Audio Technica AT-895

(Originally published in Audio Media Magazine USA)

Shotgun mics do their job well: reaching 5′ across a film set, rejecting moderate ambience to enhance an actor’s conversational voice, with full range fidelity. Parabolic mics do their job well: reaching 150′ across a football field and isolating the cracks of helmets from the screaming fans, with all of the purposeful bandwidth of a carbon telephone handset. The problem is that there is a huge gap that needs to be filled between these two jobs. So, Audio Technica decided to build a better “mic trap”, the AT-895, for the long-range job in between.

Why? Well, let’s start with sporting events. Television broadcasts are now listened to with better sounding home systems than ever before. While we’re familiar with the metallic sounding clashes and thin sounding voices that the parabolic gives us with American football, we tend to forget that the sound a football makes when kicked is actually more of a “thump” than a “smack”. With the common use of better sounding home systems, a “smack” is unacceptable when there should be a “thump”. American football certainly dominates in the US, but games such as soccer and Australian rules football, for example, use no helmets, so there is not much contact noise that the typical parabolic will do justice. When the AT-895 is used, because of its full-range and narrow low frequency pattern, the home audience will discover that there are “thuds” and “whomps” when these and other games are played. At the other extreme, consider another televised sporting event, such as Rowing. A microphone is needed to pick up the sutle rumble of the oars against the locks, the ripples in the water, and voice of the Coxswain, while rejecting the motor noise of the camera chase boat.

Audio Technica’s new AT895 is unique in the way it accomplishes an astonishing amount of rejection of sound coming from unwanted directions. While the system does incorporate a conventional ported interference tube element, that’s where tradition ends. Surrounding the base of this shotgun element is an array of four cardioid condenser capsules, interestingly; dedicated to picking up the sounds you don’t want to hear. The sound from all of these elements is fed into a small, belt-pack sized, DSP (Digital Signal Processor), and if the cardioid array hears sounds that the shotgun doesn’t hear, and/or sounds that the shotgun does hear, then those sounds are digitally removed from the output. The DSP is also aware of the tendencies for the shotgun element to be less selective with low frequencies, and compensates for this. The end result is a microphone with a remarkable 80dB (repeat: 80dB!) of off-axis rejection at 1kHz, and has directional characteristics that are actually narrower in the lower end than the high end.

To add to the mic’s versatility, the DSP box has a switch for selecting three pattern options: tight, extremely tight, and “blade” (my term, not AT’s). When the blade pattern is selected, two of the cardioid elements are disabled so that the pattern can be horizontally wide from left to right while remaining razor thin from top to bottom. Rotate the mic 90 degrees to make the pattern vertical. I imagine this pattern could allow the AT895 to be permanently mounted overhead to cover, for instance, a hockey arena while still minimizing the crowd noise.

Does it really work?

For part of this evaluation, we loaned an AT-895 to Robert Britain of CBS Cable, EIC of the remote trucks used for their Rodeo productions, where shotguns and parabolics had not been working well. In rodeo events, most of the action sounds are low frequency thuds and snorts, the occasional clanging of the gate, and voices. Parabolics proved unsuitable for several reasons, such as being too large, and having to be held by someone out of danger from the bulls and broncos. But all of these factors became a moot point when it was realized that the parabolics don’t do well with the sounds that bulls and cowboys make. The TNN crew had also tried mounting standard shotgun mics onto the camera lenses, but the rejection was not enough to overcome the crowd noise and PA system. Since shotguns become more and more omni around the low frequencies, they are of little use in isolating the important thumps and bumps. When the only options were either shotguns or parabolics, all we could do was concede that “We ca na fight the laws a’ physics”, and shrug our shoulders. Audio Technica didn’t shrug.

When used at the rodeo, the AT895 was awesome. Robert supplied us with a copy of the taping with the AT895 isolated on one channel. The results were unbelievable: Distinct sound effects including speech, fence noise, leather saddle noise, the thud of the cowboy hitting the dirt, even rope noise, were all easily discernable and intelligible at distances of, get this: over 250′ (repeat: two-hundred fifty feet!). That’s right, the AT895 was mounted to the lens of a camera positioned 250′ from the action. The sounds weren’t parabolic thin, either, but fat and crisp, even overcoming the sound of the crowd and PA announcer.

During a subsequent rodeo event, I suggested that they mount the AT-895 onto a closer camera, say, a mere 75′ away. The result: They are now AT-895 owners. It seems that the director told the A-1, Kim Raymer, he wanted “that Audio Technica super mic” on every rodeo he does, and they’d better not show up without it.

Used for a different broadcast sporting event, “Sculling” (rowing a thin boat), the challenges are somewhat different. When televised, these boats are chased by a small powered boat containing the camera and sound crew. There is not the frantic crowed noise of stadium events to overcome, but the distance can be a formidable 200′ or more, and the sounds are of much lower level and more delicate in nature. Trying to pick up these sounds while avoiding the noisy chase boat’s motor had previously been impossible when using conventional shotgun mics. According to Audio Technica, the AT895 met this challenge wonderfully (and based on what I’ve already heard, I believe them). I understand that it sounded like being only a few feet away from the boats, with no detectable motor noise from the chase boat. This is totally consistent with CBS Cable’s experience with the AT895.

I’m sure that after reading this far, the gears in heads of news producers are already spinning, dreaming about what they could do from a distance of 250′ plus. Being able to grab distinct, full sounding voices at this range would be an incredible asset for news sound, finally being able to match the camera’s zoom lens.

Just how good does it sound?

This microphone is bound to pique the skeptical interest of location sound mixers for film and television production, but their criteria for quality will be stricter than the sports production recording of distant sound effects. They will, and have, asked “How does it sound when compared to the standard top-shelf shotgun mics?” Well, all of this range and rejection comes at a price, and with a max SPL of 117dB and a noise spec of 24dB, yielding a dynamic range of 94dB, the AT-895 would certainly not be the preferred choice when distance and ambience are controlled and in the “normal” range. However, don’t be misled by these specs, because when used at great distances, the SPL would rarely exceed 117dB SPL, and the ambient level that makes this microphone necessary in the first place would certainly mask the self-noise. For film production dialog, I believe the microphone could be very useful in wide crowd scenes, for instance, when needing to focus on a particular area, and in action scenes when competing with the special effects noises of wind machines, etc.

Physical Description

The AT895 is actually a little shorter that most long shotguns, with a length of 14″. Because of the 4-element array, it takes on a modified cone shape with a maximum diameter of 2.75″. However, the larger diameter is in no way a detriment, because its special “zeppelin” windscreen (made by Rycote) is still the same diameter used by the standard shotguns. The biggest difference is in the weight, which comes in right at 1 pound; a good bit more than most long shotguns. However, the weight is not unmanageable on poles of 12′ or less.

The DSP control box can be clipped to a belt and is powered internally by three 9V cells, or externally with 12 Volts on its standard 4-pin male XLR. With a current of 250mA, internal battery life is about 5 hours using alkaline or 12 hours using lithium.

SUMMARY

This microphone is truly a unique and useful tool. I can easily imagine an instant acceptance by sports production trucks, news production “stake-outs”, and government security areas such as prisons, etc.

— Glen Trew