• Audio

  How to mic a poker table in Hell?

  Posted by Robert Walker on February 4, 2010 at 10:25 pm

  Well not hell exactly, more like a bar. Situation is: 6 people seated around a poker style table, with constant, uncontrollable background bar noise. The people have a long (1 hour) conversation, and all recorded audio is wonderfully clear above the raging din of the venue (hah!). If that wasn’t fun enough, there will be ~16 of these conversations with different people over 2 days (same table used).

  I am less of a sound guy than an after effects junkie, so forgive my ignorance, but my gut feeling(after wanting to puke) is to go with wired omni lav mics, one for each person, plus hang an overhead omni condenser like Audix M1255 or something to get room noise(in case we need more!) and base reference mix.

  With this setup I am most concerned about phase issues with having a fairly tight grouping of the lav mics. Would going with a boom and a hypercardoid overhead mic be a better choice? Only problem is, poor boom guy is going to be holding that thing over the proper person, for 8 hours straight, 2 days in a row. I don’t even think that’s ethical, and I hate sound guys (just kidding :P)

  It also may be in the budget to hang some kind of draping/sound baffle blankets to isolate the table area a bit, but I am not sure how much room there will be, or if it would even be worth the effort vs how much it would reduce the noise.

  Any tips would be great! Even will accept guffaws.

  ——————-
  Robert Walker
  GMR Marketing LLC

  Ty Ford replied 16 years, 3 months ago 2 Members · 1 Reply
• 1 Reply

• 

  Ty Ford

  February 5, 2010 at 10:38 pm

  Hello Robert and welcome to the Cow Audio Forum.

  Yes, the scenario is a mess. I’d try a Shure https://www.shure.com/proaudio/products/mixersanddsp/us_pro_scm810_content

  or audio technica
  https://www.audio-technica.com/cms/mixers/ca9d0c25011ae61e/index.html

  8 channel auto-mixer (six on the talent) configured in “last mic left on” mode, hard-wired lavs and as many sound blankets hung around the table as sight lines will allow.

  I like the AT unit a bit better because it has a few more features and has mic or line level out.

  You might want to rent one to see if it does what you want before you roll tape.

  Regards,

  Ty Ford

  Want better production audio?: Ty Ford’s Audio Bootcamp Field Guide
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