Bruce Watson
Forum Replies Created
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[Ty Ford] “Hey Bruce,
Which Oscars did you get?”
I’ve got a pair of the 802s, which are designed to be mounted over clothing (visible, like the newsreaders on the nightly news). They also have the 801s, which have sufficient high frequency rise to compensate for being hidden under clothing, but I don’t do much narrative work, so don’t have much call for 801s.
I think the OST lavs are one of the great bargains in audio. They just crush the Sennheiser ME-2 kit mics for not a lot of money; they are a significant upgrade to the G3s and perhaps the G4s as well if they still come with ME-2s. That said, these lavs aren’t going to challenge a Sanken COS-11d or a DPA 4060 in ultimate sound quality. But for the price? These things rock.
On top of that dealing with OST is easy and painless. Tell them what system you want to terminate for (Sennheiser, Lectro, etc.) and they’ll do it, and you can get their “Power Supply-XLR” (XLR phantom power -> plugin power converter) terminated the same way. So you can quickly and easily switch between wireless or wired as the situation demands. I didn’t think I’d use the XLR converter much, but I find I use them most of the time now. I only use the wireless radios when I have to.
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[Lauren Brinkman] “I’m looking for a professional/semi professional kit so that my end products can be submitted to reputable film festivals. Here’s the kit I’m considering investing in.
– 2x Sennheiser EW 100 ENG G3’s – ~600 used, if lucky?
– 1x A-Band 518-554 MHz, 1x b band
– 1x Sanken or Countryman mic (for better quality audio on main character) – ~300 new
– Sennheiser shotgun on camera (i’ve done the least about of research on this) – ~300 used
– Zoom H4N – ~150 usedDoes anyone have any suggestions, revisions, recommendations for this kit?”
Some things to know. First, rumor has it that Sennheiser will announce the G4s, perhaps at NAB like… tomorrow? IDK. This will put downward pressure on the prices of the G3s. Also, if you’re in the USA, for G3s I’d look for A-block and G-block. I’d avoid B-block as the 600-700 MHz range has been sold off by the FCC and won’t be legal for wireless microphone use after sometime around June of 2020 IIRC. That said, wireless is a last resort, not a first. Use an XLR cable if you can. But wireless is always nice to have in your kit when you have to have it.
Lavalier microphones are sorta religious objects. People have their favorites and defend them vigorously. Thus the Sanken and Countryman references. Nothing wrong with these mics if used properly. But they are expensive, and one can make the argument that they are overkill for Sennheiser G3s. I wouldn’t make that argument if we were talking Lectrosonics or Zaxcom. But like you, I’m using the Sennheiser G3s. And I took a chance on the Oscar Soundtech mics and have been really happy with them. They are as good as their hype; they sound great and are a serious upgrade from the Sennheiser kit mic (ME2? I forget). Anyway, something to consider.
If you’re ever going to run your lavs directly into your camera, you’ll need to 1) convert to XLR, and 2) convert phantom power to plug-in power for the mic. Usually companies that sell lavs sell these converters. Just make sure you have them if you need them. Do not try to power a lav mic directly from XLR phantom power.
I’m not at all a fan of a shotgun mic mounted on camera. That’s almost never a good spot for a microphone of any kind. If you’re going to insist on it (and we know you are) you will be wasting your money on a top level mic. For that duty I’d be looking at something like the AT875R which punches way above it’s weight class. But don’t expect miracles — an out of position mic is going to sound out of position no matter how much you pay for it. And if you’re going to literally be running with the camera, you’ll need wind protection for the mic too.
Rather than an H4N I’d go with something that had better (less noisy) preamps. Perhaps the best bargain out there right now is a Zoom F4. The problem is that inexpensive microphones tend to be less sensitive and therefore need more (clean) gain from a preamp. And inexpensive preamps tend to have less clean gain to give, so they want a more sensitive mic. IOW: inexpensive mic + inexpensive preamp = noise. If you want good sound, you’ve got to get out of the mud, and the F4 is in my estimation the minimum required to get there in a recorder.
Another way to go is to find a used Sound Devices MixPre-D (not at all hard to find used) and use that to feed your camera at line level. The MixPre-D has excellent mic preamps, excellent limiters, and excellent metering (once you understand it). And they make a bracket for it that lets you mount the camera directly on top of it which makes it particularly attractive to one-man-band types. This is how I do it, so I know it works.
The thing missing from your proposed kit is a good hypercardioid mic. For sit down interviews I’d much rather have sound from a hyper on a boom poll on a c-stand where the mic is just barely above the top frame line of your camera, out in front of the subject pointing toward the mouth at roughly a 45 degree angle (basically as close as you can get it without it being seen). Usually considerably better sound than a lav, no matter how expensive the lav or wireless radios are. Hypers beloved of the indy film makers include the Audix SCX1-HC, and the AT4053B, both of which can be had used with some effort.
Finally, good sound doesn’t just happen. It takes at least as much effort as good picture. If you aren’t willing to spend the same amount of time and effort on the sound, your odds of matching your picture are low. Which is why you’ll keep running into the advice to hire a sound person and leave the sound (and equipment) to them. It’s good advice. My experience with indy films and documentaries is that the audience will forgive all kinds of video flaws, from grainy washed out footage to shaky-cam, but if the sound is bad they’ll get up and walk out. If they can’t understand the dialog, they are gone. Just sayin’.
