Oktava MK-012 shockmount

[Ty Ford]

Hello Ed and welcome to the Cow Audio Forum.

Interesting about the handling noise and diaphragm flutter. That’s what I encountered a few years ago and have told folks, but there’s still a crowd that’s so attracted to the price they go for it anyway.

Last year when the Sennheiser 8040 and 8050 came out, it was apparent that they also had similar issues. I don’t think Sennheiser had really thought about using the mic on a hand held boom for dialog.

At NAB (or AES) two years ago, Rycote showed their new line of suspension mounts; the lyres.
https://www.rycote.com/products/families/softie-mount/

I tried them on the Sennheisers and found them very effective and not that expensive.

Good luck,

Ty Ford

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[Sam Mallery]

I’m not familiar with the shockmount that you bought, but I did a Google image search on it and was surprised to see pictures of it supporting both slender shotgun mics and fatter mics like the AKG 414. If the bands in it stretch that much to fit fatter mics, I imagine your little Oktava is bouncing around a little too much.

I have the Rycote Lyre suspenders in my blimp, and they work really well with my boom mics. I use a Pearstone DUSM-1 universal shockmount for my indoor booming. It’s like a beefier version of the Rode SM4 shockmount, with thicker K-Tek K-SUS-style rubber suspenders. It should do the trick for your mic too.

[Ed Denton]

Thanks guys. Sam I’m fairly sure that its not that the bands are too loose as I have them stretched quite securely around the mic. In fact I thought that it might be the opposite, that I had it mounted too tightly so the bands weren’t absorbing the shocks. But I might just go with a Rycote.

I have also heard of quality control issues with the Oktava mics. Do you guys know what sort of issues the poor quality control presents? Could my problem of rumbles and crackly peaks from slight movements be a result of a defective microphone? I might take it into a technician to have a look at to see if my mic is behaving like this because its faulty. I was using it this morning indoors and slight movements caused unusable audio. Had to put it back in the box and get out my MKH 60.

Macbook Pro 2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Final Cut Pro 6.0.5
Logic Pro 8
Photoshop CS1

[Sam Mallery]

Poor quality control results in microphones of the same model sounding very different from mic to mic. It makes buying a matched pair very difficult. Another thing poor QC brings is having microphones leave the factory with technical issues (poor soldering, loose parts, etc.) which could lead to the problems you’re having.

What are you plugging the mic into? Too much gain could cause the crackly peaks, and rumble can sometimes be eliminated with high-pass filters.