"Here in New York, our reporters don’t have the luxury of throwing gear in the trunk of their car to drive to an assignment. They work mainly on foot or use public transportation."
The above quote is from a Radio World article, which is listed under 'Evaluations'. This means that it sits somewhere in between a review and a case study that is rooted in a real-world scenario. In this case, the evaluatiuon is conducted by the Technical Director at N.Y. Public Radio, Wayne Shulmister:
"When I started my career, I worked in state of the art recording studios and pristine performance halls, all with the finest microphones. In my role as technical director at N.Y. Public Radio I am responsible for outfitting more than 30 reporters and producers with recording equipment. Because I have budget restraints I have had to sacrifice fidelity. It was fulfilling to return to pure, clean recordings with the MMA-A.
Here in New York, our reporters don’t have the luxury of throwing gear in the trunk of their car to drive to an assignment. They work mainly on foot or use public transportation, so it’s important that their gear be lightweight and nimble. Also, in any city environment, there is inherently a lot of ambience and acquiring solid audio recordings can sometimes be challenging — having portable lightweight gear that works is always a benefit.
For instance, reporter Yasmine Khan met three other women from Brownsville in Brooklyn for their morning exercise walk. Khan, who was expecting her second child, did not want to carry her standard ENG kit. I sent her with a MMA-A along with DPA’s d:screet™ 4061 miniature omnidirectional microphone and d:dicate™ 4017B shotgun microphone. She was impressed with the quality and especially the weight. Khan said, “It was so easy to connect, I put the lav on me and used the d:dicate™ for the three women. The recordings sounded great and the women felt so comfortable because they were all moving like they do every day. The small form-factor of the MMA-A made it a breeze to capture the story on the go with minimal gear to carry with me.”
Apart from the above real-world application, Shulmister also points out that MMA-A has efficient use of power - it lasted almost seven hours, using two condenser mics on a fully charged iPhone. Obviously, being able to use the recording gear for hours and hours once you are on the go is of utmost importance in the mobile journalism business where you never really know how a story may develop. We're glad that MMA-A and our microphones are helping journalists at N.Y. Public Radio capture their stories in the best way possible.
Please Read the Full Article Here...