Urgent: Basic Mic for SONY SR12

[zephyrize]

Hi
It is for a small school 5 minutes film scene project.

We are using the SONY SR12, outside, most probably with wind.
So we are looking for a shotgun mic that plugs into the basic mic plug of the SR12.

Since it's a mainly a cinematography project, PERFECT audio quality is NOT required. Anything better than the built-in mic is enough (we'll find a windshield).
It's pretty urgent, and we don't have ANY (zero, nada) knowledge for audio, so we hope you guy could save our day.. please? :undecided
I have two stores nearby that rent audio stuff,
among the choices, we have:

- Sennheiser MKE400
- Sennheiser ME66
- Rode NT-4 stereo

- Sennheiser 416
- Sennheiser 816
- Sennheiser MKH60
- Sennheiser EW 112-P G2
- Lectrosonic Wireless UHF 180

Any advice or good-to-know info would also be very appreciated!
Thank you in advance!!

[Richard Crowley]

But you didn't say WHAT you are shooting? Is it a stand-up on-camera reporter? Is it a sidewalk interview? Is it a dramatic scene? How many speaking parts? Is it a music performance? What kind of music? What instruments?

Your mic selections are all over the map. Some mics good for indoor music recording, some good for outdoor speech, etc etc. The perfect mic for one kind of shooting would be horrible for some other kind of use (and vice-versa).

[Rippie]

slightly off from the question you asked..
but you're in a school taking cinematography classes but "we" (as in all of the people
associated with your project) self admittedly know absolutely 100% NOTHING about sound.

Do you see a problem with this in general?

I was just having this discussion yesterday to a PA on a set.
Mentioning to him, that no matter what position you wish to work in..
you need to have GOOD knowledge of ALL dept's in order to do your job better
and in order to best serve the client.

Being in sound, if I can intelligently ask the gaffer for a cutter or a topper to get rid
of shadows, talk to wardrobe about clothing materials for clothing rustle.( I literally just did this today, i still got boned :( ) ..
knowing camera lens...etc..

Sorry to go off totally from your original question, but its this new school of thought
of being so concerned with your own dept, that the whole kit an kaboodle suffers.

This wasnt a personal comment on you zep, your post just made me want to ramble on about it.

Good luck with your project.

[zephyrize]

But you didn't say WHAT you are shooting? Is it a stand-up on-camera reporter? Is it a sidewalk interview? Is it a dramatic scene? How many speaking parts? Is it a music performance? What kind of music? What instruments?

Your mic selections are all over the map. Some mics good for indoor music recording, some good for outdoor speech, etc etc. The perfect mic for one kind of shooting would be horrible for some other kind of use (and vice-versa).

Our scene is simply a standard movie dialogue scene; two person talking to each other in a park. We have one moving scene where a guy talks in the cell while walking.
did not thought of giving those info,
again, thanks for your help


slightly off from the question you asked..
but you're in a school taking cinematography classes but "we" (as in all of the people
associated with your project) self admittedly know absolutely 100% NOTHING about sound.

Do you see a problem with this in general?

I was just having this discussion yesterday to a PA on a set.
Mentioning to him, that no matter what position you wish to work in..
you need to have GOOD knowledge of ALL dept's in order to do your job better
and in order to best serve the client.

Being in sound, if I can intelligently ask the gaffer for a cutter or a topper to get rid
of shadows, talk to wardrobe about clothing materials for clothing rustle.( I literally just did this today, i still got boned :( ) ..
knowing camera lens...etc..

Sorry to go off totally from your original question, but its this new school of thought
of being so concerned with your own dept, that the whole kit an kaboodle suffers.

This wasnt a personal comment on you zep, your post just made me want to ramble on about it.

Good luck with your project.

