The Sony ECM-MS957 microphone is a single point stereo microphone pitched at the medium consumer price bracket, around $150/£150. It is an established design from Sony, and has a fairly good sound for the price, particularly for acoustic music and speech recording.
Good Mono Compatibility from the Sony ECM-MS957's Mid-Side Design
Unlike most single point stereo microphones such as the AT 8022 and Rode NT4 which are generally a variant on the crossed cardioid XY pattern, the ECM MS957 is a mid-side design, with one forward facing cardioid microphone capsule and one figure-8 aimed to the sides. Unlike the XY configuration, where both capsules are working off-axis to a sound source dead centre, the Sony ECM MS957's mid capsule is facing directly at the central sound source, which means the lowest colouration and most even frequency response for it.
Usually a mid-side microphone needs a special matrix to process the signal into a normal left-right stereo signal but in the MS957 this is done inside the microphone, which uses a pair of audio transformers to do the matrix processing. This has two advantages - one is that monitoring LR is easier, and the other advantage is that the ECM MS957 is transformer balanced, although Sony do not make much of this in the specification sheet, and supply a 5-pin XLR to unbalanced 3.5mm TRS stereo jack plug as standard.
Stereo Width Control and Choice of End or Side-Addressing are Unusual Features of the Sony ECM-MS957
The microphone can be used either end-addressed or side addressed - there is a knurled knob on the body which mechanically rotates the Mid capsule to face either to the side (away from the on/off switch) or through 90 degrees to face along the axis of the microphone. In this mode the mid capsule has to look through the side capsule, and there is some risk of introducing a little time delay between the capsules. All things being equal, the microphone sounds slightly clearer and with a better define stereo image in the side addressed mode than the end-addressed mode.
The on/off switch also doubles up as a stereo width control, achieved my changing the amount of the Side capsule added to the mix. One of the beauties of mid-side recording is that stereo width can be easily adjusted in post production, so this function can be duplicated later. If adjustment is intended in post, then it is a good idea to leave the switch in the 120 degree maximum width setting.
Balanced and Unbalanced Output Wiring from the Sony ECM MS957 Mid Side Stereo Microphone
The balanced output is available from the 5-pin XLR using the industry standard stereo balanced connector pinout ...
Male 5 pin XLR
- Common
- Left signal hot
- Left signal cold
- Right signal hot
- Right signal cold
... and it is well worth using this if the microphone is to be used with a mixer, either using a regular XLR5 to 2 x XLR3 breakout cable rather than the supplied unbalanced cable. That cable is wired
XLR 1,3,5 to jack S
XLR 4 to jack R
XLR 2 to jack T
What Does the Sony ECM-MS957 Sound like?
The ECM-MS857 is a good all-rounder with a pleasant sound quality for the price, with a good tone colour on voice. The output at about 8mV/Pa is on the low side for an electret condenser microphone and self-noise is not the lowest, so this is a product for music and voice recording at medium distances rather than capturing the faintest sounds of wildlife from tens of yards away.
The MS stereo information is all contained in the amplitude differences between the stereo channels, which is excellent for mono compatibility and broadcast but some listeners miss the phase information from something like a pair of spaced omnis. This again fits with suiting close-miked subjects; the ECM-MS967 isn't necessarily the first choice for recording the wide sound stage of an orchestra!
Using the Mid-Side Capsules for Effective Interview Recording
It excels at speech/interview recording indoors - use the microphone side addressed for greatest clarity (end-addressed the mid capsule has the side capsule blocking the dead-ahead direction). For the classic two-way interviewer/interviewee position on opposite sides of a table a way to get a good mono recording is to set the Sony ECM-MS957 up midway between the participants with the mid-capsule aimed to the side. If the recording is reconverted to mid-side the Side channel will make a good mono recording of the interview from the figure-8 capsule. Alternatively the Side channel can be extracted by subtracting the R channel from the L channel, which can be done in an audio editor such as Audacity. The Mid channel can be discarded, it contains mainly indirect sound. Using this as a stereo signal gives a somewhat excessively left-right character which is disconcerting to listen to an makes the interview sound rather adversarial.
Alternatively the participants can be placed at an angle to the microphone in an approximately 60 degree angle triangle and the interview taken as a stereo recording - experimenting with reducing the width via the 90 degree setting may suit this configuration better.
The Sony ECM-MS957 - a Good All-Round Microphone for A Reasonable Cost
This product with its MS configuration is a good choice for what many people want a single point stereo microphone to do. It doesn't have the excessive harshness that can sometimes afflict cheap electret microphones. The Sony ECM-MS957 is one of the lowest cost MS microphones on the market and has been in production since the late 1990s. The provided wind shield is better than the freebies offered with many microphones but will not hold up to more than a very light breeze. The pleasant tone colour is well suited for podcasts, though podcasters should note that a pre-amplifier or audio interface would be needed, this product should not be plugged into the mono powered microphone input on a computer sound card.
Sources
- Sony ECM-MS957 User's Manual
- Sony ECM-MS957 Service Manual
Richard Mudhar - Originally from London, now enjoying a less hectic pace of life in Suffolk, Richard Mudhar is a keen wildlife sound recordist and ...
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