Bruce Watson
Forum Replies Created
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[Ty Ford] “Your brain processes sound binaurally. Presuming that you have two ears, no, I would not get just one speaker. Maybe if you had one ear, yes”
This is one of those (exceedingly) rare instances where I disagree with Mr. Ford. If you’re listening to a mono recording, a single speaker can be sufficient. If you have one speaker, you can still use both ears to listen to it. No rules against that.
That said, just because you only need one, doesn’t mean you can’t use two. For example, if you ever listen to music while you work at your desk, two might be a better choice. If you ever edit video and need to add a stereo music bed to parts of it, two will certainly be a better choice. And if you’re ever going to want to use two, you might was well buy a stereo pair initially.
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[Sophia Smoloka] “I know an omnidirectional mic would be better but I’d like something that can also be plugged into the computer, or just more of an all-rounder.”
I wouldn’t sacrifice omnidirectional character for anything else when it comes to a reporter mic. All directional mics exhibit proximity effect as well as directionality, both of which can play havoc with interviews. IOW, you need a well trained interviewer who knows exactly how to use the mic (maintaining spacing and directionality), and religiously uses it just that way, or the results can be, well… less than professional.
I’m just sayin’ that you can sacrifice quite a bit by giving up an omni. So I’m with Mr. Crowley in thinking it’s better to use an XLR to USB interface. Then use a standard reporters mic. In NA the most often seen mic is the EV RE50N/D-B, in Europe it’s probably the Sennheiser MD-42.
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What Mr. Crowley said.
My own experience with Audition CS6 is that if you try to completely eliminate the noise you’ll end up with artifacts you don’t want in the sound that’s left. Even if you do multiple light passes, which seems to in fact be a better technique, you still end up with some artifacting.
What I found worked best for interviews was to apply multiple light passes until I started to hear some artifacting. Then I backed up a pass. This left some level of noise (but quite reduced) without the artifacts effecting the interview dialog. This I found much more desirable that the complete eradication of the noise.
Takes some patience, some experimentation, but it’s usually doable.
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[Edward Holpfer] “during the recording”
Your original post was about editing in Audition after the fact. Now you are talking about mixing during the recording. Which is it?
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[Edward Holpfer] “Are there any tools to silence the audio on individual tracks when that person isn’t speaking?”
There’s you! Welcome to dialog editing. Turn down the mic feeds when they aren’t being used. Turn them up when they are. Use room tone to bridge the gaps. Done well, it’s seamless and “natural”. Easier said than done though.
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This is an SMPTE timecode function? This is just metadata in parallel with the audio for video sync purposes? But does it have anything to do with the actual audio that gets recorded? IOW, does it effect the audio sample rate? I don’t think it does, but I’m more than willing to be corrected.
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[Ryan Atkins] “I’ll be filming a scene this weekend on the Panasonic GH4 at 96fps. Is there anything special I need to do with audio to have it sync for a 23.98 output?”
No. The audio recorder doesn’t have any idea what “frame rate” is, it merely records it’s audio at the sample frequency (not at all the same thing as frame rate) and bit depth that you specify.
If for example you record half an hour of video at 96 fps, and at the same time half an hour of audio at 48kHz/24bits, what you’ll end up with is half an hour of video and audio. When you take your 96 fps video and play it back at 24 fps, you’ll end up with two hours (96 / 24 = 4, and 0.5 x 4 = 2 hours) of video.
Clearly, if you sync them both to a clapper, then start playing both at the sync point, after half and hour you’ll run out of audio. What you’ll do about that is editor’s choice, but one would think you’ll be editing down your two hours of video footage to half an hour to match up with the playing time of your audio.
If that doesn’t answer your question, I’ll need more of an explanation of what you’re actually trying to accomplish.
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First things first, using a cardioid mic for a lavalier is hardly ever done. Why? Unless you are well trained and well disciplined, you’ll end up turning your head while you talk and take your mouth out of pattern. This is a bad thing, very hard to fix in post. Use an omni. Just do it. Probably 98% of lavaliers in actual use are omnis.
Look at the Oscar SoundTech (https://oscarsoundtech.com/) mics. If you insist on hiding the mic, look at the 801 and the very small TL-40. These mics are surprisingly good values. If you want “the best” you can look at the Sanken cos-11d and DPA 4060 lavaliers. They sound a little better, for a lot more money. There are of course many others in between. The OSTs are easily the best value though.
There are many, many ways to mount a lavalier under a t-shirt. For one, look at the Rycote Stickies. If you insist on wearing a t-shirt, make sure it’s 100% cotton, no synthetics, and as thick as you can find. Resist the urge to mount the mic high up, mount it close to your “nipple line” on your chest, right on your sternum. Don’t forget to tape down a strain release loop right under the mic.
Finally, you say you’re doing this for better sound. So… go wired. It’s cheaper, more reliable, and it sounds better. The most expensive wireless kit is almost as good as a $20 wire. Almost. And that kit is a lot more expensive than the Sennheiser G3s. I own and use a G3 kit myself, I’m certainly not down on them. But when I can I use a wire, because it sounds better.
One of the joys of the OST mics is that you can get them wired for Sennheiser, and you can also get their phantom/plugin power converter wired for Sennheiser. So you can use the same mic either wired or wireless. OST sells it all in a kit, and I liked mine so much I bought a second one.
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[Marc Lucas] “Is there any truth in this?”
Some. We in the USA are loosing most of the B block of frequencies, and a bit of the G block. Sometime in the next few years, I don’t remember exactly when. The A block is unaffected:
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[Jason Schoenfeld] “I had to increase the sensitivity to again bring it back up, but it does sound a little cleaner.”
Are you talking about adjusting sensitivity on the transmitter belt pack, or about the gain on the receiver? They aren’t interchangeable. They each have to be set properly, and they each can contribute to noise.
[Jason Schoenfeld] “Maybe I’m just expecting too much.”
I don’t think you are. My G3 set is nearly noiseless. The Sennheiser mic preamps are considerably better (including less noisy) than the mic preamps in most any camera you can find. Turning up the gain at the receiver and turning down (way down) the gain at the camera really helped me when I was working this way (wireless directly into camera). Gave me nearly noiseless interview dialog. And I never needed any software noise reduction in post.
You’re headed in the right direction. Keep at it, listening to every change you make. You’ll get there, it just takes some time, effort, and thought.