I am not in a 'cinematography class', it's a project that will focus on cinematography.
Actually, I am a science student (with strong interest for still/motion picture).
My ONLY 'non-science' class is this Film course which is an 'optional' class that briefly introduces us to film techniques and history.
I chose to do a film as our final project since I'm an experienced photographer and have strong sense of composition. (and as a fact, photographers don't really care about sounds lol)
The only thing I never tackled is the audio side of film. Every videographical work I've done are simply 'reels' or those 'stock footage' you often see on Vimeo. Never did any real film with actors and storyline and dialogues..
And since this aspect is not covered in our 'introductory' film class, I basically have no knowledge about it.

Sorry if my lack of explanation led to some misunderstanding! :embarasse

now can you help? :engel017:

oh and btw, by 'we', I refer to me and my project colleague.
He wrote the 5 minute script and I'm the one 'directing' it , since I have the technical knowledge/equipment (for the visual aspect).

[Chadfish]

Just try a Rode VideoMic. Cheap, Sounds Good, works better than the stereo built in mics.

Don't expect miracles though. If the subjects are far away you won't hear great audio. If this is just a one time thing no need to blow a bunch of money. The VideoMic may do if you are very close to whomever is talking. You can get a "Dead Cat" from Rode to cut the wind way down.

Research that mic.

It will be less than 150.00

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/363083-REG/Rode_VIDEOMIC_VideoMic_Camera_Mounted.html


Normally I would push to start developing your whole audio scene, but with that camera this will be the simple solution. If you are into spending money and actually going for the best, you have to use more gear, and run cables, or buy wireless units and be into it.

[Rippie]

zep, as I mentioned..it truly wasnt directed at you. Just the wording of your original post
made me realize how often this is the case presently.

As far as your situation.
Out of those mic choices your best best is going to be a 416.
The problem you have is an SR12 is a consumer camera correct?

the connections on the mic and camera are different, and not compatable with
simple adaptors (the 416 needs phantom power sent to it)

You need either a beachtek style adaptor or a mixer (with a 1/8 jack)
to get it into your camera.

and of course a pole to get the mic directly overhead, and headphones....etc.

Find out of those items are rentable as well.

Take your camera to the store, and have the guys there help you rent the right gear for it in person,
and try it there before you leave so its all working correctly.

[Chadfish]

Oops. I didn't see that you were renting. Never mind.

Put a wireless unit on your guy and call it a day.

[zephyrize]

Thanks for the replies guys!

@Rippie, I agree with you that bringing the camera there should be the safest option.

@Chadfish, what exactly is that?

So what you guys are telling me is that I shouldn't expect to find a shotgun mic that can be plugged and feeding directly into the basic microphone input of the camera?

[Steve House]

Thanks for the replies guys!

@Rippie, I agree with you that bringing the camera there should be the safest option.

@Chadfish, what exactly is that?

So what you guys are telling me is that I shouldn't expect to find a shotgun mic that can be plugged and feeding directly into the basic microphone input of the camera?

Plugging it into the camera isn't the issue - mounting it on the camera is. What I would say is that there is NO mic that you can put on the camera and get signifigantly better sound for a dialog scene than you would get with the camera's own mic (assuming it's not a total dog). The on-camera mic doesn't do well for dialog because it's so far away from the talent. A popular misconception is that a shotgun mic is a 'telephoto lens for sound' reaching out and maginfying distant sounds. It doesn't do that. For ANY mic to pickup the quality of dialog that makes a film watchable, the mic has to be close to the talent, normally 20 to 30 inches away for a shotgun, even closer for other types of mics. What a shotgun DOES do is isolate the subject it's aimed from surounding distrating noises more than a less directional mic. Think of have a camera mounted light - the built-in mic is like a broad floodlight while the shotgun is like a narrow flashlight. The subject is the same brightness with both but the flood illuminates a wide area while the flashlight a small circle.

The Senn G2 and Lectro's you mention are wireless lav mics, not shotguns. And you'd need two, one for each person in the scene speaking.

All the mics save one of the other mics you mentioned use professional balanced XLR outputs. Of the shotguns, only the MKE400 will plug directly into your camera. But for it to give you good dialog you need extnsion cables and a boom (and boom operator) to hold it just out of shot up close to the talent.

