Thank you for the highly informative review. I own a stereo pair of these mics to record acoustic guitar and have just started researching a mic for spoken word. I've now stopped looking at other mics!
Thank you. It surprised me as well! It has been in a cupboard for ages and I had forgotten about it! Cheap too. Next video will be the t.bone em800. Even cheaper and then a beautiful Oktava 12.
Told you so! :) lol... I bought the stereo pair earlier this spring using them for creating sample libraries and they work very well for that, (Stereo, S/N and SPL and the two switches and flat Bw combination) so when i saw your SE8 review and folks wanted a affordable stereopair i thought id mention the SC140. The pair also comes in a case which is a big bonus and also with a small X/Y bom.
Your first message reminded me that I had one somewhere. I have all kinds of things hiding in a cupboard! Next video, I’m doing the t.bone EM800 and then I think I might do another video comparing budget upwards ..... The Behringer C2 - B5 - t.bone EM800 - SC14 - SE8 - Oktava 12. That might be interesting!
Bugger! I've just got myself a Samson C02. I think this would have been better given the low cut filter and DAB. Agree also re. your comments about Thoman, have bought a number of things from them and they are really good to deal with. Excellent video, thanks!
Lol. There are so many good mics out there it’s hard to choose just one. The Samson is pretty good though so I don’t think you’ve gone wrong or anything. I must admit I wouldn’t mind trying one out myself because I’ve heard it so many times on UA-cam.
No worries, Ralph. I wouldn’t ask for people to lend me a mic! Yhe C02 sounds great to me. I’ve got another couple of pencil mics on the way. A dead cheap t.bone EM800 and a more expensive Oktava. Both great!
Hi Ian. I have been loving your channel for the few days since I found it. I had thought I wanted a Samson C02. Then I saw your video comparing the Behringer C-2 to the Behringer B-5 and was suddenly fairly sure I was going to order the B-5 for the lower noise, low-pass filter and omni capsule. Now, at the last moment I was reading about the t.bone sc140 and it's got me wondering. Seems like a lovely case and great value - but in your honest opinion, how do you rate the SC140 to the Behringer B5? thanks again for all the great content!
I think that the sc140 is a real bargain mic. It has a nice even sound and once covered, amazingly good resistance to wind. That means you could use it outside if you wanted as well. I think it's a little less hard sounding in the treble compared to the B5. Before buying a mic, consider what situations you'll most likely be using it in first. Nothing worse than having a great mic with no real reason to use it ....
I finally finished with my analysis paralysis and made an order from Thomann. It has been both fascinating and exhausting learning so much about the various mics and interfaces in a short time but I’m confident that I’ve chosen the right stuff. Thanking you and the online audio community for sharing your knowledge. I ended up settling on the Motu M2, along with the t.bone sc140 pencil mic for day to day use when streaming, presenting etc. I threw in the behringer xm8500 too for podcasts and voice specific work, given that it is amazing value for the price.
Ian, could you do an episode with overhead test of these pencil microphones you have? Like on a boom arm out of frame like most of us would use them when recording our UA-cam videos.
Ok. You have to bear in mind though that my front room isn’t going to sound like your house. I tried to hold it pretty close because of reverberations. I’ll make a video though. I’ve got the cheaper EM 800 coming up next so I’ll be comparing it with that one.
You’re welcome David. The EM800 is close to the SC140 but even cheaper, so it makes sense to compare them. I’ll boom both but I do know that my room is a pig with sound. That’s why I don’t boom. I ‘undersling’ them so the back faces the carpet. The EM800 is a supercardioid so it might do better on a boom! So my plan is to do the em800. Then do the Oktava 012. Then do budget up to the Oktava as a comparison, so hopefully, you’ll get an idea of what is most usefulto you. I’ll also be doing a live stream about pencil mics soon.
It's online again!, thank god. What happened?! This video was down and the whole channel. That was so weird. Also, It was my imagination or the name channel was changed to 'Tesla Corp.'???
