Bruce Watson
Forum Replies Created
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[Deb Lawton] “Is it possible to get a quality system for less than $1200. Any suggestions on what to purchase/how to approach this? Thanks!”
Yes. If you want new, you could buy a pair of Sennheiser G4s:
A pair of used G3s might be a more economical choice.
An even more economical choice might be to rent the G4s.
Whichever way you go, make sure you get the Sennheiser mic-to-XLR cable to connect the receiver to your recorder.
Be sure to get radios in a legal frequency band for the physical location where you will use them. And an appropriate amount of batteries. I think you get around 8 hours of continuous “up time” from four AA alkaline batteries (two in transmitter, two in receiver). The G3s are somewhat sensitive to the quality of rechargeable batteries — the Panasonic eneloop pro batteries are reported to work well with the G3s, but I don’t know how much recording time you can get from a single charge.
Beyond Sennheiser, since you’ll be in the wilderness and not in a wi-fi jungle like a big city, you might get away with one of the new-ish wi-fi radios, like Rode is selling. There are others; I can’t vouch for the quality of any of the wi-fi mics because I’ve never used them. Ty, OTOH, has tested out at least one that he liked — Electro-Voice? IDK. Ty?
Finally, if you decide to go the Sennheiser route, you can obtain a decent improvement in sound quality by replacing the “kit mic” (me-2?) with something better, like the Oscar SoundTech OST-802. I’ve got a pair of OST-802s I use with my G3s and they work a treat for me. As always, YMMV.
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[Joe Homs] “We need to record both a person who is wearing the microphone as well as a person they are in conversation with for training purposes. The other person will just be standing near them without a microphone on.”
That’s a problem. You can’t get good results using just one lavalier mic. With lavs, you need a mic on each person. Why? Because you need the mics to be the same distance (more or less) from the speakers’ mouths to get the same (more or less) signal to noise ratio.
About the only way I know to do this with a single mic (that isn’t boomed) is to use a reporter’s stick mic. The interviewer has to be good at this, moving the mic between the parties and working to minimize talking over each other. It doesn’t come naturally to most people so it requires some rehearsal. When I say reporters stick mic, I’m talking about a mic like the Electro-Voice re50n/d-b:
Also, with dynamic mics like this, you need to keep the mic in close proximity to the mouth, say 10-15cm. This takes some strength if it’s a long interview or if the people are spaced too far apart. Under less ideal conditions it’s almost inevitable that the interviewer holding the mic will allow the mic to “droop” down resulting in a decrease in audio quality over time. Which is of course why people always recommend booming (or lavs on each person). Interviewers usually have their hands full just conducting an interview; adding mic management to their workload isn’t really a good idea in most cases.
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[Todd Terry] “And… I don’t want to be one of those guys…. those cheapskates that I’m always ragging on over on the video side of things… but YIKES. I’m sure that’s a great device… but it’s expensive.”
So you are one of those guys. Great. I see used MixPre-Ds go by fairly often in the $400-600 USD range. You and I must have different definitions of “expensive”.
The thing is, I want a mixer that gives me decent sound quality, a bunch of good clean gain, good meters, and good limiters. The MixPre-D is about the least expensive mixer that does those things for me. Anything less expensive and you’re sacrificing one or more of those qualities. So, what are you willing to give up in exchange for a lower price? Maybe that will help someone here advise you. IDK.
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Lexicon 224x discussion, from more than a decade ago. But probably will shed some light on the topic for ya.
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[Ty Ford] “Pro Tools has a free version, Pro Tools First, I think.
It may be a neater option. I have not tried it.”
You can’t really go wrong with Ty’s suggestion. Just about every studio out there uses Pro Tools. There just might be a reason for that. Hmmm…
That said, Reaper has a large and loyal following. In addition to being widely used, it has the great advantage of being very inexpensive. If you look at the free download of the user manual, section 7.23 (p136) is all about crossfades and the Reaper Crossfade Editor. It should cover everything you need, and a bunch of stuff you haven’t thought to ask about yet. Or maybe that’s just me ????. I’m just sayin’ that it’s a huge and mature program at this point, and has lots of features I’ve never heard of, let alone used.
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[Charles Ferran] “So I think a more direct question is: What should I be trying to buy vs rent?
and then ANY advice or experience or knowledge you can point me to would be super helpful to me!”
You won’t know what you should own vs. what you should be renting, unless you actually use the stuff for projects like you’ll be filming. Makes sense, yes? So first thing I’d do, is rent a grip truck on location. A simple google search pulls up a bunch in DC. Whoever you are renting your cameras from can probably point you in the right direction.
A grip truck is just what you’d think — a truck full of lights, stands, modifiers, sandbags, gaffer tape, cables, basically everything you need to light whatever you’re trying to light. Hardly anyone will rent you a grip truck without the owner of the grip truck being part of the package, and this is usually a good thing. The owner knows what’s in his truck and where it is, and usually has bunches of experience. And can probably setup his lights way faster than you can.