The other mics listed also need to be boomed close but to use them you'll need to provide phantom power to operate the mic (except for the ME66) and a converter such as a Beachtek or JuicedLink box, or a proper mixer such as a Sound Devices MixPre, plus some cabling and adapters to get the signal from a professional balanced XLR mono mic into a 1/8" stereo consumer mic input.

[zephyrize]

Hi Steve,
thanks very much for that detailed summary.
As I said, we do not ask for real professional audio quality, so I think the MKE400 would satisfy our needs. We can ask to rent a boom pole and have a friend do the operator (it shouldn't be that hard since most shots are still shots).
Is it all we need? MKE400+pole+cable, we plug it into the camera, shoot, and it will simply feed the audio in through the mic?

One other thing, because you said "What a shotgun DOES do is isolate the subject it's aimed from surounding distrating noises more than a less directional mic." does that mean that I'll have to record the location sounds (cars, birds, surrounding ppl) seperately?

geez, i feel so small now that i've stepped into this new world...

[Chadfish]

The shotgun will pick up surrounding sounds, just much lower than an omnidirectional mic. Believe me, when you get the headphones on, and you hear your talent start to talk you will realize just how much surrounding noise gets into a mic. Try to avoid any place with cars driving by. Also if you have, say, something making noise behind your talent it will be picked up if the shotgun is pointing in that direction.

As to your question "What is that?" What is what? I said a few things. One thing was, if you only have one person talking, you can put a wireless mic on them, and you won't need a 3rd person to run boom. That way you can do a 2 person shoot - you on camera/audio, your friend on acting.

[Steve House]

Hi Steve,
thanks very much for that detailed summary.
As I said, we do not ask for real professional audio quality, so I think the MKE400 would satisfy our needs. We can ask to rent a boom pole and have a friend do the operator (it shouldn't be that hard since most shots are still shots).
Is it all we need? MKE400+pole+cable, we plug it into the camera, shoot, and it will simply feed the audio in through the mic?

One other thing, because you said "What a shotgun DOES do is isolate the subject it's aimed from surounding distrating noises more than a less directional mic." does that mean that I'll have to record the location sounds (cars, birds, surrounding ppl) seperately?

geez, i feel so small now that i've stepped into this new world...

Booming properly requires far more skill than initially meets the eye and the boom op is far more than just an organic mic stand.

The amount of isolation from the surroundings you'll get is a matter of degree. You'll still get some surrounding ambience with the 'gun, just not as much of it as you have with the built-in omni mic. The usual problem is getting enough isolation of the dialog from the surroundings and the feature & epsiodic TV world goes to great trouble and expense to record dialog as devoid of ambience as can possibly be done, then separate recordings of environmetal sounds are layered in during post.

When you watch a film, virtually everything you hear was recorded separately, then added and mixed in the editing studio. In your above question, the cars and birds probably come from a sound effects library or are especially recorded at a completely different time and perhaps even place from the scene itself while the background conversation (called crowd walla by the way) is a separate recording as well. Imagine a scene in a busy restaurant, two people talking over a table. How that is often done is to have the background people move their lips silently feigning conversation as the main characters do their scene, then a second take for a sound pickup with the main characters silent as the background babbles to each other, feigning the rhythm of conversation without saying real words (that's why they call it "walla"), combining the two in post.

Don't disregard the importance of sound to your film. You're thinking like a photographer which is fine, I'm one of them too. But photographers concerntrate on the pictures and film is not a mere sequence of pictures, it is story telling with both picture and sound. And of the two, sound is generally more critical as it is the element that moves the story forward and conveys your message. The audience will forgive less than perfect pictures far sooner than they'll forgive muddied and difficult to understand sound. If you have to make a choice, great sound and so-so pictures will get you farther than the reverse.

[Chadfish]

"The audience will forgive less than perfect pictures far sooner than they'll forgive muddied and difficult to understand sound. If you have to make a choice, great sound and so-so pictures will get you farther than the reverse."

