A boom pole advice, please

[Richard Crowley]

Why does a Lamborghini cost 10x as much as a Fiat? They both get you to the market and back home. As you say, carbon fiber is a more exotic and expensive material, so you can expect that it will cost more. But only you can decide whether buying a premium boom (or ANY premium product) is worth the extra expense for what YOU will be doing with it. If you are an in-demand boom operator booked for dozens of big-budget feature films, then having a couple of good carbon fiber booms is a required tool of the trade.

But if you are an amateur or a beginner student, then there are almost certainly more profitable areas for investing your capital budget. And if you get to the point where you need to upgrade from a common aluminum pole to a carbon fiber, there is no great barrier to upgrading. And either re-selling your aluminum boom or keeping it as a secondary / spare / backup.

IMHO, the choice of microphone contributes MUCH MUCH more to performance/$$$ than the pole. If you spend big $$$ on a fancy pole and then buy a cheap microphone to put on the end, that will translate DIRECTLY to poor quality sound. But if you live with perhaps a heavier pole, but put a good microphone on the end, you will HEAR that decision.

And there are advantages and disadvantages to internally cabled vs. external. Again, I would reserve the majority of my budget for getting quality microphone(s) and live with external until you can justify the expense.

What kind of mic are you booming that requires 5-pin XLR? Dialog pickup is the vast majority of what booms are used for and that is a mono mic and a 3-pin XLR. I question WHY do you think you need a 5-pin connection for a boom mic?

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Recording audio without metering and monitoring is exactly like framing and focusing without looking at the viewfinder.

[Adriano Castaldini]

Dear Mr. Crowley, thanks for your reply.
The two mics are AT4053B (3-pin) and BP4025 (5-pin).
I agree with you on everything, expecially the fact that a boom can’t cost more than the mic, it would sound absurd!
I don’t worry about weight (even if I must admit I’m a bit skinny), I think only about the sound quality, so my questions are:
1. Can an aluminium cheap boom make the sound quality worse (perhaps squeaking), or the material concerns only the weight?
2. Keeping the cable internally (in the boom) can avoid capturing noises and pops, or it is simply ergonomic facilitation?
Thanks a lot for the help.

[Eric Toline]

Forget the use of the stereo BP4025 mic for dialog, it just isn’t done. Your best bet would be at least a 12′ internally coil cabled pole with a side mounted male XLR plate. Look at the K-Tek line of poles in both aluminium & carbon fibre construction. For a given length a carbon fibre pole is about $200 more than an aluminum pole but about half the weight. Expect to spend about $200-$250 for a 12′ aluminium pole. Poles themselves are not noisey, it’s the handling noise by the boom op that causes those issues. Don’t forget you’ll need a good shock mount for the mic and also a windscreen or zep with a furry wind protector. That’s about $250-$300 for those items.

\”I push the RECORD button and hope for the best\”

[Adriano Castaldini]

Thanks Mr. Toline for your answer.
I will not use BP4025 for dialogues, in fact I will not record dialogues at all. My purpose is just to use a couple of mics for only foley (AT4053b) and field (BP4025) recordings.
I absolutely agree with the fact that most of the noise comes from the op handling, but I’ve read that joints of the cheap boom can produce creakings.
But the main doubt is the cabled solution (boom with internal cable): I don’t know if it’s true, but someone in an Adorama’s youtube tutorial says that a rapidly moved cabled boom can cause noise because the cable slamming internally in the boom. If it’s true, is it right to say that in a run&gun condition it’s preferable to use a boom with an externally fixed cable?

[Richard Crowley]

If you are recording ambience, etc with a stereo mic, then you are not using a boom. So it is still not clear why you think you need a 5-pin option for your boom?

Yes, it is true that the internal coiled cable can slap around when the boom is moved quickly. But quick boom movements should typically be ROTATION (much less likely to cause noise) to cover two people in a dialog, for example. Whpping the boom left/right (or up/down) is not recommended for other reasons having nothing to do with cable noise, whether internal or external.

Of course, an external cable can also cause noise if not wrapped around the boom properly and held tight.

———————————————————————————
Recording audio without metering and monitoring is exactly like framing and focusing without looking at the viewfinder.

[Adriano Castaldini]

Thanks for the replay Mr. Crowley. I used the wrong word: I’d use the stereo-mic to capture the ambience indoor, of course, but also the stereo image of the sounds outdoor, for that reason I thought to use the blimp also for the BP4025 (5pin).

[Adriano Castaldini]

Anyway, going further, I’d like to know what is in your opinion the most silent cable rig to connect the mic to the recorder in a run&gun situation (for example following the outdoor footstep of the talent during a long walk):

1. A single external straight cable wrapped around the boompole, directly from the blimp plug to the recorder: this means having a dangling last segment of the straight cable (the segment from the end of the boompole to the recorder);

2. A single and totally dangling long coiled cable directly from the blimp plug to the recorder (not wrapped around the boompole);

3. Two cables: a straight cable well wrapped around the boompole, with the male plug fixed to the end of the boompole, where it’s connected with another cable, a coiled cable this time, dangling from the end of the boompole to the recorder.

My questions simpy are:

A) Which is the most silent solution for my run&gun situation? And Why?

B) Do you recommend another cable rigging?

Thanks a lot for your help.

[Richard Crowley]

There won’t be any significant difference between (#1) and (#3) But (#3) might be more convenient, depending on other factors not in evidence.
(#2) is definitely not recommended. Hanging the cable from the blimp will put strain on the blimp connection as well as making the cable MUCH more vulnerable to brushing against something (causing noise) or even getting caught-up on something (causing you to stumble and break your arm!)

Wrapping the cable around the pole (or putting the cable inside the pole) mechanically decouples the cable from whatever noise the cable may pick up and the microphone.

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Recording audio without metering and monitoring is exactly like framing and focusing without looking at the viewfinder.

[Adriano Castaldini]

Thanks Mr. Crowley

[Eric Toline]

The standard boom pole setup for almost everything is an internal coil cable terminating in a pole mounted XLR male and a short coil cable XLR M&F jumper that connects the pole to the mixer/recorder. Within the next few years you’ll see more & more cableless poles with transmitters supplying 48vp to the mic with the TX mounted on the pole just behind the mic. In fact Zaxcom has a combination mini transmitter & recorder that is made just for pole use for about $1700 + dedicated RX for it for another $1700. Not for the faint of heart to be sure.

\”I push the RECORD button and hope for the best\”