Hey, when are you doing another live stream? Found it very interesting last night. Cheers. Want to know what you really think of those tennis ball Rode mics. I used to like them, but the amount of ambient noise is sometimes too overwhelming. Thanks
Thank you Mykal. I found it difficult to get going, but once I saw people and feedback, I felt more relaxed about it. It’s very new to me. What a nice bunch of people there was online. SO helpful to me actually! I’m glad the video was useful. It went on too long really, but I think I will be back because I felt quite positive after feedback from people! By tennis ball mics, do you mean the stereo ones? If you do, I use the stereo sometimes. It’s ok with noise. It has a more treble focused sound than the videomic pro+. Terrible if you speak from behind. The front sounds completely overwhelm any sound from the back so difficult for vlogging without turning the mic round to speak from the rear!
@@iancraig Hi there Ian. Yes the tennis ball ones that I am referring to are the stereo video mic pro and the very expensive one called the pro x. They are nice microphones, but I was having problems with the 360 degree ambience it records, especially when filming outside. I decided to buy the sennheiser mke 440 today which is on it's way. It isn't cheap, but I think it will be a good investment if it picks up the vocal more, rather than the all around sound. I'll keep the other Rode one as well, for the time being. Thank you for the advice that you give. I do struggle listening to some instructions from many people on here, but you make it easy for me.
Thank you Mykal. I do try to make everything as easy as possible to understand because I know (from experience) that some so called ‘experts’ can get on their high horses sometimes and be quite ‘ratty’ with people so those people become frightened to ask anything. I hate that actually. That and people who get all ‘snobby’ about a microphone!!! I learned a lot by watching other UA-camrs and got help from individuals who didn’t slam me down but bolted me up as I progressed. You are right. The Rode stereo mics pick up everything around them. Actually, I did a review of the Rode stereo and demonstrated exactly how bad that is by talking with my head right uo against the mic while I filmed. People shopping drowned me out! It was shit in Menorca. I also compared it to the mono Rode Videomic Pro + and it was also really obvious. Great for ambience but not so great on speech if it’s noisy!! This is the video that I did ... ua-cam.com/video/IsNBNQ0KHb4/v-deo.html
Bonjour depuis la France, je viens de commander deux SC-140 pour la prise de sons Nature (oiseaux, mammifères, etc.) avec parabole (ou sans !) pour sonoriser mes vidéos, je vous donnerais si vous êtes d'accord mon sentiment après les avoir testé, merci mille fois pour cette vidéo qui m'a bien aidée dans mon choix. François
hi Ian. I'm commenting from Trinidad and Tobago, in the Caribbean. tell me, what about the noise floor. I think I was hearing a very low hum in the audio, but it wasn't audible when you were speaking. and was that the raw audio, or was it already processed
Hi Antoine. The audio was barely touched in post. The audio was fairly low from the camera and was peaking mostly around -12dB with some very strong and fast spikes on transients. Some mics react very quickly to transients; especially pencil mics, having such a small and light diaphragm. (That’s why we use them for instrumental recording, and larger diaphragm mics for speech) I don’t think that many people understand why certain mics are used for certain things actually. Large diaphragms are used for voice not for their excellent bass response, but their clarity and ‘fullness’ (generally) and very often in post, the bass is cut. They don’t respond as readily to transients in spite of their sensitivity as much as pencil mics. On the other hand, pencil mics are quite even in FR although they can have a sharp treble. (At least bad ones do!) Because the diaphragm is small and very light, it responds like lightening to transients. (Also wind) So we use them to pick up instruments very often because they react so quickly and therefore give real clarity in instrumental sound which is very important for music recording. Audio for this video was sent into a Beachtek battery driven preamp (so no mains involved) and straight into my camera which was on its lowest setting in order to keep hiss down. In post, I slightly limited those spikes because with them left in, the audio was a bit low after normalisation so I normalised the audio after limiting those spikes in order to raise the gain. Probably as I was saying on the video, it was the fridge and freezer in my house. You’re not aware of it in the room, but microphones are deadly for picking those kinds of noises up. There is a door between me and the freezer and mics can still pick it up. The fridge in the kitchen isn’t cut off from me. No door. Even worse, sometimes a big lorry goes past on our main road which is 400 yards or so away. Mics even pick that up! In any case, I don’t think if it had been processed, hum would have been introduced tbh. If it is the freezer, it will be a very low G. That’s the frequency of our mains and the pitch that it generates. Normally, a high pass filter gets rid of the freezer but for this test, I was mostly using it flat. If I hear it in post, I normally put a bass cut or notch in, but that’s whyI mentioned it in the video. I had heard it switching in earlier and didn’t want to demonstrate the mic sound with a high pass switched in all of the time. Amazing isn’t it? Do a mic review and the freezer decides to kick in! I guess in hot countries, it’s the air conditioning! That’s why I often use a dynamic mic in the front room.