After you’ve done this a few times you’ll learn what it is that you’re always using, which is the stuff you might want to own. Or you might learn that it’s easier and more cost effective to just rent a truck when you need a truck. Much depends on how often you do this, and how mobile you have to be.
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[avner da] “now we are using normal mic (dynamic) with stand but the the sound is not so clear (because the distance between the mic and the teacher), and the teacher want the mic to be much further from him.”
So the teacher wants the Universe to grant him a permit to violate for the laws of physics? Tell him the Universe said “er… no”.
The bottom line here is that he wants you to do the impossible. The way to increase signal-to-noise ratio (to increase understandability) is to move the mic closer to the signal source (his soft-spoken mouth). And the way to do that is for him to wear a mic, whether he wants to or not. And I’m with Ty, the best thing you can do for him is an ear-set mic, putting the mic right at the corner of his mouth.
Moving the mic farther away is just going to make the situation worse, no matter what mic you use.
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[Noam Osband] “I usually have an AT4053b on a mount about 6 inches to a foot away from the face.”
I’ve got an AT4053b. I’ve tried it that close, and mine is not fond of having that done to it. It’s really tuned more like a booming dialog mic, designed to be used above the head and out in front, pointing down at the mouth at about a 45 degree angle. Puts the mic about 45-60 cm away from the mouth, and way out of the “pop stream” so plosives don’t register. It’s actually a very popular booming mic on the indy movie circuit.
I’ve used mine for bunches of sit down interviews of people. I typically sit the interviewee in a chair with arms to limit their side to side mobility so they can’t drift out of pattern on the mic. I did have one woman who liked rocking forward and back that was difficult and unexpected. She did make it out of pattern a few times. Spend some post time on that one. Sigh…
The AT4053b has a significant proximity effect. Using it closer than around 50cm to the mouth begins to ramp up the bottom end. I would imagine that using one from 15cm out gives you a significant “voice of God” effect. If you like that but don’t like the plosives, and you don’t care what it looks like, take the mic out of the pop stream by rotating it 90 degrees so that it points directly across your mouth and a bit in front, maybe 3-5 cm. I’ve not actually tried this, but it should significantly ease your plosives problems. The point of course is that you not “speak into the mic” but speak across it. Non-intuitive, but that doesn’t mean it won’t work. 😉
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[Saurabh Sharma] “I would like to know how to remove background music. Basically I only want person voice and no other music or sound.”
Yes, well, that’s as they say “very difficult”. It’s sorta like saying you want to remove all the salt from that cake you just baked. Once it’s baked in, it’s very difficult to get the salt back out without destroying the cake.
So the short answer is that you can’t. The longer answer is you can perhaps take out some of it, depending on your tools and your skill level.
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There’s far better people on this forum to answer this one. But since no one else is giving an answer…
[Bryce Douglass] “does the -6db mean every single word in a piece of audio is -6db or is that just an average peak and the rest should be more at sound -10 with occasional clippings to -6db?”
You could find out pretty easily by trying it. What do you hear when you compress the dialog so that “every single word in a piece of audio is -6dB”? It’s actually a pretty neat effect. But no, you’re not going to want anything like that level of dialog compression in anything you intend for anyone else to hear.
Typically what “-6dB” means is that you want the peaks in the dialog to be no higher than -6dBFS. The rest should fall where it may underneath that. If the dynamic range (max sound level to min sound level) is too great for easy intelligibility then some compression is in order to bring the minimum sound level up closer to the max. Just not too much. How much then? Use your ears, listen to it.
As to clipping, you should have zero clipping. Don’t go there unless you have a reason to. There are some effects that use clipping, but for dialog it decreases intelligibility and induces headaches. Not pleasant. So, not even occasional “clippings” for dialog please.
[Bryce Douglass] “Also what should the music be at when there is a break in a dialogue interview? Should i blast right up to -3db like the original music I bought from pond5 or should I keep it around the same level as the dialogue was?”
Again, you can find out pretty easily by trying it. But you’ll likely decide pretty quickly that “pumping” the music during breaks in dialog is not something that most listeners like. You’ll also likely decide that the music level should be considerably less than the dialog level. Unless you’re filming a club scene. Or a music video. But again, use your ears. If the music is too loud, dialog will be less intelligible. If that’s what you want, go for it. If that’s not what you want, turn down the background music track until it’s a loudness level that works with the dialog level in a way you like. You’ll know it when you hear it. Probably. Most people do anyway.
Perhaps the best way to learn what’s “acceptable” is to listen to lots of examples in your area of interest. Then listen to what you’ve done and compare. Adjust your work as needed. Then listen some more. And adjust some more. You’ll begin to figure out what works for you and what doesn’t work for your pretty quickly I’m bettin’.