Rodney Morris
Forum Replies Created
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I would say it’s probably because you have the XLR Set for Ch.1 and Ch.2. Basically you are telling the camera to assign the XLR input to both channels. As I understand it you want Ch. 1 to be the Senn. system and Ch. 2 to be the built-in camera mic. Change the XLR select to Ch. 1 only. It may default Ch. 2 back to the internal mic at that point.
Let me know if this fixes the problem.
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I’ve been away on a shoot this last week, and have been unable to respond to your post. Sounds like you’re on the right track. One thing that will help your booth and won’t add much to your construction cost is to not build any parallel walls. Parallel walls create a phenomenon called standing waves. You can hear an example of standing waves fairly easily by singing in the shower. There are certain notes that you sing that resonate louder than others even though you are not singing with more volume. That’s because those notes (frequencies) have a wavelength that is exactly the distance between the hard, parallel surfaces of the bath/shower. When these sound waves bounce off of parallel surfaces they don’t reflect back out of phase thereby allowing them to resonate longer and with more amplitude. So when building a good v/o booth, you can avoid many acoustical problems by building no parallel walls (a trapezium). You may still have a standing wave between your floor and ceiling, but at least you won’t have any from the four walls. You may think this is a bit overkill for your situation, but as I said before it shouldn’t add much to your construction cost and is acoustically sophisticated as well (you can impress your friends and clients).
Note – don’t confuse standing waves with reflections. You will have reflections in a trapezium with hard surfaces. So you will still need to hang some type of room treatment. The eggcrate foam you mentioned is an alternative, but it is not the same type of material and I’m unaware of it’s flame retardency. I’m not telling you not to use it, but don’t think that it’s the same as professional acoustic treatment foam. From what I understand, it’s not as effective with absorbing reflections over a wider frequency range as professional foam.
Hope this helps you some. I’m not an acoustician, but I know a couple tricks here and there. Good luck.
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Thanks for the welcome, Ty.
That’s good info regarding “phase” issues when mixing analog and digital systems. I haven’t switched over to the 411s yet. My 210s haven’t let me down, though they’re not as convenient. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
And I think you meant to say that sound travels at about a foot per millisecond.
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Assuming that your XLR outs on your mixer are working correctly, then I would make sure that your computer is looking at the analog inputs on your Extreme card. Sounds like it may be configured to look for the SDI inputs currently. Again I’m guessing, I’ve not used any of the products you’ve listed. But I have used other DAW’s and you have to specify which input your looking for, analog or digital.
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Well, that is a common problem. One way to lessen the gap is to use a better RF mic system. The Lectrosonics 411 is about as close as you’re going to get quality wise to using a hardwired mic. The 411 is a digital hybrid, but is also rather pricey (about 3 grand). Also upgrade the lavalier mic to something of better quality. I’ve found that the Sanken COS-11 is one of the better sounding lav mics out there. It’s not always my first choice, but it has a frequency response that is a bit more appealing to me than other lav mics. Using a Schoeps to boom with will get you the closest to a studio condenser mic. Or you could boom with a Sennheiser 416 and record vo with the 416 in the studio.
As far as post is concerned, you would have to EQ your condenser mic to match the sound of the lav, which I can’t really recommend. The RF system you are using can’t match the frequency response of the studio condenser. You can’t EQ in what you don’t have.
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If the next several tapes seemed to record OK, then my first thought is that somehow the record head got dirty but eventually cleaned itself (it does happen). Secondly, there could have been slack in the tape. Unfortunately, this still happens from time to time. It’s not really practical to exercise the tape in the field, so most of the time you’re taking a chance. Topher’s advice of having it cleaned is certainly wise, though I’ve never really heard anybody say not to use a professional tape cleaner. In fact, I know pro videographers who will use them (in extreme circumstances) in the field when a problem arises.
Why shouldn’t he use a professional tape cleaner. I’m not challenging anybody’s position – I’m hoping to learn something new.
By the way Topher944, are you the same Topher I’ve seen on the Mazda forums?
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Ok, so I just looked at the fan out for the extreme card and there are only analog inputs available on XLR. In fact, it doesn’t input AES at all, though there are AES outs available. All digital input is an SDI signal. So never mind my first post – I should have done a little research first. My apologies.
Which mixer are you using?
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The Decklink Extreme handles both AES (digital) and analog inputs, and they probably have different XLR connectors on the fan out. It sounds as if you may be connecting the analog outs of the mixer to the digital inputs of the extreme card, in which case you won’t hear anything. If the fan out uses the same XLR connectors for both digital and analog inputs (I’ve never seen it like this before because there is an impedence difference that could be damaging, but hey you never know), then make sure that the analog inputs are selected (probably somewhere in a peripherals setting). I’m just guessing here – hopefully you get it working soon.
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OK, we’re getting closer here. I’m glad to help as much as I can.
The Shure KSM44 is a condenser microphone, which means that it needs power of some sort for the microphone to work. Some condenser mics (electret) can be powered off of internal batteries or phantom power, but not this particular type. It requires 48V phantom power, which is (generally) provided by a preamp. So, in order to use your Shure mic you will need a mic preamp that provides 48V phantom power. As I said before, some audio interfaces include preamps with 48V phantom power. It sounds to me like you are capturing audio and video through a capture card, which probably has RCA inputs for the audio. If this is the case, then you will need to purchase an outboard audio interface (such as the Tascam FireOne) that has a built in preamp and that you can connect through Firewire. Theoretically, you could capture the audio through those RCA inputs on the capture card. But it would be an involved chain of transformers to get your audio from a studio condenser mic “dumbed down” to unbalanced RCA, and you may lose some quality along the way.
Ty makes a great point about making sure that both your PC and Adobe Audition will support the Tascam unit. If you are unsure, do not hesitate to ask the sales rep to investigate this for you. This is part of his/her job. Also, Ty’s point regarding the latency issues with USB are well founded – stay with FireWire if you can.
As far as building the vo booth, the two things it should do is 1. provide isolation from external noises (computer fans, etc…) and 2. it should also provide isolation from “reflections” or sound bouncing off of hard objects. This includes walls, windows and even music stands to a smaller degree. You’ll want to treat the walls of the booth with sound treatment foam, or for a cheaper fix, hang some moving blankets on the wall. Also, if you’re not going to route some A/C into the booth (which opens up a whole new can of worms anyway), then you want to use lighting that will not produce alot of heat. LED’s would probably be the best choice, clipped to a stand. Flourescents ballasts, while cooler, can produce hums and buzzes, which defeats the purpose of building a booth. An alternative to building a booth is to pick a corner of the room that is particularly quiet and build a set of audio baffles that you can place in the open areas around where you are miking. These baffles can be extremely effective in cutting down on the reflections of the room, but won’t help if the room is particularly noisy.
Ask as many questions as you like, I’ll answer what I can and pass off what I can’t. 🙂
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I incorrectly identified the Tascam FireOne as a “work” surface, when I should have said control surface. Sorry. Tascam also makes the FW-1082.
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/closeup/FW1082–Main
It comes in right at your $600 budget, but has a lot of features that may or may not be helpful to you.
BTW – I’ve purchased many things from Sweetwater, and I’ve always been pleased by their service and expertise.