the capture of what is in front of it but reject sides. The problem we see by experience is that audio travel in all direction and if you are far from a source with your shotgun you won't capture only the source but every sound that travels between the mic and the source, what hits the source from all directions and what's behind the source if the source doesn't absorb it. The frequency response will also be narrower with budget shotgun compared to same priced condensers mics.
Of course the condenser mic needs to be very close to a source to have any isolation. Where it gets tricky is that it's hard to have a natural stereo image with shotguns because of their narrow pattern. If you do X/Y with small condensers the result will be far better than with shotguns.

You can start with the Zoom alone and grow with it by adding better mics in the future and them better recorder etc.. If you don't mind going on site with a laptop and your focusrite interface, then start with the mics...

A pair like these could be a good start : https://www.sweetwa…
And these could be your pro choice : https://www.sweetwa…

Another point is if you are to record into a small room with poor acoustics, condenser mics will grab every single defect of the room will be recorded.. For that reason we usually recommend to musician to use dynamic mics that have better rejections than condensers.. but they often give an un-precise image of the source because of their frequency curves...

Thank you for the suggestion, I am going to get those Rode mics, I think that it is a really good place to start!

I think you need to do some research into Foley. It's the art of creating or re-creating sound effects that sound real, but usually aren't. The techniques are often down to recording in quite dead studios so you can get a really clean sound you can then process. Wild tracks or location recordings aren't Foley at all.

Foley artistes and recordists tend to pick very specific mics for each effect they crave working on. As an aside on M/S, Sennheiser actually make a stereo M/S mic the 418, rather than the 416 short shotgun, which is a pretty unpleasant sounding microphone when used inappropriately (which often means using them indoors - because they are great at capturing the rotten sounds of the room rather than the wanted sound source when aiming is even a little bit off.

You're going to spend a grand on a sound field mic? Really? What exactly are you hoping to produce. As Foley is not reality, stereo is often created rather than captured. I have the capability to record in M/S easily, and I very, very rarely do - only when I know placement could be problematic, and being able to tweak afterwards is useful.

Having dabbled a bit in Foley, I can tell you that it is a very specific section of the craft of audio... it’s a specialty, not unlike acoustics, or R&D, or remote recording... there are many different kinds of audio engineers. But getting into specialized forms of audio requires time, study, and application.
If your heart is set on sound design,
You might want to consider looking to see if you can do an internship under a real Foley engineer.
Interns don’t get paid; their payment is the knowledge they gain from those professionals who specialize in certain areas of the craft.
What is important to know, is that in many cases, the sounds you are hearing in films (and video games) are not actual recordings of what the sounds you hear are meant to convey.
For example, when you see ( and hear) in a film the sound of a switchblade knife opening, it is not a recording of an actual switchblade. Switchblades aren’t loud. When the blade is opened, it makes a very soft “click”, and not that giant “CLICK!!!” you hear in the movies as one is opened. Sounds like this are recorded in a controlled environment, often using multiple sounds that are then manipulated further.
Here’s another example:
Years ago, when the movie Twister was made, the Foley engineers who were working in the post production process of the film used a combination of many sounds for the sound of the tornadoes - and the sound sources they used were fairly odd, and not something one would normally associate with the sound of an actual tornado. The engineers recorded things like hair dryers, 55 gallon drums filled with water and corn syrup that they would swirl with paddles... other sounds were combined, such as pigs squealing, jet engines, lawn mowers, Diesel engines in big trucks... and many of these came from preexisting SFX libraries. These, and other sounds, were then combined, and then manipulated further in pitch, speed, EQ, and using delays, reverbs and envelope filters.
As mentioned by Bos (Boswell ), you can’t use shotgun mics in an M-S array.
And actual M-S /Blumlein arrays can be challenging for those who have never worked with it... for that matter, they can even be challenging to those who have worked with them before.
I know you mentioned that you have some audio experience, and that’s good, but Foley is it’s own thing. And while I would never discourage anyone from achieving their goals, there are steps to take that will benefit you along the way, so that when you do start working in Foley, you have a clear understanding of the foundations of audio.
At this point - and it’s only a suggestion - is that You’d probably be better off to start with learning about different mics - condensers, dynamics, ribbons - as well as patterns - Omni, cardioid, Hyper-cardioid, and bi- directional - and then study various single and multi-mic arrays. Learn about gain structure, pads, hi and low pass filters, as well as what certain mics require in terms of gain.
And yeah, as far as YouTube goes, while there is some great information available, there are many YT vids that don’t give you full info on things; but what’s worse- and what you need to be more aware of, are the vids that tell you things that are simply wrong... and unfortunately, there are far too many that are like that out there.
Hanging around here at RO is going to be one of your best sources for research and information. We have true audio professionals here, who know what they are talking about, and who won’t stear you wrong. While I’m not implying that each of us knows “everything” ( lol except for Boswell, he’s one amazingly smart cat!), what one of us might not know, someone else absolute will, and you can be assured that there’s always someone here who can help you with a variety of audio topics, and who can give you accurate answers to your questions.
Mics (and mic preamps) range from under a hundred dollars, for a cheap condenser and an entry level pre like the 2i2, to thousands ( and more thousands) of dollars for pro level gear.
It would help to know your budget; it’s hard for us to suggest certain pieces of gear if we don’t know what you want ( or have) to spend.
;)
-d.

