Richard Crowley
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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You didn’t mention WHICH “Rode shotgun” you are talking about. They now have a rather wide range of different mics which may be called “shotgun”.
Are you REALLY anticipating having the mic so CLOSE to multiple subjects that you will invoke the proximity effect? That doesn’t sound like a “shotgun” mic from your description.
How big is this tent? How stiff is the fabric? Low frequencies typically ignore barriers of fabric. So your tent may not be a “small space” at low frequencies.
The typical microphone used in reflective spaces (indoors) is a hyper-cardioid. But most of the shorter “shotgun” mics from Rode are more like hyper-cardioids than true shotgun (line-gradient) mics.
Have you actually TRIED your microphone in a tent? Or is your trepidation only theoretical?
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There are many ways of securing lav mics to actors while remaining invisible. And there are many ways of hiding the body-pack transmitter on the actor somewhere under their wardrobe. Those prime-time “reality” shows are high-budget productions with skilled audio crews. And the “reality” genre has evolved its own industry tips and tricks.
A quick search of YouTube revealed thousands of hits for: hiding lav mics
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I’ve edited films where the sound recordist recorded at 29.97NDF and the cam was at 23.98PN. It’s a nightmare after 4 minutes into the long take.
That is because they are diddling the sampling rate to try to compensate. I hate it when machines think they are smarter than us. To be sure, if you are shooting in some exotic format, testing everything before you start shooting is an absolute prerequisite.
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Yes and no. There is no “frame-rate” in audio recorders. There IS a “Sample-Rate” which is the audio equivalent. For example your video frame-rate is 25 of 30 or 50 or 60 FPS (or the slightly lower “NTSC” rate like 29.97, etc.)
But the standard audio SAMPLE-RATE is 48 thousand samples (48K) per second, regardless of the video frame rate.
IMHO, the three most critical things in selecting a separate audio recorder are:
1) Sample-rate accuracy. If you have a combination of audio recorder and video camera that don’t match with reasonable accuracy, you will be slipping out of sync in a matter of a few minutes. This may not be a problem for short shots. Or even for longer shots where you will be intercutting “B-roll” video clips or maybe be even for shots where lip-sync is not important. If the dialog is “voice-over” narration or you are doing “over the shoulder” shots where you can’t see the subjects lips, etc.
2) Sample-rate selection. My very strong preference would be for a recorder that allows 48 KHz sample rate. Most low-cost recorders use the slightly slower 44.1 KHz or even lower for simple utility “voice recorders”. Now, you can re-sample audio from 44.1K up to 48K, and some video editing software even does this for you. But any time you have to re-sample something means a potential loss of quality. Not to mention the extra time it takes.
3) Data compression. I would have a very strong preference for an audio recorder that will store the audio as UN-compressed WAV (or AIFF, etc.) files, and NOT MP3 or other kinds of compressed format. Any time you have to un-compress something (in order to edit it), and then re-compress something (for distribution), you run a significant risk of loss of quality. In extreme cases, rendering audio that is unusable.
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It might be easier to evaluate by HEARING it. Can you post an uncompressed (WAV, AIF, etc.) track snippet with a couple seconds before and after the anomaly? Assuming you are asking about what appears to be a high-frequency riding on top of the dialog waveform? Have you identified the frequency?
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Are you saying that when she touched the same metal and was not wearing the microphone there was no shock? Wearing the microphone but turned off?
That sounds pretty far-fetched to me. I can’t think of ANY part of such a low-power GHz transmitter that could possibly cause a shock to the user. If there was a shock, it was from some other cause.
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Thanks, Steve. We have seen reports of people forced to work in rooms with these things where they couldn’t be disabled. Two workarounds were something to cover the transducer like a big felt hat or a pillow (held up with a C-stand). Or else using microphones that are not sensitive to ultrasound (like old dynamic mics, etc.)
As if we weren’t already having to deal with shrinking RF spectrum and increased interference. Now we have acoustic interference as well.
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You seem to be performing only the FIRST step of the process. You have two identical tracks, but one of them is OPPOSITE phase. As long as you listen to them in “stereo” it will be OK as your ears can handle it. But as soon as you MIX them down into monaural the “right” track will CANCEL the “left” track and give you exactly the symptoms you are describing.
First you GET RID of the “right” channel (by whatever method, depending on what software you are using). THEN you take the remaining “left” channel and put it into the center (for a stereo mix), or simply leave it as-is so that when you MIX everything down, you have eliminated that “right” channel that was cancelling your dialog.
Yes, when you listen in stereo, you are left with only dialog in your left ear. HOWEVER, if you mixed that down to monaural, everything will be in the CENTER. Or, if you need to maintain a stereo mix, then you simply take that audio track and PAN it into the center (or wherever you want it to appear.)
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More likely than not, when the voice was recorded on your Sony handycam, it got recorded with the “right” channel in the OPPOSITE phase as the “left” channel. This is very commonly caused by using the wrong adapter between an XLR microphone and the 3.5mm stereo mic jack on the camera.
WHen you mix this down to monaural, the “left” track is CANCELLED by the opposite-phase “right” channel, and you get EXACTLY the symptoms you are describing.
To prevent this, use a properly wired adapter. For example: https://hosatech.com/product/xvm-100f/
To resolve your problem take the camera clips, separate the “left” and “right” audio tracks, and mute or delete the “right” track, leaving only the “left” track.
THe reason I am using “left” and “right” in quotes is because you really have only a single, monaural audio signal, but you have recorded OPPOSITE phases on the two stereo channels which are called “left” and “right”.
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It is active. It requires batteries.