Mixer advice needed

[Todd Terry]

[Richard Crowley] “For example can you use wired (or wireless) clip-on body mics instead of shotguns?”

Thanks Richard… and I could, but I hate the “lavaliere sound” with a passion… as I said I’m NOT an audio guy, but even the best and highest-end ones sound so clinical and sterile to my ears. I almost always boom… it’s just such a more natural and open sound to me.

I always cringe in a movie when you can tell they go from the boom mic to an on-talent radio mic… usually when talent walks out of a tighter scene into a shot where it would be impossible to boom. No one else in my household seems to hear it or understand why I’m going “Uggh!” out loud, but I just really don’t like the sound.

BUT… doesn’t that beg the question? A mic output is a mic output… and aren’t there exactly the same connection/mixing needs if I am using two body mics as opposed to two booms? I’m probably missing something, but I don’t know what it is…..

T2

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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Richard Crowley]

[Todd Terry] “BUT… doesn’t that beg the question? A mic output is a mic output… and aren’t there exactly the same connection/mixing needs if I am using two body mics as opposed to two booms? I’m probably missing something, but I don’t know what it is…..”
A body microphone is essentially guaranteed to be at least one order of magnitude closer to the sound source (the mouth of the actor/subject) than any boom microphone could possibly approach. So, ipso-facto you will get a hotter signal AND a signal with higher signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) because the microphone is order(s) of magnitude closer to the signal which dramatically increases the SNR. Inverse-square law of acoustic physics. To my way of thinking a boom microphone is an extravagant luxury that cannot always be justified.

There are examples of very high-budget, high-profile feature films using body microphones on actors, singers, and even animals (horses), I don’t really buy into the presumption that body mics always produce “inferior” sound. You mentioned that this is an unfunded charity case, so we don’t know exactly what are your criteria for quality vs. expense trade-off?

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

[Ty Ford]

Hello Richard & Todd,

I will boom with a good mic, not necessarily a shotgun, whenever possible . The larger diaphragm is more sensitive and you get the sound of the whole person. I don’t use shotguns indoors because they pickup off axis sounds due to their construction. In those cases, I use a hypercardioid.

Cheap lavs put on someone by someone who doesn’t know how or where will usually be disappointing.

You said earlier that you can tell when lavs are being used, even in presumably big budget motion pictures. Is that right?

In what situation are you using two shotgun mics?

Regards,

Ty Ford
Cow Audio Forum Leader

Want better production audio?: Ty Ford\’s Audio Bootcamp Field Guide
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[Todd Terry]

In this situation we have an interviewer and an interviewee… each will be boomed with their own mic.

But regardless of the lav vs boom issue… unless I’m missing something two mics are still two mics no matter what kind they are, and both will still have the same kind of connection/mixing needs that brought me here in the first place. So switching to lavs doesn’t change my interfacing situation at all.

Another reason I dislike lavs (besides the clinical sound, to my ears) is that I’m just not good at placing them on talent, I don’t have that particular skill. I mean placing them hidden, of course… there are very few if any instances, even in a interview type setting, where I will allow a mic to be seen, and I’m not good at hiding them. To me, unless you are Lester Holt sitting on the Nightly News desk, I don’t wanna see a mic. Also very often we’re doing shoots with a large number of different people, and booming is infinitely easier/faster than having to individually wire up one person after the other. And, that really requires getting pretty up-close-and-personal with the subject. Professional actors don’t mind that, of course, but “real people,” as our subjects often are, are not used to that, or having a stranger rummage inside their clothing… ha.

But… I see I’m highjacking my own thread here and going down a completely unrelated road.

Anywho, I’ve solved this issue as I said… I’ll just use another camera as the interface… slightly clunky but this is a one-time setup so it’s fine for that. But it’s an interesting conversation, nonetheless.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com