[David C jones]

You should always use headphones when recording audio; you’ll be amazed at what you don’t notice without them!

A low-cut filter on a mixer won’t eliminate noises like slamming doors and sharp or strong sounds like that; a low-cut filter eliminates low frequencies below a slected frequency (like 100Hz or 140Hz). These would include the ever popular 60Hz AC or refregerator; noises that are continuous in nature. I was on a shoot one time where there was this cooler or refregerator in the business above us, and we would have to wait until it would shut off to shoot.

[David C jones]

I addition to that, make sure EVERYTHING is off: refrig, AC, fans, the neighbors AC, TV’s, cars…ok…well, anyway, the reason is because since you’re not using a mixer (which has low-cut filters), you can end up getting a lot of low-end noise that you won’t notice with your ears, until it’s already recorded; plugging directly into the camera, you have no control over it, other than turning it all off.

[David C jones]

If you have carpeting you won’t need them for the floor.

You don’t have to cover all the walls with sound blankets; the goal is to have a natural sound, void of echos and reverbs. Of course this all really depends on the room size.

Assuming you are basically locking the camera down on a static shot (no panning or moving), you would probably be fine hanging two blankets (one on one side of the subject and one on the other) just out of camera range.

[David C jones]

Hi Stan-

Sound blankets are pretty much the same as moving pads. Moving pads are used by furniture moving companies. Matthews Studio Equipment (MSE) makes “sound blankets” and are available at B&H Photo Video for around $48. You can also buy furniture pads (or moving blankets) from ether “Two Men and a Truck” or a few on-lines moving supply companies. They’ll be less expensive, but make sure you get good ones (good padding).

As far as how to use them, unless you have carpeting, you’ll need them for the floor; you’ll want to hang one or two (or more) of them as close as you can to where you’re recording audio (just out of camera range). I use C-Stands with boom arms and hang them by the gormets with s-hooks. This can all get pretty expensive, esp. since Matthews is the only company that makes them with gormets and c-stands aren’t cheap, ether. If you get blankets without gorments, you can use “pony clamps” (available at The Home Depot) to hold them in place.

[David C jones]

I was wondering…could you tell us what kind of shoot this is?

I also agree with Will and Ty that this is not something you want to do alone. Anytime you’re dealing with more than two mics and only two tracks, you can’t just leave them all up and forget it. As Ty said, you’ll wind up with so much room noise, the audio will be unusable.

[David C jones]

Hi Jonathan-

I’m not sure anything involving 4 wireless mics is simple ;o)

Are you doing it all or will you have help? On the camera, are you mixing two wireless mics to channel 1, and the other two to channel 2? Is this up to you how it is mixed, or the director/producer? What kind of mixer are you using? What kind of wireless transmitters/receivers?

As far as your question, yes, you would connect your outputs on your mixer to the inputs on the camera. Make sure you are set up to go line level-out to line level-in on the camera (or mic level-out to mic level-in if the camera doesn’t have true line level). But make sure the inputs on the mixer are set to mic level-in for the wireless receivers.

[David C jones]

Hi Daniel-

The problem is probably not with the mic or mount, but with the clothing itself; if it’s a silk, satin, or nylon type material, it will cause noise that you might not otherwise hear with your ear but, the mic picks it up (like a tie or even a suit jacket). If the shirt has any starch in it, that can cause noise, too.

I had a nightmare shoot one time where a woman had on a period dress made out of satin; no matter what I tried, including making a baseball size wad of tape and putting the mike inside it, all a heard, was clothing noise.

If you think it’s the cord, try taping it (the cord) on the inside of the jacket using 2 inches of 1″ camera tape (near the clip).

[David C jones]

In regard to the Zoom…I’m wondering about the vague reference to timecode; does it generate timecode, or is the idea that you send TC into channel 2 from a camera or HDD?

[David C jones]

The BBC is on some serious drugs if they think super 16mm transferred to HD, isn’t HD! I’d love to know how that got brought up when the list was being made. You’re telling me, that video shot on a 1/2 chip camera, at 720p, is better than super 16 shot with an ARRI SR-3, transferred to 1080p or 2k. Really?

I’m all for setting high standards for broadcast, but I think this list was made in haste and needs to be re-visited, or they’re not going to have much programming.

[David C jones]

Hi Ty-

Great post! I had the same problem last month, but with Apples’ Soundtrack Pro; it doesn’t have any meter markings. It did seem to indicate some sort of numbers in db’s that would “appear” when a signial was sent to it, but the instruction manual was useless in telling us how to use the meter. Granted, I was using the software program for something that it really wasn’t meant to be used for: recording voiceover. But every piece of equipment that records audio, should have industry standard markings on it.