Bruce Watson
Forum Replies Created
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[Melanie Easton] “…recorded while a big party/event was happening in the background. Unfortunately, whoever recorded this did so on a camcorder with no external mic or sound recorder and the interviews are almost inaudible over the loud background party noise.”
Trying to fix this is like trying to take the salt out of a cake that just came out of the oven. Just sayin’.
The problem is that the sound you want to get rid of uses the same range of frequencies as the sound you want to keep. You can’t delete one without deleting the other. If you work at it for quite a while with a software package like Izotope RX (which is an expensive piece of software on its own) you can perhaps make the sound somewhat better. But I suspect not much better. And even when you’re done, it’s still going to sound like it was recorded with the mic (way) out of position, because… it was.
For better or worse, they made amateur mistakes. There’s really nothing you or anyone else can do to make a pro level result from it.
My suggestion? Subtitles.
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Would it? Probably. But there are easier and cheaper ways.
The “classic” way is to use an SD MM-1. Feed your boom pole mic to the MM-1, monitor it with your headphones. Send line-level to the 302. This is done all the time. The reason it is, is that it allows the boom op good control over the headphone gain. This in turn lets the boom op clearly hear what needs hearing from the boom op’s perspective. This is a good thing.
If you really want to hear the feed at the camera, all you need is another receiver (a duplicate of the camcorder’s EK-100 G3 receiver). Tune it to the same frequency as the transmitter, and you can receive the exact same feed as the camera. The EK-100 gives you a mic-level signal. Depending on the sensitivity of your headphones, you may need a headphone amplifier, the SD receiver may not have enough power for your particular application. I’ve never done this myself, so YMMV.
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[Harlan Rumjahn] “…I spent about a hundred to see if the OST lav would work as beautifully as the COS-11D with the Sony PCM-M10. My thinking was that if the OST worked well, then the Tram would work just as well, and I would be comfortable in buying it.
Unfortunately, the OST 802 lav has a poor signal–less than half of that of the COS’s…”
You’re the first person I’ve heard of using lavalier mics directly into a Sony PCM-M10 recorder. And the first person I’ve heard who isn’t happy with the Oscar SoundTech lavalier mics.
I’m not saying recording directly to a PCM-M10 isn’t done. But in my work recording dialog, the “standard practice” is to power the lavs from either a mixer (like an SD MixPre-D) or a wireless transmitter (like a Sennheiser SK-100 G3). Under these conditions, the Oscar SoundTech mics work wonderfully. I’ve got a pair of the 802s as my front line mics, and use them in both of the above workflows. I could not be happier with a lav; the 802s are excellent.
Since so many people have such good results with the OST mics using conventional workflows, I’m thinking the fault lies more with the PCM-M10 than with the mics. But call OST’s customer support and talk to them about what you are trying to do. They are supposed to be really good; maybe they’ve encountered this before. IDK.
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[Mark Suszko] “Something else to consider is relative contrast to the background: bright white or gray hair looks even brighter against a dark backdrop, even when properly exposed.”
This. It’s not just about level, it’s also about contrast. Just don’t let his hair be the brightest thing in the picture, and you’ll generally be OK.
For example, if you put him in front of a white background, pull his face down to an IRE around, oh, 50-60, his hair may go to 80s, and look light gray compared to a white background at IRE mid 90s.
You could also try a mid level background that contains a practical light that’s up near IRE 100. Then, even though his hair is lighter than the background, his hair will be darker than the practical which will make it seem less bright.
Play with it. There are many paths to the waterfall.
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[Daniel Stone] “Would love to know what lav mics you guys are using and how you like them.”
I’m using a pair of Oscar SoundTech 802s for interviews. The 802’s response curve is for on-the-clothes and visible to the camera work. The 801 is for under-the-clothes hidden from the camera work. The 802s sound very similar to the Tram 50s (at least to me) but for considerably less money.
I get pretty consistent results with mine. The “key” to handling noise (if there really is such a thing) seems to be isolating the cable from the mic. I do this with a strain relief loop just below the mic held in place by gaffer tape or 3M micropore tape (skin friendly). This reduces the cable handling noise to near inaudibility for me.
Also, I tend to avoid getting the mics too close to the mouth. Sounds counter-intuitive I know, but in my experience getting a lav. too close can make the speaker sound bad by calling attention to any speech faults, like a nasal tone, etc. So I try to keep my placements close to the “nipple line” (men or women) and centered on the chest. When I can do this, I normally get pretty good sound.
If you’re hiding the mic under clothes… well, that kind of mount is almost its own art form. Lots has been written about it, and about how to avoid the noises you get from rubbing on clothes or clothes rubbing on themselves (artificial fabrics in particular tend toward crackly sounds). Search around and you’ll find bunches.
Finally, no lav. I’ve heard or heard of intercuts well with any boomed mic. At least part of the reason is that a body mounted lav. is essentially a boundary mic, and can only hear well what’s in the half-sphere that it can “see” (the body shadows the back half-sphere). A boomed mic OTOH can hear in a full 360 degree sphere. Then there’s the problem of the lav. is usually located below the mouth/nose, and the boomed mic is generally located above the mouth/nose. Add it all up and they just sound different. Getting them to sound closer to each other is a post exercise, but you can’t make a lav. sound like a boom.
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[Ken S.] “what do you recommend for a two mic lav setup, two sennheiser g3 units or the audio technica 1801 dual system?”
The only 1801 I can find in the AT lineup is the ATW-T1801 which is just a bodypack transmitter.
