[Richard Crowley]

“does this mean that the Zoom F8 is a better field recorder cause you don’t have to turn the pre-amps up as high to power the mics, and therefore less gain and less noise floor cause of more power?”

Yes, but it has nothing to do with “power”. The Zoom F8 is a significantly better category of product compared to your Foxtex FR2-LE

The Zoom products have long been favored by budget-constrained (read: “cheap” or “poor”) users because of their low price. But the quality of their mic preamps (notably the available gain and the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) have always been an issue of disappointment. So Zoom developed the F8 and F4 recorders with notably better mic preamps (along with other improvements). But better quality mic preamps come at a higher price.

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

[Richard Crowley]

“Oh well I took a course at the Recording Arts Institute of Saskatoon, and they said it’s gotta be 48 volts and that if I am having low quality, than that’s likely my problem if the pre-amplification is not going high enough.”

That is simply not accurate. Either the instructor didn’t know what he was talking about or perhaps you didn’t remember it properly?

The only significant factor the phantom voltage can affect is the “headroom”, or how loud the audio can be before the microphone itself “clips”. Many microphones will handle high-amplitude (“louder”) signals when operating from 48V. But you are talking about the OPPOSITE end of the spectrum. Your issue is the performance of the microphone at LOW amplitude (“quieter”) . It is very unlikely that phantom voltage will affect the low-end performance of any microphone.

Now, it may be that some microphones may have poorer signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) or sensitivity when operating at reduced phantom voltage, but neither of your microphone models are known for that issue. Unless they are broken or defective which seems unlikely.

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

[Richard Crowley]

“I have to turn gain up to about 90% and the volume up to about 85-90%, so it that normal, or is that unusually high?”

Yes, that is unusually high IMHO.
Are you absolutely 100% certain the -10db pad is NOT engaged on your AT4053b, microphone?

Note that the lower priced “pro-sumer” recorders like the Fostex FR2-LE are not noted to have particularly good mic preamps. They don’t have as much gain as more professional gear. And they don’t have the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of higher-end gear.

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

[Richard Crowley]

[ryan elder] “Oh okay, well there doesn’t appear to be a 10 db pad on the 4053b.”
You are mistaken. The official data sheet says:

“The microphone is also equipped with a switchable 10 dB pad that lowers the microphone’s sensitivity, thus providing higher SPL capability for flexible use with a wide range of users and system configurations. To engage the 10 dB pad, slide the switch toward the -10 position.”

Ref: https://www.audio-technica.com/cms/resource_library/literature/3ac2d3afa3f95b03/p52153_02_at4053b_spec_sheet.pdf

In your case you do NOT want the -10dB pad engaged. Again, take a few minutes to become more familiar with your gear and experiment with all the options, switches, settings, etc. Download all the data sheets and user manuals and study them.

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

[Richard Crowley]

I have not done an exhaustive survey, but I don’t think I have seen any modern microphones that really require a full 48V of phantom power. Many people say “48V” when they really mean “phantom power”. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you actually need a full 48 volts.

There are SOME microphones that work fine with 24V, etc. at “normal” levels. But if you are using them on very loud sources, the full 48V gives you extra headroom before clipping. But that is why you should experiment with all your gear offline.

By “offline” I mean playing with all the different combinations of microphones, preamps, recorders, cameras that you own or use regularly. In-between actual production gigs so that you become familiar with how they all work, their little quirks, etc. And especially the combinations of different microphones with different recorders, cameras, etc. To see whether any of your microphones behave differently with different phantom voltage.

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

[Richard Crowley]

Part of the problem could be the way the dialog tracks/stem was edited. During production did you record the “room tone” in each location/setup? The purpose of having isolated “room tone” is to avoid having ANY dead silence in the dialog tracks. You would edit in room tone anywhere you don’t have any direct dialog clip. You would never leave any empty space in the dialog tracks or stem. That is what you may be hearing? Dead silence is very unrealistic unless you are making a movie about outer space.

Or, possibly the dialog was recorded with enough ambient noise that cutting the dialog clips reveals significantly different ambient noise between different clips. Which is why extraordinary effort is put into capturing dialog as clean as possible. Something perhaps not fully appreciated by people with limited experience. We hear the pristine sound tracks from big-budget feature films and prime-time TV and it seems effortless. But it is most certainly NOT. And because we are living in an increasingly noisy world, we must more and more depend on dialog replacement in post-production.

It is impossible to know exactly what kind of problem you are describing without actually hearing some examples.

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

[Richard Crowley]

[clyde villegas] “recorded in -18 telling me that it will reduce picking up of ambient noise and mic’s self noise. “
Simply no. The recording level has NO impact on the pickup of ambient or mic self-noise.

Only using a microphone closer and/or more directional will reduce ambient noise by increasing the SNR (signal-to-noise Ratio) of the desired signal vs. the ambient noise. It is tedious, fiddly, and typical inordanitely expensive to artifically improve the signal-to-noise ratio after the signal has been recorded. Which is why appropriate microphone selection and proper application are MUCH more important than many people realize. It is always recommended to avoid reliance on “fixing it in the mix”.

Only the selection of a microphone with lower self-noise will affect the self-noise. The self-noise is “baked into” the design of the microphone. There is nothing you can do externally to affect self-noise. Except to feed an acoustically louder signal into the microphone to increase the overall SNR (signal-to-noise ratio)

The record level setting WILL affect the headroom you have while recording. If you are recording something with a predictable level, you can get away with a higher average peak level (perhaps -10dBFS). But if you are recording something that can be expected to have a wider dynamic range, then a lower average recording level will give you more protection against clipping from hitting full-scale.

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

[Richard Crowley]

Few (if any?) modern microphones require the full 48V of phantom power.
Many (most?) will operate to their full capabilities on 24V or even 12V.
It uses a considerable amount of battery power to create 48V from the much lower internal voltage that modern gear operates with. And considering the dwindling number of microphones that need the full 48V, we are entering an era where 48V will be a relic of the past.

To be sure, there are some older and/or boutique microphones that still want the full 48V. You should certainly experiment with your gear “offline” to see how phantom voltage affects your different microphones.

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

[Richard Crowley]

Indeed, phase/polarity is one of the most common causes of that problem.
If one of the channels is 180 degrees out of phase with the other, it could cause havoc with the 5.1 processor.
And it wouldn’t necessarily be the whole channel. It could just be a “stem” that is out of phase. Like the music stem or especially the dialog stem.

Did you check the playback when you sum the 2.0 stereo down to monaural? When the 2.0 stereo is played back through a 5.1 processor? lots of things can sound OK when played back on 2.0 (or 2.1) monitor speakers on your editing system. But you never know how your track is going to be played during exhibition. So you must protect yourself by making mixes that will withstand improper playback, exhibition or broadcast. (Like “defensive driving”.)

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

[Richard Crowley]

It was never clear whether the question here refers to RECORDING the lecure, or whether it is about REINFORCEMENT of the sound during presentation of the lecture.

But in either case a distant microphone technique, ESPECIALLY in a typical reverberent school classroom is for all practical purposes unworkable and not worth the effort to even try it.

If you are talking about RECORDING, then perhaps putting one of those Bluetooth microphone transmitters in the pocket of the lecturer might work.

But for REINFORCEMENT, you are unlikely to find ANY kind of microphone that would work at a distance of more than 30-40cm. If your instructor is unwilling to understand the laws of acoustic physics, then separate yourself from this dillemma as fast as possible and run away. There is no suitable solution for your questions with the unworkable limitations imposed.

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