Bruce Watson
Forum Replies Created
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[Victor Osaka] “I’ve searched high and low for a solution to eliminating or suppressing the noise I get from audience members handling the mics.”
Perhaps because you’re using a mic that’s not designed for the duty you are using it for? Why are the mics being passed around, why are they hypers, has the audience had any microphone training?
The general use case for handing a random person a mic for them to speak into is an omni reporter’s stick mic. Typically an EV RE50N/D-B in North America or a Sennheiser MD 42 in most of Europe. These mics are omnis (much less handling noise), have internal suspension systems (even less handling noise), sound great, are amazingly sturdy, and as dynamic mics are low sensitivity (low audience noise, and no need for phantom power). The added bonus with an omni is that having the talent go way out of pattern doesn’t much matter and doesn’t require much if any repair in post.
The problems with non-omni mics is that the talent usually has no idea how to use them, so they don’t hold them in the right location (proximity effect, out of pattern), don’t keep them in the same location (variable proximity effect, going out of pattern simply by twisting the mic), and don’t address them properly in the first place. Then there’s the problem of holding the mic in one place while they turn their head every which way (going wildly in and out of pattern). Way too much work in post, and usually a sub par result.
Finally, if you can get away with using a cable you’ll save yourself a bunch of money and a bunch of trouble. No wireless system can sound as good as a $20 USD XLR cable, wireless is way more expensive, and wireless is way less reliable.
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[Tarik Fouda] “Any suggestions in terms of mic technique or setup?”
Really, no.
Too much depends on the space they are playing in, the musicians themselves, the music they are playing, the instruments they are playing. Since you haven’t described any of these things, we can’t begin to guess at what you might need. How I’d want to record a Bach cantata in a big stone church is completely different than how I’d want to record a Beethoven piano sonata in a compact performance hall. And both are completely different than recording in a relatively dead practice space.
A place to start might be a book like Ricard King’s Recording Orchestra and Other Classical Music Ensembles.
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[Richard Crowley] “1) the space is way too reverberent and
2) the microphone is the wrong type and
3) too far away from your mouth”What Ricard said.
First and foremost IMHO is that you should find ways to damp down the reflections in that room. Rugs, upholstered chairs, book cases, even hanging moving blankets (off the wall 30 cm or more, not on the wall, so the sound has to pass through the blanket twice, and therefore be attenuated twice).
Also, move your set/seat out into the room and away from that wall. While the room might be “big” by some measures, you are backed up against a wall. The sound bouncing off the wall behind you is reaching your mic just milliseconds after the direct sound from your mouth, giving you “small room sound” from the “rapid reflections”. It’s interesting that your shotgun didn’t really choke on that. Rapid reflections can give an interference tube mic (aka shotgun) fits, resulting in comb filtering artifacts. This is why most people tend to use hypercardioid mics in reflective rooms like this. I use an AT4053b for this kind of work, an Audix SCX1-HC would work nearly the same, there are of course many other hypers out there.
Next thing you do, is move that mic in closer. You want the mic to be 45-60 cm from the mouth, just above the frame line, pointed directly at the mouth, typically this results in a 45 degree angle pointing down toward the mouth. When I do this without a boom op, I use a c-stand with a boom pole holder to hold the boom pole with the mic on it in position, and outside of the frame. As long as the talent isn’t moving much, this works great for me.
If you are doing all these things and you are still disappointed in your sound quality, consider going to a lavalier mic like one often sees on local news crews reporting from their studios. Use an omni mic (not a cardioid, an omni) as close to the center of your chest as you can reasonably get it. Lavs require “plug in power” as opposed to phantom power; do not use phantom power on a lav mic unless it’s specifically designed for it. I use the Oscar Soundtech mics with their phantom-to-plugin-power converter so I can power them off my mixer’s phantom power. I avoid wireless as much as possible because it sounds so much better.
All this sounds picky I know, but little things can make an audible difference. Good luck with it.
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[saleh alzughaibi] “I currently use zoom H4N. Doesn’t have the greatest preamps.”
[saleh alzughaibi] “Looking to upgrade for something with better preamps/gain levels.”
If these are your primary concerns, the Zoom F4 does indeed look like the biggest bang for your buck. The mic preamps on the Zoom F4/F8 are said by some to be the equal of the entry level SD mic pres. Should give you what you are looking for.
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[Bob Mark] “My preference is to avoid doing a low cut in the field…”
Yep. About the only reason I can come up with for using low cut in the field is if the noise you are cutting is sufficiently loud that overloading the microphone is a danger.
I recorded interviews once in a hotel room that was right next to the main air handler for the floor. I got a ton of LF noise through the walls. Client picked the room, told me to do the best I could with it. Oh well… I walked the room listening for peaks and nulls, found a null, and put the interview chair there. Microphone on a boom, boom on a boom holder on a c-stand. Played with it enough that the interviewee and the mic were in the null. Then I turned on the low cut on the mic, and the low cut on my MixPre-D, resulting in a -24dB/octive low cut with a knee at 80 Hz.
I used the low cut on the mic because I didn’t want to take the chance on overloading the mic with LF crap, which would have in turn screwed up the higher (voice) frequencies. I used the low cut on the mixer because I was already committed, and I was thinking the extra -12dB/ octave might be enough that I wouldn’t need more in post. And that turned out to be the case.
