Your job it to record a national news anchor on location at an important news scene. You hand him his hand mic; one that everyone in the industry uses. But it is a throwback to the 1960s.

Almost all location news reports today are spoken through the Electro-Voice RE-50, a large omnidirectional mic. Unscrew the blast filter and you’ll find another mic inside the RE-50’s case. An EV 635A. From the 60s.

RE-50

Indestructible, this mic has served users well for almost 50 years. But it is poorly suited for the 21st century hign definition television due to its poor high-end frequency response. It rolls-off at 13 kHz. That is a little better than AM radio and less than FM. It doesn’t come close to the CD response of 20 kHz.

Tell any recording engineer that her has to use a mic limited to 13 kHz to record a singer and he will think you are either nuts or joking.

Next time you see a large microphone in the hands of your favorite news reporter, listen how poor the mic sounds. No high end and very weak bass response.

Of course it is said that the mic was designed for voice applications. Well, so is the telephone with only 3 kHz high end. I can’t find the rule that says voice can’t have any high-end!

A comparable mic, the Shure SM-63, has a high end to 20 kHz. SM-63

Here is my recommendation for news gathering for the 21st century. The HD camera uses an extended response mic in the hands of the reporter. To get suround sound, let’s add a stereo mic on the camera to pick up the ambiance in stereo. You could either use this as a left/right signal or one in the rear surrounds. The decision where to place the sounds would be scene dependent. General ambience may fit best in the surrounds for general reporting while action taking place in front of the camera (like cars moving behing the reporter) may be a better fit in the left/right channels.

Many cameras today use stereo short shotgun mics, like the Panasonic AJ-HDX900.
Panasonic HDX900
Turn it around in the holder and you can pick up the background. Point it up to the sky and pick up general ambience. And the camera can record four channels of audio.

But please, the days of using poor response mics in mono should be over.