@@iancraig Thank you for that info Ian. I wasn't privy to what you just explained here. So tell me, whatever happened to that Thomann 9900 shotgun you reviewed a while back and it's sibling, the scm 400 condenser Mic (I think that's the name)
The 9900 is still here. The other one has now gone. Didn’t like its sound but the 9900 is very good although it’s apparently not a true shotgun in the strictest sense.
@@iancraig hello ,very interesting content,thank you for sharing ! one question: if you compare this mic with the 9900 long shotgun winch one is more sensitive, which one is cleaner and which one is more gain hungry...? i am looking for an all around-er and i was ready to buy the long one but its hard to work with such a long mic in all cases and its very hard to find a dead cat too....thanks in advance
![If you can't hear this then you're not an audiophile [See description for link to followup video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/48PxwspDvrE/mqdefault.jpg)
Thank you for the highly informative review. I own a stereo pair of these mics to record acoustic guitar and have just started researching a mic for spoken word. I've now stopped looking at other mics!
They are a terrific bargain.
very good demonstration! i got a pair of this...and i understand now! how to use the 2 settings...thank you
I wish I had got a pair. Compared to much more expensive pencil mics, the 140 does really well in terms of self noise and sound.
Great review, that mic really suprised me!
Thank you. It surprised me as well! It has been in a cupboard for ages and I had forgotten about it! Cheap too. Next video will be the t.bone em800. Even cheaper and then a beautiful Oktava 12.
Told you so! :) lol... I bought the stereo pair earlier this spring using them for creating sample libraries and
they work very well for that, (Stereo, S/N and SPL and the two switches and flat Bw combination) so when
i saw your SE8 review and folks wanted a affordable stereopair i thought id mention the SC140. The pair
also comes in a case which is a big bonus and also with a small X/Y bom.
Your first message reminded me that I had one somewhere. I have all kinds of things hiding in a cupboard!
Next video, I’m doing the t.bone EM800 and then I think I might do another video comparing budget upwards .....
The Behringer C2 - B5 - t.bone EM800 - SC14 - SE8 - Oktava 12.
That might be interesting!
Bugger! I've just got myself a Samson C02. I think this would have been better given the low cut filter and DAB. Agree also re. your comments about Thoman, have bought a number of things from them and they are really good to deal with. Excellent video, thanks!
Lol. There are so many good mics out there it’s hard to choose just one. The Samson is pretty good though so I don’t think you’ve gone wrong or anything. I must admit I wouldn’t mind trying one out myself because I’ve heard it so many times on UA-cam.
@@iancraig Normally be happy to lend it to you but with lockdown and being active in my church I pretty much use it every day! :-)
No worries, Ralph. I wouldn’t ask for people to lend me a mic!
Yhe C02 sounds great to me. I’ve got another couple of pencil mics on the way. A dead cheap t.bone EM800 and a more expensive Oktava. Both great!
Hi Ian. I have been loving your channel for the few days since I found it. I had thought I wanted a Samson C02. Then I saw your video comparing the Behringer C-2 to the Behringer B-5 and was suddenly fairly sure I was going to order the B-5 for the lower noise, low-pass filter and omni capsule. Now, at the last moment I was reading about the t.bone sc140 and it's got me wondering. Seems like a lovely case and great value - but in your honest opinion, how do you rate the SC140 to the Behringer B5? thanks again for all the great content!
I think that the sc140 is a real bargain mic. It has a nice even sound and once covered, amazingly good resistance to wind. That means you could use it outside if you wanted as well.
I think it's a little less hard sounding in the treble compared to the B5.
Before buying a mic, consider what situations you'll most likely be using it in first. Nothing worse than having a great mic with no real reason to use it ....
