Just put one of these on everyone in the shoot. They actually work pretty well.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/111045219452?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649

Other than that follow Vitaliy's advice.

@dancerchris

I personally used only ISK CM-20C. As for Yoga, I just found it accidently on ebay :-)

The yoga is a shocker VK, I've that one a few other models of their shotguns and they are very poor sensitivity and lack the rich tones of the sennheiser K6 etc. Strangely enough, their lavs are quite good though.

I've order the Isk, sound interesting, should have it next week. :-)

@pundit You're right, moving the mic fast enough, especially if a draft is present, can cause noticeable low freq rumble but this is an issue I've encountered so infrequently indoors as to not even merit comment. If the air conditioning is strong enough to create air turbulence that causes rumble you will usually have a much bigger problem which is the vent's white noise; I will try everything to turn that thing off because it can be a major pain to remove in post, even with great NR software.

The Oktava's sound very good for the price but people forget they are originally intended as set-and-forget instrument mics that weren't designed to be manipulated during use; they are notoriously problematic for handling noise. I find the S241 so much easier to work with and, due to its frequency response, retain a more open sound. They're also lower noise and more sensitive but they don't have a hyper-cardioid capsule option like the MK-012 though I haven't yet found that a problem. For the record, I also own and use a 416 but prefer the superlux indoors.

There is absolutely no best mic for under $1000 because the cash to value ratio is skewed at the $1000 price point--it is in between levels. There is a best mic for around $300, and you could set another price point around $1400. At $1000 you are better off spending the whole $1000 on say two Oktavas, a couple of extra capsules and maybe even a recorder, depending on the market. The AKGs are not serious mics, just my 2 cents, they are OK for spot mics. You will find thousands of opinions on mics, but very few good recordings.

You will find people defend a mic, trash a mic, tweak a mic, swap out the capsules, all valid pursuits, and yet, even in the best studios you get sound which "Superyawn". In fact, Superyawn should be the name of the company. That's because placement is the key thing.

NB: Placement beats price.

Having said that, if you raise the price point a bit you can get some very nice mics for a bit more money, like the Schoeps MK 41 or the Sennheiser MKH 40.

Microphone placement is a big subject, but very briefly, the diagrams in the "books" are wrong, and one reason is of course that no two instruments or voices sound the same, and that therefore there is no "correct" microphone placement.

Most common mistakes are pointing the mic directly at the sound source ("beamy"), phase problems and timing problems, and on instruments locating the mic near are source of air turbulence, like a sound hole or the end of a flute, fingerholes, etc. Other problems center around the placement of the mic-sound source pair in a room, as reflections are a major cause of bad sound, using the wrong kind of acoustic tuning materials.

I would say I hear weird reflections in most of the sound I hear on video.

Typically on voice, the wrong kind of wind screen is used, and sibilance is exacerbated by the wrong kind of reverb, and so on. Typically on instruments, the engineer is incapable of quickly identifying the correct spot to place the mic, and, even worse, will use the same spot for a particular scene and ignore the fact that different instruments and voices are, well, different. Very different.

There's only one way to place a mic, which is to hook the mic up to a portable recorder, put on a pair of insulated cans and move the mic around until you get it just right while the player, speaker or singer goes through a range of sounds. You see this maybe one on one hundred sessions. Most times, the engineer "knows best" and doesn't do a full check. They sit in the back in front of a big mixer (and who uses a big mixer?) and never do an AB in the room with the sound source, taking the headphones off, putting them back on, and so on. Ninety percent of engineers and producers in America can't read a film score. Now that other ten percent, well, you have some real geniuses working in the field, of course.

An analogy would be using the same F stop, shutter speed and Color temp in a video shoot without really checking to see if you have the right settings, and saying something like, oh, indoors I always use 2800K. Well, that might be a starting point.

Obviously in video, you have the visual component to deal with, although a lot of video sound is provided in post.

In a video you have dialog, foley, soundtrack, all need to be recorded. In a music video, which is a huge part of the market, you have different kinds of music in addition to sung and spoken voice. In a large production, all of these things are routinely recorded in a screening studio and synced to the video. If you are only interested in booming a mic, you won't get the best sound, but in this case you want the MK41. If you are only ever going to record dialog, I see that a niche market.

Much of the dialog in film and TV, indie, and so on, is not particularly well recorded. With good placement, you can do much better. Much of the music is not very well recorded. If you just want to boom the mics, and do no post processing, voice over and so on, the reflections play more of a role than the mic, and here you need to tune the studio acoustically, and in such a way that it doesn't show up in the video.

There's a very interesting AES paper on phase advantages using stereo spot mics. If you have the cash, you can try using a stereo pair of lightweight mics in an ORTF configuration, with no added delay in the signal path. But here is the thing: most people will opt for a mono spot, because it is just easier. Easier, cheaper, faster.

Here's a quick spoken interview I did with an AB setup with two MKH 40, which I actually paid $1800 for the pair, so well under the $1000 per mic mentioned in the thread title. They are a bit more now usually $1100 if you look around. The goal was to capture as much color, emotion and detail as possible in the spoken voices. You can see if you think it makes a difference. Some people will like the sound, other will prefer more of a "TV" sound, and still others will want more of the "lav" sound.

@Vitaliy_Kiselev, VK that $40 ISK CM-20C hyper colloid mic is a very good mic, my SennHeiser K6 is now in the bottom draw. No internal battery, but works excellent on 48v phantom power. Nice rich tone for voice and very low noise, actually it's the quietest mic I own and good sensitivity. It's on my Hmc 152 at the moment but works well on the Zoom H4n also.

Very solid and well made, XLR connections are good and tight and socket doesn't rattle.

Thanks for the recommendation, was cheaper from the Ozzy link than eBay.

Thanks @Vitaliy_Kiselev and @Rambo for your field report. I'm in the process of selling off all my over priced gear I've collected and some that I realize it's better to hire a dedicated professional for, like sound! My 416 is going up for sale as well as a buttload of other stuff. That's just too much money to be sitting there for months, especially if I don't know how to make it reach it's full potential. Anyone in the market for a 416? :)

I got the ISK CM-20C and I am not too happy. Maybe my expectations were not realistic, but I find that it has a lot of self noise. I did a few tests with my AT-875r and the AT had noticeably lower self noise and a hotter signal. The ISK is actually so noisy that I am wondering if I got a dud. Could you, @Rambo, upload a sample? I am happy to upload one if anyone is interested.

Should anyone care, my copy was actually a dud.

Shit happens :-(

@thepalalias I think if I had to do it over I would make the image a bit less wide--I was worried with AB placement that there would not be enough stereo. Thanks for listening.