But that’s the only time in years I’ve felt the need to use low cut in the field.
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[Bob Mark] “If they aren’t in the waveform, it sounds like a playback device issue.”
Yup. If it’s not in the waveform, it’s not in the file. So what you recorded is likely fine. Your problem seems to be downstream of your recorder (Macbook), in your playback system somewhere.
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[Adriano Castaldini] “So I wonder if it’s possible in some way to capture a binaural reverb from a stereo mic set, and then convert the binaural reverb into a 5.1 convolution reverb.”
Don’t know about from binaural, but from mono, stereo, and surround formats, yes:
https://www.waves.com/plugins/ir360-convolution-reverb
It probably works with binaural, but they don’t call it out separately from stereo. IDK for sure.
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[Maciek Bindas] “I just want to make sure before I make any purchase. I’m going to use Sennheiser G3 with Nikon D5300 to shoot good quality videos, but I would also like to record background audio for videos with powerpoint slides.
Will Rode SC4 3 inches Microphone Cable suffice to connect Sennheiser G3 with my PC and record good quality audio?
Or do I need a preamp?”I don’t believe you need a TRS to TRRS adapter to record audio to a PC. A single G3 set is a single channel (mono) device. Depending on how the Rode adapter is wired, it might pass the single channel to either left or right, or it might copy the channel to the other side so that left=right. But it’s still just a single channel of audio. And you can take the single channel and copy it to as many channels as you wish in any decent NLE or DAW. I’m just saying you don’t need an adapter to do that for you.
To the question of “do I need a preamp”, you probably do. The output from a G3 receiver is mic level. The receiver (EK 100) has a fair amount of gain available and you can turn it up quite high — maybe to the bottom end of consumer line level. But certainly not to pro line level. If I were in your shoes, I would certainly want a preamp between my D5300 and/or my PC and the EK 100 receiver but I’ve got one — a Sound Devices MixPre-D. The MixPre-D would work a treat for you, it will even give you a digital output (AES on right XLR, or over USB). They are fairly easy to find on the used market also, at least last I checked. Outstanding sound (likely way better than the preamps in your D5300 or your PC), excellent limiters (which might save your tail as it has mine on a few occasions), excellent meters and excellent control. And of course, it’s a mixer, so you can easily put your single channel input wherever you want it in a stereo field, there’s even a pan switch with a center option so you can put your mono signal exactly center of a stereo field if that’s what you need (which I find particularly useful when recording with a camera).
For more on the MixPre-D, the manual is here.
BTW, powerpoint slides are the devil’s spawn, you know that right? Just sayin’. 😉
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As Richard said, almost certainly an EV RE50N, the go-to reporter stick mic for local/national news crews all over NA. They have amazing resistance to wind noise. If you’re going to get one, get the RE50N/D-B which has higher output and therefore needs less preamp gain. Mine sounds fantastic, and in a pinch I can use it for a hammer. OK, just kidding there, but they are seriously rugged mics. I had mine dropped on a trade show floor in a crowd and trampled. Cleaned the foot prints off and it was good to go, sounds just as good as it did when it was new.
If you want an alternative, in Europe the Sennheiser MD 42 serves the same duty. That’s the 42, not the 46.
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[Benjamin Stafford] “My brother and I are planning to open a blackbox studio space in his warehouse. The purpose of the blackbox studio is to let artists perform live, record TV shows, etc… I am now helping him to research and get as much advice as possible regarding the acoustics. His warehouse is about 7500 sq. feet with a height of appr. 8,5 meters. The issue is that the warehouse walls are very thin and I believe they are made out of a metal-like material.”
First thing you do is hire an acoustical engineer (or firm) to come out and talk to you both and make recommendations.
As Richard says, the problem splits into two major categories. Sound proofing (isolating the inside sounds from the outside sounds) is one. The other is acoustical treatment (controlling and improving the quality of the inside sound).
To put it in basic terms (more for me than you probably) you are trying to build a TV sound stage. You’ll probably figure out soon that the exterior walls of the building are next to worthless beyond keeping weather out. You can improve them to a point (certainly insulating the walls / roof just to cut your HVAC bills, but also to reduce noise transmission), but in the end you’ll probably end up also building the sound stage as a “building inside a building” with it’s own separate walls and roof. Depending on your exterior noise situation (in particular, traffic rumble and industrial process rumble in the area) you may have to physically partition the concrete floor to separate it from the outside). Also know that HVAC systems make excellent noise transmission conduits so fully separate duct work is standard operating procedure, as is separate plumbing and lighting.
There are two excellent examples of this style of building just a few miles from my house. First is a TV studio that was build this way back in the late 1940s IIRC. They’ve been broadcasting the local news there ever since, with a little time out for a remodel about 20 years ago. The other is the local university music building. Three buildings inside the main building, sufficient that the entire marching band can hold a practice in one, and the entire 104 piece concert band can hold a practice in the adjoining one at the same time. I spent many happy hours in these rooms back in the 1970s and can affirm that they work as advertised. But I should point out that the floors for these rooms are also fully suspended on their own spring and damper systems. These rooms are *completely* isolated from the building they are in, and from each other. Probably overkill for what you need.
Problems like these are what makes an acoustical engineering consultant well worth the price. Much better to do it right the first time than to have to do it over. Just sayin’.