I finally finished with my analysis paralysis and made an order from Thomann. It has been both fascinating and exhausting learning so much about the various mics and interfaces in a short time but I’m confident that I’ve chosen the right stuff. Thanking you and the online audio community for sharing your knowledge. I ended up settling on the Motu M2, along with the t.bone sc140 pencil mic for day to day use when streaming, presenting etc. I threw in the behringer xm8500 too for podcasts and voice specific work, given that it is amazing value for the price.
Thank you for sharing this.
And thank you for watching.
Ian, could you do an episode with overhead test of these pencil microphones you have? Like on a boom arm out of frame like most of us would use them when recording our UA-cam videos.
Ok. You have to bear in mind though that my front room isn’t going to sound like your house. I tried to hold it pretty close because of reverberations. I’ll make a video though.
I’ve got the cheaper EM 800 coming up next so I’ll be comparing it with that one.
@@iancraig Brilliant! Can't wait to be honest. Thanks very much Ian, you're a star
You’re welcome David. The EM800 is close to the SC140 but even cheaper, so it makes sense to compare them. I’ll boom both but I do know that my room is a pig with sound. That’s why I don’t boom. I ‘undersling’ them so the back faces the carpet.
The EM800 is a supercardioid so it might do better on a boom!
So my plan is to do the em800. Then do the Oktava 012. Then do budget up to the Oktava as a comparison, so hopefully, you’ll get an idea of what is most usefulto you.
I’ll also be doing a live stream about pencil mics soon.
I bought a matched pair of these...the mics are OK. But I find them quite noisy!
Oh. That’s weird, I didn’t find mine to be too bad. Not preamp noise is it?
Hi Ian… thanks for the video. Would this mic be suitable for talking head style interviews mounted on a boom arm above the subject?
Thanks,
Rob.
Yes Rob. It works really well for that.
@@iancraig Brilliant!! Thanks for the quick reply 👍👍🤓 Will like and Sub.
@@iancraig Do you have an affiliate link on Thomann Ian? I’m going to order the twin set 🤓
Here it is Rob. Good price too!
www.thomann.de/gb/the_tbone_sc_140_stereoset_bundle.htm
@@iancraig Aw sorry Craig. I ordered last night. On the way hopefully 👍👍
It's online again!, thank god. What happened?!
This video was down and the whole channel. That was so weird. Also, It was my imagination or the name channel was changed to 'Tesla Corp.'???
Yes. My channel was hacked. So I hacked the hackers………
3 days later, I’m back.
Hey, when are you doing another live stream? Found it very interesting last night. Cheers. Want to know what you really think of those tennis ball Rode mics. I used to like them, but the amount of ambient noise is sometimes too overwhelming. Thanks
Thank you Mykal. I found it difficult to get going, but once I saw people and feedback, I felt more relaxed about it. It’s very new to me. What a nice bunch of people there was online. SO helpful to me actually!
I’m glad the video was useful. It went on too long really, but I think I will be back because I felt quite positive after feedback from people!
By tennis ball mics, do you mean the stereo ones? If you do, I use the stereo sometimes. It’s ok with noise. It has a more treble focused sound than the videomic pro+. Terrible if you speak from behind. The front sounds completely overwhelm any sound from the back so difficult for vlogging without turning the mic round to speak from the rear!
@@iancraig Hi there Ian. Yes the tennis ball ones that I am referring to are the stereo video mic pro and the very expensive one called the pro x. They are nice microphones, but I was having problems with the 360 degree ambience it records, especially when filming outside. I decided to buy the sennheiser mke 440 today which is on it's way. It isn't cheap, but I think it will be a good investment if it picks up the vocal more, rather than the all around sound. I'll keep the other Rode one as well, for the time being. Thank you for the advice that you give. I do struggle listening to some instructions from many people on here, but you make it easy for me.
Thank you Mykal. I do try to make everything as easy as possible to understand because I know (from experience) that some so called ‘experts’ can get on their high horses sometimes and be quite ‘ratty’ with people so those people become frightened to ask anything.
I hate that actually. That and people who get all ‘snobby’ about a microphone!!! I learned a lot by watching other UA-camrs and got help from individuals who didn’t slam me down but bolted me up as I progressed.
