Rodney Morris
Forum Replies Created
-
The “in the shower” sound you like so much is a combination of reverberation, slap echo and standing waves. Whatever program you record in should have plug-ins that can help simulate the reverb and echo. Standing waves have to do with the distance between parallel walls and the frequency of the note being played/sung. When you sing in the shower you will find one note (generally lower in pitch) that seems to be louder than the others even though you are singing at the same volume. That note (frequency) is the standing wave of that space.
Rodney Morris
Freelance Sound Technician/Mixer -
Yeah, I have the 10/15/20 db attenuators, not the 20/30/40. But I also have line to mic attenuators, which would be a 40 db attenuator, roughly, so I don’t worry too much about it.
Just to be clear, I’m not trying to pad a line level with the 10/15/20 attenuator to feed into the mic input of the H4. I’ve tried using line level out of my mixer, into the 10/15/20 attenuator into the 1/4″ line level inputs of both the H4 and H4N. Doesn’t work for me. I hear distortion on the loudest transients. Go figure! So I just set my output to mic level and drive on. I’ve relegated the H4 to just transcription work, but I have used it to record a local celebrity for various radio spots and even Hallmark cards (audio greeting cards) and maybe even for some Sprint ringtones, though I think I may have used my old portable ProTools rig for that job.
Rodney Morris
Freelance Sound Technician/Mixer -
This universal shockmount should work.
https://www.trewaudio.com/store/product.php?productid=329&cat=36&page=2
However, the ATR-55 has a coiled cable terminating in a 1/8″ jack (comes included with an 1/8″ to 1/4″ adapter). It’s meant to be used as a camera mounted microphone. You realize you’ll need an extension cable to reach from the microphone to the camera. Does the camera have this type of input jack?
Rodney Morris
Freelance Sound Technician/Mixer -
I would suggest you take a look at the Rode NT-5 mics. You can get a matched pair for $430 at Sweetwater. https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/NT5/ I’ve used these on acoustic guitar with pretty good results, but I’ve also used them to record interviews for video. Using the included mic clip, you can use the NT-5 on a boom mic stand and place the mic just above the subject (if they are sitting) and out of the frame the same as you would a shotgun or supercardioid. Make no mistake, you certainly won’t mistake these for a Schoeps CMC 641. These were not my mics of choice, but I was doing a low budget shoot (for my church) and using the equipment that was available to me. I would suggest trying to audition the Rode mics before you buy them, if possible.
As Bill suggested in another post, Shure SM57 and 58 are good mics to own and they won’t break your budget. The SM57 is a very versatile mic that can be used on many sources (ie. drums, guitar amps, even the spoken voice). In fact, I like using the 57 as a podium mic more so than a 58. I’m not sure that these mics will work as well for you if you want to use them in other situations though, such as recording two people talking IF you want the mics out of the frame. Unfortunately, there is no magic mic that works perfectly in all situations. That’s why studios and sound mixers spend so much money on having a good selection of available microphones at their disposal.
Rodney Morris
Freelance Sound Technician/Mixer -
Bill, I have inline level attenuators and I’ve tried them. I still do not get acceptable recordings without inputting a mic level into the XLR jacks. I’ve tried it on just about every output available on my mixer (SD 442) using not only +4, but also -10 line level settings, including additionally using the inline attenuators. I set tone at -20 and still get occasional distortion on some of the loudest transients even though I’m not exceeding 0. I’m referring mainly to the original H4, but I’ve used the H4n and have found the same problems.
As much as I want to like the Zoom unit, its shortcomings are too much for me to consider it a professional recorder. It’s more of a pro-sumer level recorder, with a greater emphasis on consumer. The line level limitations are one thing. The non-intuitive menus are maddening. Granted the H4n is an improvement over the H4, but it’s not enough for me to put one in my bag.
Rodney Morris
Freelance Sound Technician/Mixer -
Check out this video. This guy is a friend of mine whom I’ve advised on some gear purchases. This was recorded with one microphone just out of the shot. I’m not sure which mic he used (I can find out), but I’m pretty sure he ran it through a Focusrite ISA 428. I know he has done a lot to treat the room. I’ve advised him to record differently, but this was his vision: to record everything using one mic. This is about as good as you’ll be able to get considering your setup. If you try to use two mics at a distance you’ll need to pay close attention to your spacing in order to minimize phasing. But you won’t get a good guitar sound if you are more than 18-24 inches away from the guitar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtkVnYLKa84
Rodney Morris
Freelance Sound Technician/MixerSome contents or functionalities here are not available due to your cookie preferences!This happens because the functionality/content marked as “Google Youtube” uses cookies that you choosed to keep disabled. In order to view this content or use this functionality, please enable cookies: click here to open your cookie preferences.
