[Richard Crowley]

Contact the moderator of this very forum: Ty Ford https://www.tyford.com/Ty_Ford_Audio_%26_Video.html

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Recording audio without metering and monitoring is exactly like framing and focusing without looking at the viewfinder.

[Richard Crowley]

Extremely unlikely. Audio-Technica’s document mentions no prohibition about powering only one side. Did you actually experience any problem with the mic after providing phantom power to both the Left and Right outputs?

I own (or have used) stereo microphones from 4 or 5 different manufacturers (including Audio-Technica) and I always provide phantom power on BOTH sides. In fact mixers (or recorders) which provide individually switchable phantom power per channel are rather in the minority.

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Recording audio without metering and monitoring is exactly like framing and focusing without looking at the viewfinder.

[Richard Crowley]

Are those 1/4 inch inputs mic-level? instrument-level? line-level?
The output from your little Sony gadget is almost certainly line-level or headphone-level (nearly the same).
If you are feeding that signal into a sensitive input (like mic-level or instrument-level) into your unidentified audio interface, then you will certainly hear significant distortion

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Recording audio without metering and monitoring is exactly like framing and focusing without looking at the viewfinder.

[Richard Crowley]

I think you mean the 1.9GHz band (not MHz).

Sennheiser apparently believe that we, their customers and end-users, are not smart enough to understand details like what frequency bands they make for different countries.

But the manual warns (more than once) that different varieties “cannot” be used in other geographies. And furthermore that transmitters and receivers designed for different geographies cannot be paired together.

OTOH, 2.4GHz products use the ISM band which is available everywhere on the planet (except perhaps in North Korea and at NFL games).

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Recording audio without metering and monitoring is exactly like framing and focusing without looking at the viewfinder.

[Richard Crowley]

Five feet is way too far for ANY shotgun to operate effectively. You cannot expect decent dialog at that distance no matter what microphone you are using. If you want decent shotgun performance expect to hang the mic at 18-24 inches (450-600mm) from the subject’s mouth.

Assuming “Laos” was supposed to be “lavs”? Else, what is a “Laos”?

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Recording audio without metering and monitoring is exactly like framing and focusing without looking at the viewfinder.

[Richard Crowley]

Is your noise mains-frequency hum? (60Hz in North America, and 50Hz in most of the rest of the planet). Perhaps it is related to how you are connecting your microphone to the preamp (not revealed here). Assuming you have the phantom power turned on to the microphone (or you would likely hear nothing).

It is also helpful to identify whether you are talking about acoustic noise from your room, or electronic noise from the microphone, cable, preamp, etc. One technique is to take your microphone and bury it inside a large heap of pillows, blankets, etc. And then try recording in the middle of the night (presumably when everything is quiet). That will let you record your baseline floor noise level of the microphone and electronics. You need to get the electronic noise very low as well as the acoustic noise of your room.

It is not clear that either that microphone or that preamp are noted for being low-noise. It seems quite possible that you may need better gear to record Foley effectively.

Help with diagnosing specific noise is nearly impossible without posting a sample clip that we can hear.

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Recording audio without metering and monitoring is exactly like framing and focusing without looking at the viewfinder.

[Richard Crowley]

The ME2 is no great prize either. Those are very basic default mics and most people replace them with something better as soon as they can afford it.

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Recording audio without metering and monitoring is exactly like framing and focusing without looking at the viewfinder.

[Richard Crowley]

The Sennheiser EW 122P G3-B set appears to come with their “ME 4 clip-on microphone (cardioid)”. Wireless kits (of virtually all brands and price-levels) typically come with a rather low-end microphone just so you have a complete kit. Frankly, most people put that mic back in the box and plug in a better microphone. It seems quite possible that the rental company put a better microphone with the rental kit.

The big question is: Which microphone did the rental kit come with? Is your microphone the ME4? Did the rental kit come with an ME4, or was it some better microphone? If they are both ME4, then maybe you got a bad microphone with your kit.

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Recording audio without metering and monitoring is exactly like framing and focusing without looking at the viewfinder.

[Richard Crowley]

You really need a microphone on each person. Either a clip-on lav, or something on the table. At the extreme minimum, two microphones, one between each two people. And that is already a significant compromise. The client will get what they are willing to pay for. No way around that.

Since you are shooting with two cameras, you could connect each microphone to one of the four available channels (two on each camera). That assumes that you have the time/budget to do the audio mixing during post-production editing? Since you are shooting two cameras we assume that you at least have to cut the cameras angles together, as well as the B-roll, etc. You could use an automatic mixer to select the person(s) who are speaking, but that is another expense of either renting the specialty gear or hiring someone to do the audio mix for you.

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Recording audio without metering and monitoring is exactly like framing and focusing without looking at the viewfinder.

[Richard Crowley]

Is this a live event in front of an audience?
Or is this just a video shoot? “Live-to-tape”? Or a production? Scripted? Ad-hoc?
Is the venue providing sound reinforcement? Microphones?
If there will be an audience, will you be expected to capture reaction, questions, etc.?

The “previous guy” was shooting the same kind of event as you are asking about here?

What is the video for? Is it a corporate image piece to impress clients?
Is it an internal training video? Is it just a “record” of a meeting?
What kind of audio quality are they expecting? High-end broadcast quality?
News/event style? “Transcription-grade” just good enough to transcribe the dialog?

There are a great many questions here.

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Recording audio without metering and monitoring is exactly like framing and focusing without looking at the viewfinder.