You are right. The Rode stereo mics pick up everything around them. Actually, I did a review of the Rode stereo and demonstrated exactly how bad that is by talking with my head right uo against the mic while I filmed. People shopping drowned me out! It was shit in Menorca. I also compared it to the mono Rode Videomic Pro + and it was also really obvious.
Great for ambience but not so great on speech if it’s noisy!!
This is the video that I did ...
ua-cam.com/video/IsNBNQ0KHb4/v-deo.html
Bonjour depuis la France, je viens de commander deux SC-140 pour la prise de sons Nature (oiseaux, mammifères, etc.) avec parabole (ou sans !) pour sonoriser mes vidéos, je vous donnerais si vous êtes d'accord mon sentiment après les avoir testé, merci mille fois pour cette vidéo qui m'a bien aidée dans mon choix. François
Salut François. Je suis content que la vidéo vous ait été utile. Deux sc140 donneront un excellent résultat. Ian.
hi Ian. I'm commenting from Trinidad and Tobago, in the Caribbean. tell me, what about the noise floor.
I think I was hearing a very low hum in the audio, but it wasn't audible when you were speaking. and was that the raw audio, or was it already processed
Hi Antoine.
The audio was barely touched in post. The audio was fairly low from the camera and was peaking mostly around -12dB with some very strong and fast spikes on transients. Some mics react very quickly to transients; especially pencil mics, having such a small and light diaphragm. (That’s why we use them for instrumental recording, and larger diaphragm mics for speech)
I don’t think that many people understand why certain mics are used for certain things actually. Large diaphragms are used for voice not for their excellent bass response, but their clarity and ‘fullness’ (generally) and very often in post, the bass is cut. They don’t respond as readily to transients in spite of their sensitivity as much as pencil mics.
On the other hand, pencil mics are quite even in FR although they can have a sharp treble. (At least bad ones do!) Because the diaphragm is small and very light, it responds like lightening to transients. (Also wind) So we use them to pick up instruments very often because they react so quickly and therefore give real clarity in instrumental sound which is very important for music recording.
Audio for this video was sent into a Beachtek battery driven preamp (so no mains involved) and straight into my camera which was on its lowest setting in order to keep hiss down.
In post, I slightly limited those spikes because with them left in, the audio was a bit low after normalisation so I normalised the audio after limiting those spikes in order to raise the gain.
Probably as I was saying on the video, it was the fridge and freezer in my house. You’re not aware of it in the room, but microphones are deadly for picking those kinds of noises up. There is a door between me and the freezer and mics can still pick it up. The fridge in the kitchen isn’t cut off from me. No door. Even worse, sometimes a big lorry goes past on our main road which is 400 yards or so away. Mics even pick that up!
In any case, I don’t think if it had been processed, hum would have been introduced tbh. If it is the freezer, it will be a very low G. That’s the frequency of our mains and the pitch that it generates. Normally, a high pass filter gets rid of the freezer but for this test, I was mostly using it flat.
If I hear it in post, I normally put a bass cut or notch in, but that’s whyI mentioned it in the video. I had heard it switching in earlier and didn’t want to demonstrate the mic sound with a high pass switched in all of the time.
Amazing isn’t it? Do a mic review and the freezer decides to kick in! I guess in hot countries, it’s the air conditioning!
That’s why I often use a dynamic mic in the front room.
@@iancraig Thank you for that info Ian. I wasn't privy to what you just explained here.
So tell me, whatever happened to that Thomann 9900 shotgun you reviewed a while back and it's sibling, the scm 400 condenser Mic (I think that's the name)
The 9900 is still here. The other one has now gone. Didn’t like its sound but the 9900 is very good although it’s apparently not a true shotgun in the strictest sense.
@@iancraig hello ,very interesting content,thank you for sharing ! one question: if you compare this mic with the 9900 long shotgun winch one is more sensitive, which one is cleaner and which one is more gain hungry...? i am looking for an all around-er and i was ready to buy the long one but its hard to work with such a long mic in all cases and its very hard to find a dead cat too....thanks in advance
there is also the t.bone EM 800 in the comparison since you had some time with it...
ce microphone n'a pas vocation à avoir pour usage principal la voix humaine. Ce serait mieux de le tester sur d'autres sources sonores...
Each to his/her own.
Chacun pour soi.