[Richard Crowley]

What you seem to be DESCRIBING is “pumping” from automatic-gain control. That is where the gain starts automatically rising during silence between words, etc.

HOWEVER, I did NOT hear any significant pumping in your sample clip.
What I DID hear is excessive room ambient reverberation.

And I heard a constant background noise as well. It sounded like both ambient noise AND “electronic noise”.

While the subjects are speaking it masks the noise to some extent, and then during quiet intervals, you notice the noise more. But it wasn’t what I would call AGC “pumping”.

Now, it seems very probable that if the mics were properly positioned, you would have eliminated BOTH the ambient reverberation AND the composite noise.

[Richard Crowley]

You did not reveal WHAT you are using this for, or WHERE? Unless you are using it for very critical high-resolution applications, it seems rather doubtful that you will get any perceptible improvement in “quality” (whatever that means in your undisclosed application). Certainly not enough to warrant the added expense of a decent audio interface such as the Focusrite.

Frankly, budgeting money on the acoustic treatment of your recording space will have FAR AND AWAY more “bang for the buck” as far as actual, practical improvement to the audio signal.

The website for that microphone was pretty off-putting. It was long on marketing hype and almost completely devoid of any actual technical information. Lots of sizzle and no steak.

[Richard Crowley]

I believe Mr. Taylor and Mr. Ford are talking about different things. 15mm is quite a bit larger than the 3/8 adapter cited.

I have seen cheap mic booms (from Guitar Center) that appeared to have some sort of “adapter” on the end which at first inspection appear to be 5/8-27 to 5/8-27. But on closer inspection, the threading on the pipe (and the female threads on the “adapter” might be that odd-ball 15mm that Mr. Taylor is asking about. Perhaps it is cheaper to thread the pipes to 15mm and use an adapter to 5/8-27 than to use a proper 5/8-27 die. (or perhaps the pipe is 15mm vs 5/8 inch?)

[Richard Crowley]

It seems like you are concentrating on a rather complex recording scheme and subsequent workflow. Pre-planning your workflow is excellent, but you seem to have glossed over the very first part: how you are actually acquiring the audio in the first place.

You didn’t describe WHAT you are recording? Is this a “talking-head” internal corporate video? Is this some kind of training session? Is it a dramatized demonstration of employee conflict resolution?, etc. etc. etc.

Honestly, I seriously question the selection and placement of the microphone before you ever get to cables or connectors or level setting or recording devices, etc. etc.

Furthermore, what is the justification for recording “double-system” (separate audio recording)? Is the audio on the camera so bad that it is unusable except as a sync “guide track”? I am asking that as a rhetorical question, because, my answer would be “No, the camera is perfectly capable of recording audio that is more than adequate for this application.”

If you are really seeking to have GOOD audio (which is VERY important), then you must start by analyzing WHAT/who is producing the sound, what kind of acoustic environment you are recording in, and how best to CAPTURE that audio. That is the FIRST, and quite possibly the MOST IMPORTANT step in planning your audio scheme.

You have shown an above-average sophistication and throughness in thinking about all the issues of devices, connections, level setting, and even editing, etc. However, unless you apply the same rigor to the very first link in the chain, you severly limit any ability to deliver quality audio.

A microphone mounted ON the camera is almost NEVER in a place that allows even halfway-decent capture of quality audio. And even moving a little microphone like that Rode model closer on a pistol-grip is NOT a method that will produce decent results. It is not clear why you don’t simply use a more traditional (tried-and-successful) method like a clip-on lav mic (wired or wireless) or a highly directional mic on a boom pole (hyper-cardioid indoors, or full shotgun outdoors).

If I were allocating the budget I would put MOST of it into the microphone and record directly to the camera. Using a separate recorder comes nowhere close to improving the audio quality compared to selecting the RIGHT microphone and getting it into the right POSITION.

[Richard Crowley]

Are you hard-wired?, or wireless? Perhaps the problem is elsewhere in your system unknown to us?

[Richard Crowley]

That sounds like the kind of question and configuration task that is exactly what the guys at VO Studio Tech specialize in. I suspect that you aren’t the first (or even the 100th) person with that exact question.

https://vostudiotech.com/

[Richard Crowley]

Have you successfully used your two 600 MHz systems concurrently before?
If the two 600 MHz systems “play nice” with each other, I wouldn’t worry about the third system almost 100 MHz away. As Mr. Reynolds says, your very best bet is to actually test them before the event.

[Richard Crowley]

Antennas at 2.4GHz are only around 2 inches long, so you are more likely to find the antenna(s) completely enclosed within the transmitter housing (and often that goes for the receivers, also).