Donny's on the marker with this. Years ago I was an assistant in the sound department for a month or two creating sound for a wildlife series. In the main, we had mute footage, shot with very long lenses - so we had a huge eagle or owl taking off from the nest and no sound. My job was creating these sounds. My mentor was brilliant - we'd end up with big leather motorcycle gloves and would flap these up and down, and it made amazingly realistic wing flaps - but realistic from the viewers aspect, we had no idea what sound it really made, and probably no sound at all! One of my other tasks was to create the sound of a large ape falling over, again a distant shot with no audio at all. I soon discovered that if you fall over, it does not make the sounds you hear on TV, but reality would sound wrong, so we had to create these things. Same with animal eating - we just created what we thought it would sound like. Microphone wise, we selected mics that worked, and they were usually all mono. AKG 451 was very popular for quiet things because it is quite sensitive. Good for walking on gravel too. Useless at walking on sand - which produces such a low level of audio that we had to create this one from fine gravel, rather than sound. Often we would combine half a dozen individual sounds. Stereo was usually confined for wild tracks, again created from a number of sources, and the only stereo was really the faint animal sounds we blended in that were panned left and right individually. Foley, because it is artificial doesn't normally have a real stereo width - you create this to match. What would actually be the point of M/S? You have single source creations, there is no width for the mic to capture as much of what you record has to be very dry, to allow reverb to be added or not, after. With a sound source in front of you - the only side channel would be reflections, which shouldn't be there.

paulears
Paul explained it better than I did. ;)

Shotgun mics reduce the level of the sound coming from the sides, but sound still gets in and it's generally not that pleasant. And (as has been said) they don't really work in a M-S setup. And (as has been said) stereo is probably not useful for foley.

paulears, post: 459179, member: 47782 wrote: Sennheiser actually make a stereo M/S mic the 418

I didn't know this one.. A stereo shotgun !! Nice...

MS with shotgun mics is sometimes used outdoors for ambiance in the film and nature recording world.

eg. You may have a long shot to an eagle perched in a tree over a moving stream or river. The shotgun (M) mic is perfect to capture the focus of bird calls and movement, while the figure of 8 (S) is perfect to capture the sound of the moving water. If you are lucky, and the eagle dives to the river for a fish your MS setup will capture the ambiance of the scene and the focused center image of the impact. In post you can decide how wide you want the S to be and, in the scene described above, you can even automate the S getting narrower as the camera zooms in to further draw the viewer's focus on the impact of the eagle hitting the water.

There is no reason you can't use an MS setup for foley, although it may not be everyone's way of working. The beauty of MS is that there is very little downside to recording the two elements to separate tracks, even if you decide to trash the S track later. I often roll with an MS setup, even if I am expecting to only use the M mic, simply because I like to keep my mics mounted as a pair for easy transport (one shock mount and wind protection for the pair) and quick access to either/or use for different scenes.

It will be hard to get good quality S mics within your budget. You really need a single diaphragm, figure of eight mic for precise imaging, and they aren't cheap. I currently use a Sennheiser MKH30 (single diaphragm, figure of eight), paired with a KMR81i or KMR82i (shotguns) for exterior shoots, or paired with a KM150 (hypercardioid), MKH40(cardioid), MKH50 (hypercardioid) for both interior and exterior shoots.

