Bruce Watson
Forum Replies Created
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[Mark Suszko] “I need an affordable low-end solution that can help pick out the vocals above the instrument.”
As Richard said, that’s not going to happen. No microphone at any price is capable of isolating your performer’s voice from the ukulele performer is playing when the microphone position is 8-15 feet away. The laws of physics aren’t going to bend just because that’s what you want. Sound isn’t light; there is no audio equivalent of a telephoto lens.
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[Patrick Leeson] “What do you recommend?”
Look at your local and national news shows. What do you see?
OK, you don’t want to make that effort, so I’ll tell you what you would have seen. Lavs. Lots of them. Practically unanimous. About the same percentage of professional news readers use lavs as professional scientists believe in the theory of gravity. That is, nearly all.
And nearly all of these lavs are omnis.
So what I recommend is the Oscar Soundtech 802, worn above clothing and visible in your picture, just like very news show you can find. Get the XLR adapter (OST calls it a “power supply” IIRC, I don’t know why), and a sufficiently long XLR cable and you’re good to go. Way below your budget, and sound quality equal to the pros.
That, and move off the walls. And remember that shouting raises your levels in the room, which in turn makes more reverb noise; being loud and shouting aren’t good in small reflective rooms (and no mic can change these particular laws of physics for you). And keep your hands off your body — no demonstrative hand slaps to the chest as the lav will pick that up extraordinarily well. And learn what a strain relief is, and how to make and secure one with gaffer tape.
Anyway, this is what works for me, clearly YMMV.
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I suspect that the reason no one can answer is that your thinking is… against the laws of physics? Yes. This sorta captures it for me:
[Don Hertz] “We are going to be live streaming a theatrical play and I need to mic the stage.”
I don’t know how to break it to you (or more properly, your director), but you can’t “mic the stage” like you can “light the stage” because sound isn’t light. There is no microphone equivalent of a telephoto lens, or a follow spot.
The “golden rule” of sound recording, if there is one, is proper microphone placement. If you place your microphone(s) properly, you can record good quality sound. That is, sound that has lots of the signal you wanted to capture and very much less of the sound that you don’t want to capture — the signal to noise ratio.
This is why engineers invented lavalier mics — to hang them on people so they could record the people’s voices. By getting the mic close to the speaker’s mouth, they can record more signal (the speaker) and less noise (the “echo/hollowness of the space”). By mounting the mic on the speaker’s body or clothes, they can maintain the relative relationship between the mic and the speaker’s mouth, leaving the wearer to roam about on stage while letting the audio capture a relatively constant voice level and sound quality from the speaker.
By refusing lavs, your director has eliminated the only proven approach to solving his problem. If you want to “live stream a theatrical play” you need to mic the players, not mic the stage. Not the answer you wanted, I know. But the laws of physics are the laws of physics. Nothing a play director can do about that, and I’m sorry you got caught in the middle of it.
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[Noam Osband] “How do I know if this will work with my lavs?”
Excellent question. Lacking specifications on either the lavs or the rode interface, I have no way to answer.
[Noam Osband] “I don’t entirely trust OscarTech as they just keep pushing me to buy their own one (which, as it is a business, as well they should).”
Yeah, well. I don’t suppose you’ll trust me too much either when I tell you that I’m running two of the OST lavs, with two of the OST phantom to plug-in interfaces. The combination sounds exceptionally good to my ears. And I know the OST parts work together well; I’ve been using them for years.
The only problem I have with the OST XLR interface is the lack of any kind of a clip (like the Rode’s belt clip) to physically hold it in place. I’d rather not have to be constantly improvising, although I’m getting to be pretty good with velcro and of course gaffer tape. 😉
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Interestingly, it looks like Rode just recently released a product that might do what you want. Clearly, YMMV. It’s the Rode VXLR+ which converts the signal *and* converts power from phantom to plug-in.
Maybe Mr. Crowley has seen one of these things and can tell us more. The Rode website will only show me the VXLR, not the + so I’m not entirely sure of the specs.
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[Noam Osband] “In the meantime, for my own knowledge, what do you mean when you say they take “plug-in power”? That sounds to me like phantom power but obviously it’s not that.”
Phantom power is not plug-in power at all. Two completely different things.