-
The line inputs on the H4N are the 1/4″ inputs, not the XLR inputs, and from my experience I’ve never had good luck trying to feed a line level signal (+4 or -10) into H4 or H4N without some measure of distortion. The best I’ve been able to capture was by sending a mic level signal from my mixer (Sound Devices 442) into the XLR inputs. That gives me the best sound.
Rodney Morris
Freelance Sound Technician/Mixer -
Bill, thanks for the stories. I agree there is much more involved in creating a great audio track than “it’s clean, so it must be OK”. I agree with everything you wrote. However, ENG sound mixers don’t have the luxury of large format consoles with 4 band sweepable EQ with adjustable Q and a variety of preamps and a locker full of microphones with which to shape the sound we wish to capture. We have to “make due” with portable mixers, a variety of shotgun mics (and hypercardioids, at times) and lavalier mics boasting a variety of frequency response curves. There is very little “art” in creating ENG audio. That doesn’t mean there is no skill or intelligence needed to work in the field, but we employ a different set of requirements for the audio elements that we capture.
True story. Many years ago I worked on an ESPN Classics story. Our interviews were recorded in a small room adjacent to a noisy hallway with large metal doors that banged shut on one side and a security office on the other side with 2 way radios going off frequently. No controls for the A/C were present. I was mortified. I padded the sills of the metal doorways as much as possible with gaff tape. But many of the other elements were beyond my control, given our time constraints. The producer signed off on the condition of the shoot and we soldiered on. Many months later I saw the piece air on TV. The interviews that we shot (and that I fretted so much about) sounded fine. I could barely perceive any background noise bleeding into the primary audio track. It was an eye opening experience in my professional career. I know several sound mixers who would have totally freaked out in the situation that we found ourselves in and would have gone berzerk trying to control the extraneous noises. Those mixers don’t get many calls for our work because they don’t know how to let things go, when the situation demands. Discretion is essential to better judgment.
Again, I’m not advocating sloppy work, or lowering the standards of sound mixers out there. What I am trying to say is that we approach every job with the attitude that we will capture the best audio possible given the location AND the final distribution format. In a perfect world, there would never be a difference, but who said TV production was a perfect world! 🙂
For ENG audio, the Canon 5D can capture “acceptable” (and that’s the key word here) audio. Not superb audio, not great audio, but acceptable audio. Sometimes that’s all that’s necessary, especially considering the budgets of many “productions” today.
I agree with you in the assessment that if folks want their audio to sound as good as the video from the 5D and 7D looks, then recording to a separate, quality recorder is necessary. I’m not sure anyone here would argue that point.
I appreciate your input here Bill.
Rodney Morris
Freelance Sound Technician/Mixer -
Ty, good thoughts going on there. I’ll try to add something quasi-intelligent.
The point of the clip that I posted wasn’t to showcase the quality of the audio, in a sense. Rather, it was to show that the Canon 5D can record acceptable audio in relation to its intended broadcast means. It seems that for nearly any cable, over-the-air and web delivery formats, the Canon can capture audio that will be acceptable for news reporting and documentary style shooting. I say this because of the amount of processing/compression that occurs in every step of the broadcast chain. Audio can, and regularly does, get compromised somewhere along the line (aggressive comp/limiters, codecs, tape ops who are lazy with level referencing, etc.).
A couple of weeks ago I did a three camera shoot for FoxSports. I fed one camera line level, the second camera mic level and the third camera was mixed mono line level feed (for reference only). There was a perfectly rational reason for doing it this way, but I won’t bore you with the details of that. While A/Bing cameras 1 and 2 return in my headphones, I could not hear any discernible difference between the two feeds. Granted, the monitoring sections of most broadcast cameras suck. However, if I can’t hear any real difference between the two in this most basic test, then it’s doubtful that the end user will hear the difference from their TV set, AV system or computer speakers after the audio has been compressed for broadcast/download.
I know that I haven’t touched on the subject of how small audio compromises can become larger problems later in the processing chain, but again I look at it from the end user standpoint, not necessarily the purist, audiophile requirements. That doesn’t give those of us who work in broadcast the opportunity to be sloppy in our audio capturing techniques! But it does provide the proper perspective that often aids in good relations with producers, camera ops and anyone else on “set” that gets easily annoyed with an overly ambitious sound recordist.
Rodney Morris
Freelance Sound Technician/Mixer -
Jared,
While I think Bill’s assessment of the audio quality is a little off, he is correct in stating that the current 5D/7D audio offering (with ML) is not as capable as the video imaging and is still not as good as recording double system to a “quality” recorder (I’m not sure the Zoom falls into that category). It would be an interesting comparison to do an A/B test of audio recorded on the camera and recorded to the Zoom H4N. Neither one has great A/D conversion, though they are perfectly acceptable in many situations. Lucas film sound quality they are not, but most projects that I work on day in and day out don’t require that level of audio precision. It’s all about what the situation demands.Rodney Morris
Freelance Sound Technician/Mixer