Steve I am always saying this! The sound is critical. Even though people might not know why, they will enjoy your little video much better if the sound is good. All I ask zep is that you don't ask for help from all of us, then say "Oh sound isn't too important" when you get to the shoot. With a few simple precautions that have already been laid out for you , you can get a nice audio recording made, and you will know that you didn't phone it in.

[zephyrize]

nice explanation Steve, I will take note of your points
For the booming part, we could take the chance
or as Chad suggested, we could go the wireless route, but do the wireless unit I listed on my post will be compatible with the camera? If not, what do I need in addition to make it work?
I will definitely give them a call to make sure.

Now I checked the other store where they rent the MKE400, they however do not rent any headphones or extension cabling.


All I ask zep is that you don't ask for help from all of us, then say "Oh sound isn't too important" when you get to the shoot. With a few simple precautions that have already been laid out for you , you can get a nice audio recording made, and you will know that you didn't phone it in.

For sure I will pay great attention on the sound now that you advised me about the basis and essentials; and I thank you for that.


btw, here's the website of that professional renting store: http://www.entvideoservice.com/AUDIO-1.html

[Chadfish]

Any wireless unit that has the kind of jack your camera takes, probably 1/8" mini, will work.

If you do have an 1/8" mini for audio input, then whatever mic you use needs to end up with that.

[mainstreetprod]

I've used the previous version of the MKE400 and is not a bad mic for a starter. But it looks like you are planning on running a long cable and using it on a boom. Won't work. When running an unbalanced cable more than a few feet, you will get low frequency hum. Rent a beachtek adapter, run XLR mic cable to it, and plug it into your jack. Most any XLR shotgun mic will be better than the MKE400 anyway. The Rode videomic is a great choice.

[Chadfish]

I've used the previous version of the MKE400 and is not a bad mic for a starter. But it looks like you are planning on running a long cable and using it on a boom. Won't work. When running an unbalanced cable more than a few feet, you will get low frequency hum. Rent a beachtek adapter, run XLR mic cable to it, and plug it into your jack. Most any XLR shotgun mic will be better than the MKE400 anyway. The Rode videomic is a great choice.

The VideoMic is also 1/8" jack. He's renting anyway, so any decent shotgun will work.

[zephyrize]

I've used the previous version of the MKE400 and is not a bad mic for a starter. But it looks like you are planning on running a long cable and using it on a boom. Won't work. When running an unbalanced cable more than a few feet, you will get low frequency hum.

Oh, that's a good thing to know. We only have one day free to shoot. Everything just have to work.
Now instead of the pole, if I simply hold it over or beside the camera, will the sound be not-so-bad?
I'll be shooting dialogue at 50mm or even 30 or 35mm. That would make the camera only 30 to 50 inches of the actor's face.
For farther shots, I may find an older camcorder, plug the mic in and use it as a sound recorder. Then sync in post.
What do you think?


The Rode videomic is a great choice.

Since both the MKE400 and the Rode videomic use the 1/8 basic audio jack,
which one do you recommend? The MKE400 is more expensive; that must be for a reason..

thanks again

[Chadfish]

The Rode is better. It's the same as an NTG-2, just with a built in shock mount, and 1/8" jack. If you get a 3-6 foot extension cable, that may be OK.

[Steve House]

Oh, that's a good thing to know. We only have one day free to shoot. Everything just have to work.
Now instead of the pole, if I simply hold it over or beside the camera, will the sound be not-so-bad?
I'll be shooting dialogue at 50mm or even 30 or 35mm. That would make the camera only 30 to 50 inches of the actor's face.
For farther shots, I may find an older camcorder, plug the mic in and use it as a sound recorder. Then sync in post.
What do you think?



Since both the MKE400 and the Rode videomic use the 1/8 basic audio jack,
which one do you recommend? The MKE400 is more expensive; that must be for a reason..

thanks again

Shooting 30 to 50 inches from the subject is going to give them a real "Wallace Beery" nose - are you really looking for that Bozo the Clown effect? Closeups are usually shot in the short-telephoto range to give you a bit of camera stand-off in order to flatten the perspective for a more natural appearance.