Wikipedia gives a reasonable definition of phantom power. On that page, fairly far down, you’ll find a paragraph on plug-in power:
“Plug-in-power (PiP), is the low-current 3 V to 5 V supply provided at the microphone jack of some consumer equipment, such as portable recorders and computer sound cards. It is also defined in IEC 61938.[13] It is unlike phantom power since it is an unbalanced interface with a low voltage (around +5 volts) connected to the signal conductor with return through the sleeve; the DC power is in common with the audio signal from the microphone. A Capacitor is used to block the DC from subsequent audio frequency circuits. It is often used for powering electret microphones, which will not function without power. It is suitable only for powering microphones specifically designed for use with this type of power supply. Damage may result if these microphones are connected to true (48 V) phantom power through a 3.5 mm to XLR adapter that connects the XLR shield to the 3.5 mm sleeve.[14] Plug-in-power is covered by Japanese standard CP-1203A:2007[15] A similar line-powering scheme is found in computer sound cards. Both plug-in-power and soundcard power are defined in the second edition of IEC 61938.[16]”
IOW, just what Mr. Crowley said. Note the part where it talks about how damage may result if you attach a mic that needs plug-in power to a true phantom power source.
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[Brian Green] “Aside from hooking up a lav to the interviewees, my current interview setup of a RODE NTG-2 shotgun mic coupled with a Zoom H4n Pro isn’t doing the trick (it’s not recording a strong enough sound).
Would love some recommendations for a different shotgun mic, recorder, and/or setup.”
Yeah, you aren’t the first. By a long shot. The problem of using a bargain mic (low sensitivity) and a bargain mixer/recorder (preamps without much clean gain), is noise. If you want a louder signal with less noise, you’re going to have to spend some money, either on a more sensitive mic, or better preamps that can supply sufficient clean gain, or preferably both.
You want suggestions. So… how about a used Sennheiser MKH 60 for a shotgun. It will definitely give you more signal, and it’s very quiet. The Rode alternative is the NTG-3 but it’s also considerably more expensive than your NTG-2. For better mic preamps I’m thinking used Sound Devices equipment. A used MixPre-D would give you excellent mic pres, outstanding limiters, and excellent meters, and it’s designed to give you outs to DSLRs. But… it doesn’t include a recorder. If you really want a recorder, you can probably do rather well with a Zoom F4. Really good mic pres, and it records. And no, an H6 isn’t going to do it for you.
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Probably because you aren’t powering it correctly. Lavs in general take “plug-in power”. If you plugged your mic into an XLR with full phantom power, you may have fried your lav. To get a signal, you’ll probably need a phantom to plug-in power converter.
As an example, on the Oscar Soundtech lav page, about half way down and first item after the “Accessories” heading, is a picture of their Power Supply-XLR converter that they sell to convert phantom power to plug-in power for their lav mics.
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[Seth Diamond] “Audio Technica AT4053b (boom for indoor voice) ***OR*** Audio Technica AT875b (short shotgun for outdoors) —(8” XLR patch cable)—>
Sennheiser MZA14 48 (supplies +48V phantom power to either mic) —(8” XLR patch cable)—>
Sennheiser EW100 G3 wireless microphone XLR transmitter —(WIRELESS CONNECTION)—>
Sennheiser EW100 G3 wireless receiver —(3.5” headphone jack to XLR)—>
Sony FS7 (line in)”As I said over on Gearslutz, the problem is that you are trying to use the Sennheiser G3 output as line level. You’ll have to crank the receiver all the way up to get to the bottom of consumer line level (+4dB professional line level isn’t a possibility with the G3). There’s some of your hiss. Then you have weak line level at your FS7 so you have to crank up the volume there, and there’s the rest of your hiss.
Use the G3 as Sennheiser intended — as a microphone. So drop the FS7 to mic level input, turn the volume down on the FS7, and use the G3 receiver to carry most of the amplification load to come into the FS7 with a strong mic level signal. If you get your gain staging right you should have substantially less hiss in your recordings.
But the real problem here is you aren’t using a mixer. People are practically giving away SD MixPre-Ds on the used markets. Get one and use it, sell off the MZA14. You’ll get considerably better sound, less noise (the MixPre-D can easily deliver a pro line level signal to your FS7), much better metering, and first class limiters. The limiters are worth the price of admission by themselves.
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[Rika Chiya] “If the dialogue is recorded in Mono, it can be exported in stereo by putting the mono tracks on each of the L & R channels, is that correct?”
Yes. This is the “standard way of doing things” for dialog that isn’t going into a surround sound track (5.1, 7.1, ect.). For example, if your aim is to create a video with a stereo sound track, sending your mono dialog track to L/R of the stereo sound track will create a “phantom center channel”. That is, the dialog will sound like it’s coming from the mid point between the L and R speakers. Typically that’s exactly what you want.