Doesn’t matter though, my advice would be the same. That is, the Sennheisers. Probably a lot more money, but the G3s have proven themselves over the last few years and have become the defacto entry level lavalier standard. The darlings of the indy video crowd because it’s the cheapest solution they have found to get the range and reliability they need.
That said, the AT System 10 (which I think you were trying to reference, but maybe not) is new and has some interesting properties. Heck, our own Ty Ford has tested it and reviewed it favorably. But it hasn’t stood the test of time yet.
When I see the AT system 10 gear being used by indy filmakers on a more or less regular basis, I’ll consider slotting that just under the G3s on my recommended list. But that hasn’t happened yet in my experience.
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[Joe Taylor] “Am just curious if location stereo sound is ever recorded for dialogue and if so how it is captured.”
Really dialog capture is always mono. The person speaking is basically a point source so mono in nature. Then if you move a stereo pair of microphones like you would have to to record dialog, you’ll find that the viewers of your film object mightily. Some actually get sick. People do not like listening to a moving stereo field. At all. Research that, there have been journal papers written on the topic. It’s out there to find if you’ll look for it.
From a practical standpoint, it’s difficult enough to do a decent job booming a single mic. If you more than double the weight on the end of a boom pole, it just gets worse. If you then have to aim a pair of microphones and worry about angling the stereo field, it becomes nearly impossible. And then when you find out what this does to the viewers, it become almost completely pointless.
Just don’t go there. Get yourself a shotgun mic and a hypercardioid, and use them as appropriate, and everyone will be much happier.
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[Richard Greenwood] “What I want to know from you guys is will purchasing a better lavalier mic and using with this kit improve my audio quality, or is the receiver/transmitter the thing that is holding back my quality just as much if not more than the mic?”
What Mr. Ford said. If the mic is the weak link, using a better mic will help. If the wireless is the weak link, using a better mic may not help.
But the biggest improvement may well be using a wire instead of wireless. I keep telling people (not that they listen) that wireless is the last resort. Last. Not first. Last. That’s because there isn’t a wireless transmitter/receiver pair made at any price that can equal the sound of a cheap XLR cable. Nor can the wireless equal the reliability of the cable. And it certainly can’t equal the price of a cable.
But if you insist on using a better lavalier microphone with your existing wireless set, look at the Oscar SoundTech mics. If you (or OST) can identify and source the connector, they can make one for you that plugs right in to your existing unit. The OST mics are perhaps the biggest bang for the buck in lavalier mics right now. I’ve got two, both with the phantom power supply converters, and wired so that I can use them either with phantom power, or with a Sennheiser wireless system. These were a big upgrade from the Sennheiser ME2 mics that ship with the G3 wireless systems. But they sound better over XLR. Just sayin’.
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[Tim Neighbors] ” I’m just looking for the best solution that doesn’t involve extra crew. As it is, they can’t hear audience questions at all.”
Since this is video only, the best thing I’ve found is to post the question in a lower third on the video itself. Let the viewer read it and forget about them being able to hear it (or hear any more of it than the presenter’s lav can give them). My experiments lead me to think you need it on the screen for about seven seconds or a little more if you can. And try to edit the question down to where you can put it on a single line on your lower third. You can’t put a paragraph up on the screen and expect people to read it. Also, do some legibility testing. It takes a surprisingly big font to be seen on a small screen. But all that said, this is done all the time, and is probably the most used solution to your problem for videos of classes and presentations. It won’t work for everything, but it works for a lot of things like this.
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[Tim Neighbors] “I’m looking to install some fixed mics for a small room (about 35ft wide, 25ft deep) with theatre seating for an audience. This room will be used for presentations (presenter at podium, powerpoint on projector screen next to him/her) and we need to record audience questions audibly.”
Fixed “room mics” are not going to work like you seem to want. Microphones aren’t like the human auditory system. Mics don’t just show you what you want to hear and throw away the rest like the human brain does. What you always get from a mic is everything it hears. Everything. The reason to close-mic dialog is to have a decent signal to noise ratio. Where the signal is the dialog you want to hear, and the noise is everything else. As you increase your distance from the signal source, the level of the signal declines until it becomes equal to the level of the noise. Yuck.
What does this mean to your application? If you install “room mics” you’ll have to turn up the gain on your mic preamps to get a decent level on your audience member’s question. This will in turn raise the level of every noise the rest of the audience is making (coughs, pages turning, noise like squeaks from the chairs, all the murmured conversations, phones, computers, etc.). Not to mention turning up the level on the building HVAC, light hum, reverb from the speaker in the hall, etc. And it will all be at a level just below the audience member’s spoken question. You aren’t going to like it.
But there’s no reason to take my word for it. You can do the experiment yourself. All it takes is the lavalier you use for the presenters, or even a cheap all-in-one “shaver” like a Tascam DR-05 or a Zoom H1. Place it on the podium (to get closer to mouth level so you don’t have to bend down so much), get your mouth 60cm away or so, and ask a typical audience member question. Then repeat, but move 2m away, and then again at 4m away, etc. Listen to the recordings you made. See what you think.
What this little experiment will show you is that if you want the questions from widely scattered audience members to be the match for lavalier wearing presenters you need to get the mic closer to them than a fixed room mic can be. You need to be closer than around 60cm to the person talking if you “want it to be less ‘roomy’ sounding and more present” as you say.
This implies a boom person with a boom pole that has enough reach to get to the person speaking, or a couple of people with hand held “reporter mics” who can move around the audience and put a mic in front of a speaker, or a “question station” with a mic on a stand that people queue up behind to ask their questions.
That’s just exactly what you’re trying to avoid, I know. But the laws of physics are not easily bent I’m afraid.