Ahh! So you’re using a cardioid for your Middle, and then two discreet shotgun models for your sides, instead of a mic with a bidirectional pattern? That sounds like it could be just as effective...
But I say that as someone who has very limited experience with field recording, and, I can count -on less than one hand- -LOL - the number of times in 36 years of working the craft that I’ve used shotgun mics; so I’m definitely not the guy to ask advice from on this subject.
Though, from what you mentioned, that setup, with quality mics, doesn’t sound cheap. I think you’d really need to be serious about the craft of field/location recording to invest in the mics.
Then, there’s the cost of the preamps, the conversion...
Would perhaps a better place to start, for someone just getting their feet wet in that craft, be to start with something like a Zoom recorder; perhaps a model with varying degrees of X-Y arrays?
I realize that it wouldn’t be as focused as a shotgun..
I’m just curious. :)

This guy knew how to record nature :

But just as a side note : foley and field recordings are to very different things. Got to pick on up to start with ! ;)

DonnyThompson, post: 459223, member: 46114 wrote: Ahh! So you’re using a cardioid for your Middle, and then two discreet shotgun models for your sides, instead of a mic with a bidirectional pattern? That sounds like it could be just as effective...

Sorry, I may not have been clear in my descriptions...

I use a single Mid mic (can be a shotgun, hyper or cardioid) and a single Side mic (a true figure of 8) in various combinations depending on the location, reach needed and sound being captured.

MS can have a role in Foley, especially for Ambiances (street noise, crowd scenes, wide nature shots, drive by, percussion elements, etc.), or to use as a "canvas" to layer more focused, single elements on (like a gunshot in a street scene or some footsteps on a wind swept prairie). It's another tool on the box.

I am aware that the mics I mentioned are way beyond the OP's budget (he purchased a pair of M5s (good choice) to get started), but I thought I would mention some possible scenarios where MS can be the perfect technique to employ.

i always thought that for true M/S you need two mics of the same type.

Kurt, MS (Mid - Side) technique most often uses a single bi-directional (figure of 8) mic paired with a single uni-directional mic. There is also a technique known as Double MS that can employ two uni-directional mics (oriented back to back) and a single bidirectional mic. Some folks utilize two uni-directional mics facing left and right as a substitute for a bi-directional mic. So, three identical cardioids could be used, but you need to be very careful in positioning all mics so that the capsules are oriented correctly and as coincident as possible.

These techniques are not as common in a recording studio (although they can be used to great effect if you understand the theory and math to make them work) as they are in the choir/orchestra and film worlds.

https://www.sweetwa…

Kurt Foster, post: 459229, member: 7836 wrote: i always thought that for true M/S you need two mics of the same type.

Yes in the sense of the same transducer operating principle (either both pressure-sensitive or both pressure-gradient). As long as you obey that rule, you can experiment with pick-up pattern types to suit the job in hand.

I think a shotgun M and a fig-8 S pattern for capturing a distant wild animal with wide foreground noises is stretching a point for M-S usage. On several occasions I have added a wide stereo background to a previously-recorded mono main sound just to give it some apparent width, but that's not M-S.

i used to own an older AKG C24. it was perfect for M/S. i never tried using anything else.

I suspect the real success comes from the fact that the 416, while always being described as shotgun, is really a short shotgun and more of a tight hyper-cardioid than a real lobar pattern. If you mix one of those, like an 816 with side facing figure 8 it doesn't work properly because the forward facing mic has virtually no pickup at 90 degrees, while a 416 does - quite a bit, actually. TV folk have been using a strapped on side mic in the housings for quite a while. It's just pointless for some things. An M/S on the side of a football field has coverage across the pitch, but the side mics get touchline sound. That's not really stereo, but two different sources from one location doing different things.

I have never heard of anyone using cardioid for the M and two shotguns for the side? The lobes must wreck the stereo image. It's I think, rather like people calling a Blumlein array M/S when they rotate it 45 degrees, or thinking they've created a Decca Tree - when they've missed the point of how it works, and what they have is just a random collection of disparate mics in roughly the right position.

Some techniques, like X/Y are very forgiving on acceptance angles, and as long as the two mics are the same, they work pretty well. Getting M/S wrong just sounds odd!

Paul, I agree with all of your points.

For clarity, I never use two mics for the side information, always a single mic for Mid and another for Side. I do use different combinations of the mics in my kit in an MS configuration, dependent on the desired outcome.

Sometimes ORTF or XY are the ways to go, and I don't foolishly stick to one technique for every scenario.

I'm actually not sure you couldn't, after all - many mics derive their fig-8 and other patterns from two back to back diaphragms so experiments could produce an entirely new technique = usually named after their creator ........ I'd certainly have plenty of bad ones names after me. Using a cardioid pointing upwards to get an omni response, for example. It actually worked too! Ceiling 10m up, and loads of hanging drapes and softs above - leaving a chord grouped around it. I never knock weirdness if it works!

Many innovative ideas come from "I didn't know you can't do that" moments. Some also come from "hold my beer and watch this". lol