[Jonathan Levin]

I’d be inclined to use a wired lav.

[Jonathan Levin]

Hey Brian.

Yeah the NT3 is like mounting an axle from a Chevy to a C stand. Lifting it makes for a good work out. Great mic though.

As far as the other issue, The interview was a sit down. Did the 3-1 method of miking.

Jonathan

[Jonathan Levin]

I am one of those people for now that does the Boom mic and a Lav approach. And here is my reasoning why. Ty and others please feel free to enlighten me about my thinking:

First, Ty is correct, a boomed mic will and does sound a ton better than my Audio technica 899 lav.

I like the idea that I can “mix” in post the Lav and in my case a Rode NT3 Cardioid mic. I can balance the (to my ears) thinness of the lav with the ballsiness of the NT3. I realize I can adjust this using HP filters and all that, but I like trying to do things mechanically first. And although I realize the 899 is Omnidirectional, I like being able to add a little room/ambience in post with the NT3. So in post my mix may look like the Lav is coming in at 0-3dB and I may have the NT3 at -20 to -25dB

During production, I record each mic to it’s own channel and pan one the Lav hard left, and the NT3 hard right. I also am doing a double system, recording a “scratch track to camera.

So what i think I end up with is three very useable redundancies: Left channel recorded on a Sound devices 633, Right channel on 633 and if in a real pinch and the 633 wigs out, I have the scratch track.

Of coarse proper gain staging hygiene is most important. I record Poly Wav 24bit 96k.

The one thing that you all probably noticed, is if I want three Usable tracks, why set level of NT3 to -20 to -25 and the answer is that I hope that my first choice, having the left and right ISO channels works just fine for my project. the L/R mix is also an option, but I find I am always tweaking something.

Jonathan

[Jonathan Levin]

Gennady.

Some background from you would be helpful for sure in order to help:

1) Is video your profession or is this a project that involves no pay?

2) I looked up the Dagee DG-001 and it looks like that lav costs under 10.00US. I’ve found that with audio, you really do get what you pay for. A decent wired (not wireless) lav can start at ~250.00 and go up to many hundreds of dollars.

You will need something to record into if you are thinking of doing that, and in your case I definately would. A lot of people use Zoom products, but those will be more than your 11.00US budget. Start saving your money. Producing good audio does come with a price. Producing bad audio also comes with a price.

3) Unless your subject is VERY close o the mic that is built in to the camera, for the most part it is useless. The further back the subject, the more you have to boost the volume level which will for sure introduce more ambient sound, as well as mechanical sound.

4) If you are going to do sound for a bunch of things, I highly recommend buying and reading “Producing Great Sound for Film and Video” by Jay Rose.

5) Two people who’s opinions I highly respect with all things audio and who I have asked endless basic questions from, Richard Crowley and Ty Ford are right here in this forum. And there are many others out there too. These gentleman have taught me a great deal. I’d also recommend Ty’s pocket audio guide.

Lots of stuff to consider.

Jonathan

[Jonathan Levin]

My first question would be why would you get any kind of mic that you knew you couldn’t connect to a camera?

Given that, you will need to use some sort of external recorder, and you will have to slate at each start-stop.
A new camera would be in your best interest, and learn EVERYTHING you can about producing good audio.

Jonathan

[Jonathan Levin]

Hi Ty.

That was about the clearest explanation I have come across. Thank you so much.

Since this is a new machine for me, and I’m coming from mostly using my Shure FP33, I’ve decided to run a few tests. This might be long, but maybe it will help someone else.

Tests were run with Wav Poly, Wav Poly (ISO only), Wav Mono, and Wav Mono (ISO only). I had a Lav going in Channel/input 1 of the mixer and a Shotgun in channel/input 2. The files were there imported into Final Cut 10.2.1 for evaluation.

1) Poly Wav- For this test I panned channel 1 hard left and channel 2 hard right. I also recorded what I was recording into, Lav or shotgun to help identify. In FCP, when I imported the file, I have four tracks on top of each other, top being labeled “Mono 1”, second down “Mono 2”, third down “Mono 3” and bottom track “Mono 4”

At this point I was a bit confused, but soon realized that Mono 1 and Mono 2 are the “L/R” mix tracks. Mono 3 is my Lav and Mono 4 is the Shotgun. So got that sorted out. I also realized that Mono 1 and 2 can be disabled, leaving only the Lav (Mono 3) and the Shotgun (Mono 4), to be mixed any way I’d like.

Unbelievable cool!!!

2) Second test same as above, but I had the pan on the mixer set to center for both the Lav and Shotgun to see what that did. Interestingly, I had three track in FCP. Top track called “Audio 3” my Lav, second track down “Audio 4” my Shotgun. The third track is a bit of a mystery, it is called “Auto-detect Stereo”. Don’t know what that is, unless it is some kind of mix, but you can’t “expand” it in FCP.

So it looks like planning and panning is the way to go if you want the true L/R mix, and the individual channels/inputs from mixer.

3 and 4) Poly Wav (ISO only)- kind of what I expected. In my case no L/R mix, just “Channel 1” corresponding to the Lav and “Channel 2” corresponding to the Shotgun. In one test, I hard panned like the above, and the 4th test I centered all on mixer. Interestingly, all files and their tracks import into FCP X as panned center.

To take less time, I did run tests on Wav Mono, with panning variations as above, and also Wav Mono (ISO only) with the panning variations. What I ended up with were a whole bunch of individual audio tracks that would need to be brought in one at a time to a Project in FCP X. To much work.

Conclusion, I really like the Poly wave, since it gives you the mix AND the individual channels from the mixer. I can simply choose not to use (disable) the mix and work only with those ISO(?) in post.

My only wish is that the names that I set up on the SD 633 channels would carry over to FCP. That would make identification a little easier. But I kind of get how the hierarchy works. If anyone has a way to get that to work, I’d like to know.

The Mono files are to scary for me now.

On to test XLR mic level out from mixer to mic-in on Nikon DSLR to record scratch track for syncing.

I hope this helps.

Jonathan