Sound Equipment

[John Fishback]

IMO the most important feature of a tripod is the head. How smooth can you pan and tilt as you’re operating? How steady is it when you come to a stop? I couldn’t tell from the website anything about the head. I suggest you actually put your camera on the tripod, test it out, and see how it feels.

I haven’t used the Sony wireless package, but the specs look very good for the price. You get diversity, frequency selection, variable rf output and a lav. The only downside is the unbalanced miniplug output. Just be sure you get a very high-quality jack and cable to go to your camcorder.

Again, I’ve never used the ECM-678, but its specs look good. I suggest you should think about getting a decent boom pole. You can mount the pole on a C-stand with a mafer clamp as long as the interviewee isn’t going to be moving around. This will let the interviewer concentrate on interviewing not holding steady a handheld mic.

If you’re looking to do serious sound, you’ll also need a serviceable mixer. However, that won’t happen with your current budget. Perhaps you’ll work with a soundman who has a mixer in his package. If you’re not experienced with sound, definitely hire a soundman (at least to begin). He or she will save you a lot of pain later.

John

Dual 2.5 G5 4 gigs RAM OS 10.3.8 QT6.5.2
Dual Cinema 23 Radeon 9800
FCP4.5 DVDSP 3.0.2
Huge U-320R 1TB Raid 3 firmware ENG12.BIN
ATTO UL4D driver 3.20
AJA IO driver 1.3.1 firmware v21-26
SonicStudio HD DAW, Yamaha DM1000, Genelec Monitors

[Ty Ford]

If you’re looking to do serious sound, you’ll also need a serviceable mixer. However, that won’t happen with your current budget. Perhaps you’ll work with a soundman who has a mixer in his package. If you’re not experienced with sound, definitely hire a soundman (at least to begin). He or she will save you a lot of pain later.

Very good advice.

Ty Ford

Ty Ford’s “Audio Bootcamp Field Guide” was written for video people who want better audio. Find out more at https://www.tyford.com