Best way to capture onboard car audio (for a month…)

[Bob Kessler]

Of your recorder choices I would go with the FR-2LE, PMD-661 or used HD-P2. If you go with the FR-2LE or PMD-661 check out Oade Brothers – they sell modded versions that greatly improve the sound for very little over the normal selling price.

As far as sound capture of the driver and navigator can they wear headset mics? Perhaps something like this?

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/247421-REG/Shure_WH30XLR_WH30_Headworn_Condenser.html

They could be hardwired directly into the recorder and would greatly mitigate the other sounds in the vehicle as the crew will be speaking directly into the mics.

[Joao Grade]

Hi Bob, thanks for the input.

I haven’t thought of headsets, but it sure looks like a very reliable option. Must check with the crew first, see whether won’t bug them to have the gadget on their heads the whole time.

Thanks.

[Jean-christophe Boulay]

In the rally car, won’t they have radio headsets already? They usually do, so they can hear each other over the engine and wind, though I’m not sure with the type of rally you describe. If so, you could split that out and send one feed of each member to the recorder. The manner of splitting would depend on what kind of connections the radio gear uses.

If they don’t have headsets already, getting them some as Bob suggested seems the best option to me. My second choice would be lav mics mounted on their collar. Seeing this from the mixer’s perspective, a farther mic’ing would complicate separation of voice and ambiance and effects. The gear shift stick is just too far and off-axis, IMO. It’s better to have some slight clothes rustling to remove than a blaring engine. I’ve once received audio recorded by mounting small, very directional mics to the inside of the windshield and that sounded pretty good, too.

Being a creature who inhabits the cozy world of the studio, I couldn’t really comment on the recorder of choice, though.

IHTH,

JC Boulay
Technical Director
Audio Z
Montreal, Canada
http://www.audioz.com

[Joao Grade]

I see what you mean, but they are not using headsets no.

Ok, maybe the near the gear shift option won’t be adequate, if I am able to fix a couple of mics on the dashboard under the windshield, which would you recommend?

But I’m inclined with the headsets previously recommended, it seems a good choice. I have to check with crew first, I’m afraid of movement constrains and feeling weird to have an headset all the time on, don’t know…

Thanks Jean.

edit:
Although I think using the headset will make sound capture more exposed to wind. It’s a convertible car, have a look http://www.afroteam.org.

thanks.

[Ty Ford]

Hello Joao and welcome to the Cow Audio Forum.

Try Countryman E6 mics with pop filters. They take up negligible space in the helmet. Or find a place in the helmet to glue a lav.

Pray to MacGyver. 🙂

Regards,

Ty Ford

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[Joao Grade]

Hey Ford, appreciate the input, but the guys aren’t using helmets.

Will face them with the headset solution, but I’d like to keep them movement free, no wires, nothing, just let them be focused on their thing, not having a gadget on their head.

[Ty Ford]

Joao,

Let us know how it works out, but an open vehicle and its wind noise and engine noise seems like a recipe that demands close micing. Mounting mics on the vehicle, you’ll also have to consider a suspension mount of some sort or how to pad the mic so it picks up as little vehicle vibration as possible.

If you only have two front seat folks try to figure out how to rig a small directional mic in each visor.

Regards,

Ty Ford

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[Peter Groom]

I did a very similar thing to this about 6 months ago. It was a commercial, but involved 2 cars (1 a cab) driving round and 4 models im the cars looking pretty and capturing their comments.
I found that the cab was a real problem as the wind noise swirling round was mega. I recorded the 2 wired Sony ecm 77 s to a zoom H$N. the mics mounted at the closest possible point to their mouths, but still lavs want to be close and with a lot of noise about there were issues. The zoom can be powered from the cars 12v via a cable we bought.
If you get say a 32 gig sdhc card and run stereo recordings in mp3 (256kbps) you can run all day and night no problem.

Personlally Ive never seen a rally where they dont use helmets but hey!
My best advice is, as i did, test run and test and test to find the best position you can with the roof down. But its not easy or particularly good.
When we did a motorbike section, mounting the ecm77 inside the helmet was spot on with a rycote fluffy over it.

Peter

Peter

[Joao Grade]

It’s that type of rally Peter, wearing a helmet is optional. But I had thought of that, and had a chat with the drivers, they won’t mind wearing a helmet or a headset, as suggested by a previous commentator. I’ll have a look at them microphones you mention, but unfortunately I have to quickly decide on what kit to buy, and then run the tests. Do I must think of the best solution possible so I may buy the equipment, and if it’s not the adequate setup, I would have wasted money and be still be without a solution.

For visual purposes, which is one thing I’m overall concerned, I’d like the guys not to wear a helmet nor a headset nor a lavalier, I’d much rather have a concealed capture solution, maybe those short shotgun protected near the wind screen, like one user also suggested.

I really don’t know, but I have to decide pretty soon…

If I had enough to invest on two setups, short shotguns + wired or wireless lavs, I’d go for both and know I’d have a solution between the two.

If someone could suggest a nice quality wired lavs, besides expensive brands, I’d go for both options and invest in a pair of wired lavs. I’d also consider wireless lavs if only I would know which ones to buy, preventing me from spending over £600 on Sennheiser g3…

So yeah, I’ll go forward with a portable recorder, most inclined to the PMD661. Mic wise, that’s the tricky part…

[Bob Kessler]

Now comes compromise time. As you get further from the two folks in the car the more noise will be introduced to the recording and the less voice intelligibility there will be.

The Inverse Square Law

In simple terms, this means that a sound twice as far away is only one-fourth as loud. A sound four times as far away is only one-sixteenth as loud. So a human voice that records with adequate volume three feet away is just one-sixteenth as effective at twelve feet.

Once you get into wireless you’ll have more likelihood of drop-outs, RF interference and the batteries have a limited useful life (2 – 4 hrs continuous) and you have two rec/trans systems to worry about. That’s why I recommended hard-wired.

Just one more thought; if you cannot understand what they are saying – and you mentioned that the conversational by-play is the focus of the project – then everything else becomes meaningless.