Stephen Hall
Forum Replies Created
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The trouble you may have is that noise like the waterfall is often broad band noise. That is, it isn’t usually limited to one narrow band like a phone ring tone or a pump or motor.
You can try looking at it with Izotope or one of the other audio processing applications, but waterfalls, traffic noise, wind… all those tend to be problematic.
You could try using something like Sony Noise Reduction ( it’s in Soundforge ). You sample the noise when there’s no “primary” sound, like the speech you want to save. Then you use that sample to tell Noise Reduction how to process the clip.
Go easy, though. Too much processing can wind up sounding “bubbly” or choked, as a whole lot of the information is thrown away.
Good luck, though !
Stephen Hall
Location Sound Mixer / Recordist
No ADR if I can help it !
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Something to keep in mind is that the actors may be wearing hidden lav mics in this scene, as well.
It’s common practice to use boom and lav mics at the same time. If the sound guy’s doing his job right, you’ll never see a hint of the lavs.
(If you watch closely, though, in action scenes you can sometimes see the outline of a wireless transmitter in the small of an actor’s back. Occasionally a jacket or shirt/blouse gets pulled tight across a concealed transmitter.)
Stephen H
Stephen Hall
Location Sound Mixer / Recordist
No ADR if I can help it ! -
Yeah, I can see how an internally-cabled boom used in a school environment or someplace where lots of different folks will be using it might not be ideal. Inevitably, someone will be in a hurry or careless. One possibility to consider is one of the poles where a straight cable runs through the pole and slides in and out of the base. I’m not sure which manufacturer makes those.
I’ve used the Schoeps on a boom, as a plant mic (within 18-22″ of the actor’s mouth and for voice over work. I would suggest that it’s way too sensitive for use hand-held. While the Schoeps sounds glorious, to me, there are probably mics more appropriate for VO work — I’ve read about large-diaphragm condenser mics like the Neumann TLM-103, etc. in that role, as well as dynamic mics like the Electro Voice Re-20 and even the Sennheiser MKH-416 when used in a treated environment.
I’m sure there are lots of folks on this board who could offer more informed opinions about VO mics.
Stephen H
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Hi Craig,
I’m not qualified to comment on all of your equipment and plans, but I do have a couple of suggestions.
First, about the K-Tek internally-wired booms: they don’t really have any problems with internal cable kinking unless the sections are turned relative to each other, causing knots. I had to have my K-Tek 12-footer re-cabled after my first year of ownership because I was careless about handling it while collapsing the pole.
The key is to keep the socket and the mike mount aligned one way and take pains to keep that alignment the whole day during use. When collapsing it, if the cable does provide a little resistance, be gentle, back off and turn the uppermost section a little clockwise until the kink is gone and the section can be collapsed without resistance. Don’t jam down on the pole and force it — you’ll abrade the cable and it will eventually fail.
K-Tek has excellent, superior customer service, though, and the cost to re-cable a pole won’t break the bank. I love my K-Tek boom and have not had to have any repairs in 3 years after learning how to use it properly!
The Sennheiser G2/G3 wireless sets and Countryman B3/B6 mics are a great combo. I’ve found that I can use the Sennheiser MZA 900P XLR adapter (it’s a preamp with switchable low-cut filter) with my B3 mics to use them wired. The B6 mics don’t seem to work with that preamp, though. I can successfully use the Sennheiser ME2s, Countryman EMW and B3s with the MZA 900P, which means I don’t have to have a lot of duplication in mics to switch between wired and wireless.
As for shock mounts, I recommend the Rycote Invision mounts (“lyre”). They’re remarkably capable at isolating the mic from boom handling noise. Not expensive, either. They even have retrofit kits so you can use them with an older-style Rycote zeppelin, if you have one.
The Schoeps CMC641 mic is wonderful, glorious-sounding for dialogue. If you have the budget, it would be a terrific addition. I really can’t say enough good things about how this mic sounds when employed properly.
Cheers,
Stephen H
https://sound.facesproject.org/ -
That’s very interesting, Brian. Thanks.
Could you tell us more about that harness ? I’m not familiar with a ‘GPS Harness’.
Where can I see something like that online ?
Thanks,
Stephen H
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The NTG-1 doesn’t have the option for battery power – the NTG-2 does. The Sennheiser transmitter doesn’t supply phantom power. You’ll need an inline adapter for that, or a mic that is battery powered.
Good luck !
Stephen H
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Kathy, as our distinguished host Ty Ford says, “Welcome to Creative Cow.”
The A,B,G “blocks” with Sennheiser wireless gear indicate the frequency range that each supports. I would recommend buying a wireless set (transmitter, matching receiver and lav mic) from one of the reputable vendors like DVestore, B&H Photo/Video, Trew Audio or other established folks.
Which “block” to buy might depend on your location. These systems operate in parts of the spectrum used by other radio sources. There are a number of discrete frequencies within a “block” to which you can tune the set (transmitter and receiver must be tuned to the same frequency). I have Sennheiser sets in both A & B ranges and was glad I did when shooting very close to a monster TV transmitter that rendered one entire block useless. That last is very unusual. I’ve used both A & B sets simultaneously all over the Seattle metro area without trouble.
To research the frequency allocations ( to commercial and broadcast transmitters ) in your area, you might start with Lectrosonics’ great TV channel table: https://www.lectrosonics.com/images/PDFs/tvstationsfrequencyblocks.pdf ( a PDF file ). https://www.lectrosonics.com/ They’re another respected wireless manufacturer.
Good luck !
Stephen Hall
https://sound.facesproject.org/ -
Stewart,
You might look into Freesound.org. It’s a huge collection of free (natch) sound clips of all kinds of things. The clips are released under a Creative Commons license, so it’s a nice resource.
Quality varies from very high-quality pro-level stuff to ghastly things that have been crudely manipulated, but you can find some gems. It’s nicely tagged and indexed, so you can search based on keywords.
I’ve contributed a handful of things there and gotten some nice responses.
Cheers,
Stephen Hall
https://sound.facesproject.org/ -
Andy, I am in about the same position. I’m in what you’d might call a “medium” market, not LA/NY/Chicago, but not Two Egg, Florida, either. I’ve got a better-than-average kit, with a few outstanding pieces of gear, and four years of school of hard knocks. (Let me also mention that Ty Ford helped me through some conceptual stumbling blocks when I was just getting started. Thanks, Ty!)
There are a couple of guys in my area who seem to be making it doing sound mixing, but everyone else is struggling, has a day job, etc.
I like the advice from Eric Toline. I’m going to try it.
Best of luck to *all* of us sound guys just poised to dive in..
Stephen Hall
https://sound.facesproject.org/ -
Here’s what I deliver for a typical indie film.
I use an Edirol R4 Pro, so when I’m recording multiple tracks ( the usual ), each take generates a folder with a WAV file for each track.
I sample a file in each directory to hear the slate for the scene and take number. I then rename the directory for Scene and Take, as Sc_016_T_005.
Then, inside the directory, I rename each WAV file for the track source, as: Sc_016_T_005_Marsha_lav.WAV or Sc_016_T_005_boom.WAV.I deliver logged audio on data DVDs with a readme file explaining everything and contact info.
This way, every file has a unique name and the editor can copy them around and still know exactly what each file contains.
This consumes a few hours, but it’s worth it, I think. I’ve received emails from grateful sound post guys thanking me for having a good organization system and keeping good notes.
Really fancy recorders allow you to easily rename the file for each take easily, but I don’t work off a cart (one-man band, usually) and this enables me to make up for not having $6-8,000 for a 788T and all the trimmings.
Cheers,
Stephen H
https://sound.facesproject.org/