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[Dan Sudkamp] “Previously when we had both mics wired we experienced no issues, but since introducing the AVX system with the included lav I have found that the lav is consistently a fraction of a second behind the boom. I don’t know the proper way to calculate the difference but by my estimation it’s about 1/30th of a second behind.”
Yup. Latency. The AVX is speced at about 19ms IIRC.
The easiest and best solution for you is to only use wireless when you can’t do it with wires. Wireless is a last resort, not a first. And this latency problem is just one reason why. Said another way: just because you have it available doesn’t mean you have to use it.
Second easiest solution would probably be to use a clapper board. Makes sync easy and exact. Hollywood has been using clappers since the dawn of talkies. If it’s good enough for them…
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[Bob Cole] “Given the regulatory changes in the U.S., which frequency ranges are more likely to stay safe for wireless recording?
470-516 or 516-558?”
Both choices are “safe”. I do not know of any FCC plans to auction off the 500-600 MHz band. Doesn’t mean there aren’t any, just that I personally don’t know about them. IIRC below 600 MHz is less useful to cell phone communication, so this part of the spectrum may not get sold, or at least not too soon. There’s always hope.
The 600-700 MHz band has been sold off and the apparatus is grinding away to move all the TV broadcast stations that were affected by the sale. But it’s going to take years (39 months from 13-apr-2017 actually) to complete the transition. This is sometimes referred to as the “great repacking” because it’s causing many (most?) broadcast stations to move even if they were already below 600 MHz (UHF 37? IDR) due to how the stations interfere with one another. It is a serious mess, and a royal PITA for those stations that went through this less than 10 years ago when we transitioned from analog to digital in 2009. This more-or-less overlapped with the sale of the 700-800 MHz band which was sold off just before the digital transition, so at least the new digital broadcasts antennas in 2009 were not in the 700 MHz block.
More than you wanted to know, no doubt, but there it is.
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[Peter Groom] “I dont get this. Why do some people seem to object to paying good money for good music.
You’ll happily part with £££ for a new camera, or £££ for a lens, but music. NO – it has to be free?”Not free. Royalty free. Pay once, use as much as you want/need.
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Wife wanted to watch the Oscars last night. The “red carpet show” and the actual presentations were crawling with Sennheiser mics. When the reporters would make a slip like not swinging the mic fast enough toward an interviewee you could hear how they performed out of pattern. Sure sounded like omnis to me. Then again, they didn’t look long enough to be MD mics, so perhaps mics based on their SKM D1 handheld transmitters. Everything was wireless that I could see. Must have been a fun load-in and setup. 😉
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[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.”
Yes, well, I’d be interested in what makes you say that because it doesn’t jive with what I’m seeing. From what I’ve seen in the last few years very few events outside of football playoff games and the NCAA tournament make enough noise to force the roving sideline reporters to use cardioid stick mics. What I’m seeing are dynamic omnis except in the noisiest of environments. I watched three-five (depends on how you define “watched”) basketball games today, didn’t see a single cardioid stick mic held by a sideline reporter. All I saw (that weren’t using printed foam windscreen/mic flags that obscure the top of the mic making identification difficult) were EV RE50Ns. I’m in NA so this isn’t surprising. The announcers of the NBC games I watched where wearing headsets that looked to be some version of Sennheiser HMDs (had that split headband, but I didn’t recognizes the boom mic, or at least the foam on the boom mics).
Using a cardioid stick mic requires talent to actually have microphone talent (a pretty rare thing IME), and training. It takes a fair amount of practice on top of the training to use a cardioid correctly. Beginners invariably turn their heads out of pattern, many within seconds of being told not to. And it’s very difficult to get people to hold the mic a fixed distance to the mouth — they’ve got other things to do other than think about mic position, like think about what they are trying to say, making sure they maintain proper head and body orientation to the camera (so they look good on camera and thus keep their jobs), etc. So I’ve seen a lot of microphone “droop” resulting in variable proximity effect from a cardioid, which is audible (unless your HPF is set very high).
Those two things alone (going in/out of pattern, and variable proximity effect) are two excellent reasons to avoid cardioid stick mics. Just like cardioid lavs, I don’t own any cardioid stick mics. All my lavs and stick mics are omnis. Saves me a lot of trouble, keeps my talent sounding good, makes everyone happy, and works even in very noisy environments like trade show floors.
But if I were ever called upon to do interviews at the NCAA final four (and I didn’t have the good sense to refuse the job), I would in fact be looking to rent cardioid stick mics.
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An alternative to the RE50N is the Sennheiser MD 42, which is the standard reporters’ mic in most of Europe. Note that you want an omni, not a cardioid. Two main reasons: talent going out of pattern with a card is very audible and painful in post, and talent generating variable proximity effect by moving the mic closer and farther from the mouth is also quite painful in post. An omni on the other hand you can just hand it to them with “hold the mic about here and talk”. Most all the problems you’ll have in post are just level problems, as opposed to the frequency response problems you’ll get with a card. Just sayin’.
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The standard mic for this duty in NA is the EV RE50N/D-B. I’ve used mine a number of times for interviews on tradeshow floors. Works like a charm, sounds great, and it’s practically indestructible.
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I like the Music Bakery myself. Of course, YMMV.