[Ty Ford]

Depends on how uneven the levels are and how loud the room tone is.

I mix and also use compression and limiting.

Regards,

Ty Ford

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[Ty Ford]

Hello Dusty and welcome to the Cow Audio Forum.

Different algorithms do better than some when you get down to 8 bit. A lot also depends on how much noise there was in the original recording.

In the old days, realaudio sounded better at low bitrates than mp3s did. I haven’t compared lately.

Regards,

Ty Ford

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[Ty Ford]

Hello James and welcome to the Cow Audio Forum,

You’re probably better adjusting gain on the tracks. Using compression can help, but it can also make things noisier.

Regards,

Ty Ford

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[Ty Ford]

Hello Randy,

Sure! if you have two FP410, you could use both, one to each camera track.

Either two and two or host on one and guests on two, depending on the dynamics.

If you only have one FP410 you should still be OK, just not as much separation.

There are settings inside the FP410. I usually choose the setting that reduces the level but doesn’t take them it all the way out, the slower rather than the faster fade setting and the one that keeps the last mic spoken into open until someone speaks into another mic.

Yes manually riding gain on levels even though the Auto mode is engaged. The limiter in my FP410 is pretty good too. I think I use it most of the time.

Regards,

Ty Ford

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[Ty Ford]

If they are seated from beginning to end, go hard wired and use a Sure FP410 Auto mixer (that you will also adjust manually while in AUTO mode. You still need someone who knows what to do.

If some are coming on and other going off camera…well it depends. If it’s casual, they put the mics on when they get on set and take them off as they leave,

More professionally, you’d use wireless for anyone going on/off set.

You could still use the FP410.

Only one camera? Well if you have two cameras, you can feed both with the FP410. It’s a 4×1 mixer with two separate outputs. Not stereo, dual mono.

Regards,

Ty Ford

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[Ty Ford]

I’m with Will.

This is not a “set and forget” job. Someone has to decide which mics are up, how far they are up, when they get pulled down, etc. or you end up with a huge amount of ugly room sound.

Before you jump into this, sit down with a sound person and go over the setups. I have had to tell shooters and producers that I can’t give them good sound in certain situations. If the setups can be blocked out right, the problem goes away.

Planning……planning….and more planning.

Regards,

Ty

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[Ty Ford]

Hello Martijn and welcome to the Cow Audio Forum.

I use a Rode dead cat pulled over the Schoeps B5D.

Regards,

Ty Ford

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[Ty Ford]

Hello Suzette and welcome to the Cow Audio Forum.

Microphones used in video production are of two types, mostly; dynamic and condenser.
Dynamic mics are based on the principle of a moveable diaphragm attached to a coil of wire. The coil is suspended in a magnetic field. A sound causes fluctuations cycles of rarification and compaction in the air. Those differences hit the diaphragm. The diaphragm moves. When it does, the coil attached to it moves in the magnetic field. This creates a voltage in the coil wires that becomes the audio. As long as the coil moves in the magnetic field, a voltage is generated.

A condenser microphone uses the principle of charged metallic plates; one fixed, the other is a moveable membrane. Sound causes the movable membrane to come closer to and then farther away from the fixed plate. This variation in proximity generates a voltage that becomes the audio.

Thus, microphones at their simplest, measure the movement of air molecules and/or the rarifaction and compression of sound waves. Without air motion, conventionally designed microphones probably make poor detectors.

However, if you remove the grounded metallic head grille from most microphones, they become quite the antennae, picking up all sorts of local electrical “noise” emanating from light fixtures, power lines, computers, radios, and you name it. Were you able to create an oasis in which typical, man-made emf generators did not exist, unshielded mic capsules might be able to “hear” other electrical variations.

EVPs, I suspect, sometimes may be communicated telepathically to one or many people. Designing a receiver for that would prove challenging as they may not move air molecules the way sound does.

Ask the most devout believers and I’m sure you’ll find they hear spoken syllables where others do not.
On the other hand, having spent a number of years using CB radio, my friends were frequently amazed at how I could understand what people were saying in “all that noise.”

When you amplify sound captured with any microphone, there are limitations. First is the selfnoise of each microphone. That’s the noise made by the mic’s own circuitry. The Neumann TLM 103 has one of the lowest selfnoise figures 7 dB-A. It is also a very sensitive mic. You would stand a better chance of capturing audio which could then be amplified with this mic than others. Perhaps operating one of them with a partial or modified headgrille might give you something new.

EMF noises not audible in air can also enter the audio circuity, usually after the microphone diaphragm, and become demodulated into the audible audio range by accidental processes of the particular circuit. The mics and preamp, then, are working more as receivers of very high frequency energy. Energy that is well above the range of human hearing. Waves below the frequency and volume thresholds of human hearing can be recorded with good microphones. Speeding playback up, or slowing the high frequency disturbances down so they become audible is possible.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Ty Ford

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[Ty Ford]

Hello Matt,

You spent about $1k on the camera. It has limitations. (per the camera’s instructions, there is no such thing as a “zoom mic”. That’s just marketing copy.) The camera doesn’t have industry-standard XLR audio connectors. I don’t know of what quality the audio system is, but recording audio separately would probably get you better quality, if:

you use a good recorder
you have a good mic
you have a good mixer
you know how to get the most form them

you say you don’t have the money for good audio gear. A good shotgun mic costs $1k. There are others that are not as good that cost less.

These aren’t the answers you want, but throwing $250 at audio doesn’t get you much in the way of quality. If your expectations are low enough, it doesn’t really matter. Go shoot and have fun. Forget the mixer for now. If you’re really serious, get the zoom and a mic and see how that works. You’re still below the line for quality audio gear, but you will learn something and that’s why we’re here.

Regards,

Ty Ford

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[Ty Ford]

Hello Matt and welcome to the Cow Audio Forum.

Why do I need a mixer? Answered

Mixers are more than knobs that let you vary the volume.

1. They let you vary volumes without shaking the camera or getting in the way of the camera op.
2. You may need to do that a lot with some people. I ride gain even if one person is talking if their voice fades on the end of each line. You can only do this in a relatively quiet environment, otherwise you bring up the ambient noise.
3. Mixer preamps (good ones) sound better than camera preamps.
4. Good mixers have input transformers that scrape off RF before it get into your audio.
5. Good mixers have limiters that allow you to record hotter, keeping your audio further above the noise floor without distorting.
6. Good limtiers have EQ that lets you roll of LF HVAC noise before it gets into your audio.
7. Good mixers have mulitple outputs so you can feed more than one camera, or separate recorder simultaneously.
8. Good mixers make your sound better. If they didn’t pros wouldn’t use them.

Regards,

Ty

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