[Brian Sahlin]

I’m not much of an basketball fan so I can’t speak to that, but I notice in the NHL games I watch they tend to use Sennheiser stick mics (sometimes they hold it where you can recognize the logo). I suppose I could just be assuming they are the 46 when they could as easily be 42/Omni.

[Brian Sahlin]

I see the MD 42 was mentioned, but the MD 46 is another option to consider. It was designed for the (I believe 2000) Olympics at NBC’s request specifically for interviewing athletes in loud stadiums/arenas and to this day a vast majority (if not exclusively all) of sideline reporters at professional sporting events use that microphone.

[Brian Sahlin]

There is no magic microphone that will solve all your problems. In fact, an important factor in mic selection for interviews is whether you are going to be indoors or outdoors.

The general rule is that “shotgun” mics like your NTG2 (eg. a long tube with the slots running down the barrel) are for outdoor recordings while a similar looking hyper cardioid (usually much shorter in length than most shotgun mics, but the important part is that there are no slots/holes on the side) are for indoor recordings.

The Audio-Technica 4053b is a really great example of a hyper cardioid indoor boom mic. It’s actually a modular setup, the 40xx being the tube and the 53b being the removable hyper cardioid capsule, you can get other capsules like an Omnidirectional too. Generally it’s sold as a package of the tube and one capsule for $599 USD.

I personally use this microphone for indoor interviews and it sounds fantastic. Even into a H4n Pro. Would I rather have a sound-devices recorder, sure someday, but this microphone and recorder set-up works great in my opinion.

There are a few similarly priced or slightly cheaper hyper cardioid booms mics out there, and then there’s a Schoeps Colette for like triple price. But I would say the AT 4053b is probably the most common indoor dialogue/interview boom mic for those who don’t have a Hollywood budget but are trying to greatly step-up their audio for video quality…there are tons of YouTube reviews and comparisons on that microphone and from what I can tell it’s always highly recommended for indoor recording.

[Brian Sahlin]

A good reason why someone would want to record at higher levels while leaving headroom for sudden spikes (eg. -20dB to -12dB) is when using cheaper mic cables or preamps that introduce noise. An example I’ve personally dealt with is plugging directly into a “prosumer” camera’s XLR ports, which has circuitry that isn’t designed for recording audio like a dedicated digital audio recorder. There usually will be a hiss that is present at (and I’m picking a random number) -50dB with the on camera’s audio gain controls at the halfway point. Not to mention any other noise from an air conditioner or computer fan or whatever else was in the room on location that will be picked up as well.

If I were to record an interview with this configuration and the interviewee being recorded was between -40dB to -30dB, and I go to compress and normalize in post to something more standard like -9dB to -6dB, then that -50dB hiss will be brought up to -20dB or so. Even with a good noise reduction plug-in, that is less than ideal to have to “fix in post” and should be avoided from the initial recording process.

But sure, using a high quality microphone, with a nice cable, with nearly perfect mic placement to the audio source, on a professional sound stage or recording studio, and recording to a nice dedicated audio recorder with great preamps…then you absolutely could record at average peaks of -40dB and normalize it to whatever standard you need and have it sound fantastic.

I use a H4n Pro myself on anything I personally have a hand in recording (location interviews) and I still strive for a -12dB average, and settle for -20dB at the worst. And I almost always use iZotope dialogue de-noise anyway…but the cleaner the initial recording is with a high signal strength the better the plug-in works.

But I have received videos where someone recorded voice-over using a headset mic near their computer fan that was around -40dB for the peaks…by the time I normalized the audio the computer fan noise was unbareable. In the end using iZotope salvaged it “good enough” but still…ugh.