When the Sennheiser AMBEO VR mic was announced in late-2016, I was immediately interested. This was an affordable ambisonics microphone made by a leading brand. Around the same time, 360 video and VR was starting to gain traction, and various plug-ins for working with 360/ambisonics sound were starting to come to market. With this in mind, I purchased the AMBEO and a suitable recorder, which in my case was the Zoom F8. This has become a very common combination for people working with Ambisonics, and with good reason. The one thing missing from my kit was a good windshield.
AMBEO Windshield Options Before The Rycote Stereo Cyclone
The AMBEO is sold with a foam windshield, which for anything but the very lightest of winds, isn’t suitable for recording outside. When I was deciding where to buy the mic I saw a few companies suggest a Rycote modular windshield to go with it. However, these weren’t specifically made for the AMBEO, and upon further inspection didn’t seem the best option. They also don’t have internal connections for the AMBEO’s 12-pin DIN connector, which was a concern for me.
The second option was the Rycote Baby Ball Gag or BBG for short. A cheaper option, which was around £80 or so, with an additional £40 for the furry windjammer. This was a tempting proposition, however, having recorded on location with various mics over the years, I’m very aware that for the best results you really want the entire mic to be covered by the windshield, whereas the BBG slides over the mic, and only covers the capsule. I was also largely recording inside, or working on 360 jobs where I was only doing post production, so this wasn’t a huge concern and decided to wait a while to see what came along.
Introducing The Rycote Stereo Cyclone
I first heard about a version of the Cyclone which would be compatible with the AMBEO around summer 2017, when I saw a Facebook post by another AMBEO user who was beta-testing it. This was the first purpose-made windshield for the mic, so immediately caught my interest. Having heard about the Cyclone range of windshields from a production sound mixer friend, I was very interested to try it out with the AMBEO to see if it suited my needs and requirements.
Fast forward a few months to February 2018, I received the Stereo Cyclone ready for testing, alongside a BBG and windjammers for both, to do a series of tests and comparisons. Before conducting the tests, I familiarised myself with the Stereo Cyclone and immediately found locations and conditions which were previously impossible to record in, were now available to me, and the potential for using the mic to its fullest was now a possibility. I found that even without the additional windjammer, the amount of wind reduction was excellent in most conditions. Having been used to previous generations of Rycote products, such as the modular windjammer I was used to having to record with the additional windjammer, so this was a very pleasant surprise.
After a couple of days out recording, I was familiar enough with the kit to do the tests down in Brighton. This was designed to be a test between the Rycote BBG and the Cyclone, to show the differences between the two products which fall into very distinctive price brackets. I also used a shotgun mic as a control to get some idea of how much wind there was on location to give some idea of how much each of the Rycote products was reducing the wind.
The second series of tests were only conducted with the Stereo Cyclone. These were recorded with the help of a drone which was there to serve 2 purposes. The first was to provide a constant downdraft directly over the mic, to show the effectiveness of the Cyclone on its own, and with the windjammer. The second was to show what effect the Cyclone, and the Cyclone with windjammer have on the soundfield of the mic, and how (if at all) this affects the spatiality of the recordings.
The full tests are available in the following Pro Tools session, as well as the recordings from the AMBEO as A-format and binaural, and the test mic in mono, all as WAV files for non-Pro Tools | Ultimate users.
The software and plug-ins required to fully utilize the Pro Tools session are all in the software section at the bottom of this article. Where software isn’t free, a demo version is available so you will be able to make your own evaluation from the Pro Tools session without having to buy and of the software or plug-ins…
If you haven’t got Pro Tools then here are is a full set of the audio files you can download…
What Do We Think About The Rycote Stereo Cyclone
The Stereo Cyclone is an incredibly well-made product. It feels sturdy and solid, not at all flimsy, yet incredibly it’s very lightweight. It breaks down into 3 main parts which are held together with magnets, so opening it up to put the mic in and get it out again is incredibly simple and straightforward. The 12-pin DIN cable is also at a right-angle and positioned so it’s impossible to get it the wrong way round, assuming the mic is correctly positioned in the lyre mount.
In most situations I found the Stereo Cyclone provided excellent wind reduction without the additional furry windjammer. I’d suggest you purchase this to give yourself a sound kit which is suitable for any recording conditions, particularly if you record in open spaces with windy conditions, but personally found I used it far less than expected.
The only downside that I could envisage with the product’s size is if you record sound alongside a 360º video camera. Usually the mic is placed with the camera on top, and it does potentially creep into more of the image than is desirable meaning a bit more work in post-production. Therefore in this instance the BBG may be more desirable in locations where there is less wind. However, from the perspective of only capturing ambisonic sound without video, this is a non-issue with the Cyclone.
This isn’t a cheap product, however the simple fact it opens up a world of locations for you to record in and use your ambisonics mic to its fullest potential makes it an obvious purchase. It’s worth noting that Rycote make several versions of this for mono, stereo and ambisonics mics, and have a product finder section on their website.
Pros:
Enables you to record in locations and weather conditions which would otherwise be impossible to record in
Easy and quick to fit to the mic and very well-made
Provides better wind protection without an additional windjammer when compared to previous modular windshields
Cons:
May be visible if shooting with a 360º camera above
Cost may be prohibitive to some users
Software Links:
Here are links and details of each of the products used in The free downloadable Pro Tools Session…
Sennheiser AMBEO A-B convertor (free) - Used to convert the A-format signal from the AMBEO mic to B-format AmbiX
Harpex-X (free 30-day trial or €298 + VAT) - Used to take the B-format AmbiX output and up-mix from 1st order ambisonics (1OA) to 3rd order ambisonics (3OA) for improved spatial resolution
Noise Makers Ambi Head HD (free trial or €189 + VAT) - Takes the 3OA output from Harpex-X and decodes to binaural using several HRTFs (head-related transfer functions). In this case using the Neumann KU100 HRTF. Ambi Limiter is also useful if requiring an ambisonic-compatible limiter up to 3OA.
FabFilter Pro-L2 (free trial or £149 inc. VAT) - Used as a safety limiter on the binaural output.