All digital systems require some kind of “pairing”. Whether this is visible to the user or not is a decision the designers made for you.

Actually many (most?) of the 2.4 GHz products have significantly MORE DIVERSITY than older generations of VHF and UHF systems. For example, most of the 2.4GHz systems that I have seen have TRIPLE DIVERSITY:

1) They have SPATIAL diversity with two separate antennas, much as what we thought of as “diversity” back in the old VHF/UHF era. For example the Audio Technica System-10 has TWO separate antennas inside the transmitter plastic shell.

2) They have TEMPORAL diversity. The same block of audio data is sent at least twice at different times so that if the first is lost or garbled, the second can be substituted.

3) They have FREQUENCY diversity. When powered-on they automatically scan all 12-13 channels to pick the optimal channel for primary operation, as well as a secondary channel as an immediate back-up. When when forced to switch to the back-up channel, they then search and select a NEW back-up channel. All of this happens very fast and completely hidden to the end-user.

The main advantages of 2.4GHz include:

1) 2.4GHz is one of the “ISM Bands”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISM_band

These bands are reserved IN ALL COUNTRIES and protected against future encroachment by greedy government authorities (like the FCC in the US) who make billions of dollars by selling off RF bandwidth to the highest bidder.

That means that they can be expected to be more “stable” for a few years with some assurance that you investment in gear won’t be wiped out next month by a mendacious but clueless bureaucrat.

It also means that your gear will work in ANY COUNTRY. You don’t have to look up obscure (and changing) rules and laws if you work in multiple jurisdictions.

2) The technology (integrated circuit “chipsets”, antennas, even software.) are ubiquituous with the flood of consumer gear that uses 2.4GHz. Most notably including WiFi and Bluetooth (as well as cordless phones and other wireless gear.) That makes it MUCH MUCH less expensive both to develop and manufacture 2.4GHz digital gear. And we see the direct result of this with all these new 2.4GHz digital audio kits.

3) Automatic channel selection. Because they must “play nice with others”, these systems automatically scan all the 12-13 available WiFi channels for the best and “next best” channels for primary and back-up operation. Furthermore, because the transmitter also receives, and the receiver automatically transmits, they can communicate interactively with each other to coordinate “pairing” automatically.

4) Because of the “2-way” communication between the transmitter and receiver, and the extra bandwidth available, extra nifty features can be easily added, typically simply with “firmware”. For example: remote reporting of transmitter battery charge/life. And most brilliant: remote cancelling the transmitter MUTE mode!

Of course, nothing that good is without the disadvantages which include:

1) The 2.4GHz band is overloaded with very many devices, users, and applications. Most notably, these include WiFi and BlueTooth. But note that most microwave ovens also operate on 2.4GHz. You may have noticed that your Bluetooth gadgets are intermittent or even completely fail when with 1-2m of an operating microwave oven. And, of course, the more WiFi and Bluetooth traffic there is, the more a 2.4GHz wireless mic will have to compete for channel availability.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_2.4_GHz_radio_use

So, operation in a modern office building would be more likely to be problematic than out in a rural area, for example. IMHO, this is the biggest unknown for these 2.4GHz products. How effective they will be in the presence of lots of 2.4GHz competition. However, so far I have not seen any widespread (or any at all for that matter) reports of operational problems from RF congestion.

2) Limited channels. There are only 12 (or 13 in some territories) WiFi channels available. A full-speed computer WiFi connection gobbles up 5 adjacent channels, but the 2.4GHz wireless mics use only a single channel (plus another standby, backup channel). Because the systems use microcontrollers at each end, they are designed to automatically scan the immediate landscape to identify usable channels, so they attempt to make the most of this competitive situation.

Note that there are WiFi band analyzer apps for IOS and Android which will show you signal strength on all 13 WiFi channels in graphic form on your device screen. You can install one of these (free) apps to help evaluate the local 2.4GHz landscape in your favorite venues.

[Richard Crowley]

I very strongly suggest spending an hour listening to this…

https://archive.org/details/This_Week_in_Radio_Tech_108

“Dead as a Disco” seems like an odd comparison. Discos are not known for being either quiet or dead, the two basic requirements for voice work.

[Richard Crowley]

NO! You will be lucky to get good coverage from ONE shotgun microphone. Recording dialog in “stereo” is a horrible idea. It is nothing but trouble and has ZERO benefits in mixing. NOBODY records dialog in “stereo”.

Stereo is only good for certain politicians who speak out of both sides of their mouth.