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Lav and shotgun combo
Well, I’ve shelled out the funds for a nice sennheiser lav, and now have a question regarding its interaction with shotgun microphones.
I will be in situations where I will want to have the main subject miced with the lav, but will also want to pick up ambient noise and the voices of those in the area; therefore, it stands to reason that I run my shotgun into the channel opposite the lav. My question is: will having the subject’s voice come in on both microphones create any sort of unappealing side effects; perhaps an echo or lack of sync?
I realize that this is a very naive question, but I am only now learning how to mic properly.
*Craig*
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3 Replies
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This is a tricky area… General practice is to pick one or the other (boom or lav) and go. Blending is a difficult thing. Not that it can’t be done…it’s just hard and unpredictable in the field. Zaxcom has a nifty delay feature for time aligning boom and lav…
In my opinion, the ways to go are:
1. Lav the subject and organize the boom to reject the most (hopefully all) of the subject’s voice (creating, in effect, a dialogue and background track). These should blend in post. Or…
2. If the subject dialogue is low enough in the boom track, it might work, just be careful of phasing (if boom too close to lav), or echo (if boom too far from lav).Tricky either way. Let your ear be your guide.
Greg
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The main problems you will run into will be phase related. I can think of no way to totally isolate a shotgun or hyper from the voice of the talent during takes. If you want ambient to blend, you need to record it as a separate “room tone” take with nobody speaking. It will take a few minutes extra but at least you will have a clean ambient track to add in with your lav track.
Best,
Dan
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Hi Dan,
Agreed. Sometimes I have run a separate mic a little off the “set” (“birdie mic”) and have been able to get some surrounding presence and activity without principals, but this is usually a 50/50 proposition at best. Best to use your method and try to get room tone, ambiance, or effects separately.
G
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