Disregarding noise from working the camera controls, the problem is not the proximity of the mic to the camera per se, the problem is that the camera is usually going to be too far away from the subject for a mic at the same distance to deliver good sound levels. It doesn't matter if it's on the camera or 5 feet to one side, if the mic to subject distance is the same as the camera to subject distance, the sound is not ikely to be very good. Your camera is probably going to be 8 to 15 FEET from your speaking subjects to provide a pleasing framing for your shot. But optimally the mic needs to be within about 30 INCHES of the speaker to give a good performance. At the closest distance you're likely to be placing the camera, a mic at the same distance is still going to be 5 feet farther away than it ought to be.

[zephyrize]

Disregarding noise from working the camera controls, the problem is not the proximity of the mic to the camera per se, the problem is that the camera is usually going to be too far away from the subject for a mic at the same distance to deliver good sound levels. It doesn't matter if it's on the camera or 5 feet to one side, if the mic to subject distance is the same as the camera to subject distance, the sound is not ikely to be very good. Your camera is probably going to be 8 to 15 FEET from your speaking subjects to provide a pleasing framing for your shot. But optimally the mic needs to be within about 30 INCHES of the speaker to give a good performance. At the closest distance you're likely to be placing the camera, a mic at the same distance is still going to be 5 feet farther away than it ought to be.

So what are you suggesting?
That extension cables and boompole are unavoidable ?
or I'd rather go the safest route: wireless mic? They rent a set of wireless mic. That should be fine; since only one actor is speaking at a time.
The only concern is that it would probably not fit into a 1/8 jack; so some kind of adaptor would be requried.

[Chadfish]

Wireless mics come with 1/8" jacks too. Just ask the rental house before you go. A wireless I think IS the best way to go for this project. Your subject will be free to move around, and you won't have to be close to the subject, or worry about getting the mic in the shot.

Go wireless. Bring your camera to the rental house and tell them to make it work.

[Steve House]

So what are you suggesting?
That extension cables and boompole are unavoidable ?
or I'd rather go the safest route: wireless mic? They rent a set of wireless mic. That should be fine; since only one actor is speaking at a time.
The only concern is that it would probably not fit into a 1/8 jack; so some kind of adaptor would be requried.

One of the mics you mentioned earlier was a Sennheiser G2. Its receiver has several ouput options, including a mic level output on a 1/8" plug. For your shoot, it might just be a good way to go. While a boom is often preferable to a lav and a hardwired lav is preferable to wireless, for your situation the wireless might work out okay. You still need to take care to interface it to your camera properly.

Extension cables and a boompole are not unavoidable but then you have to live with second-rate sound. Mother Nature's laws of physics are at work here and you rarely can successfully do an end-run around them. You have to get the mic the proper distance from the talent to work properly and you have to have some way of getting the signal from the mic to the camera at the proper level and with the proper parts of the signal on the proper terminals at the camera's connector.

You are further hampered by the extremely limited options available on a consumer camera designed and marketed basically for shooting nothing much more demanding then the memories of the kid's 2nd birthday party. As a photographer, would you go to spend a day working with a model for your portfolio with a $100 point-and-shoot from Costco or would you take a Nikon D700, D3, or the new Leica M9 and a bag of lenses? Prosumer gear is designed with an eye to professional standards (usually) to allow for proper interfacing and control among the various system components. Unfortunately, yours isn't - it's a video point and shoot. For example, as far as I can find in the manual, there isn't any way of taking manual control of the recording levels. There are a variety of ways to approach your problem, wirelss lavs being one. But whatever you do, to get the best results you will simply have to go father than a shotgun held near the camera. Regardless of where you put the mic, you'll also need to pay attention to getting the signal from the mic into the camera and with a number of the mics you originally listed as being available to you, supplying them the operating power they need while converting their balanced XLR mono output to drive a 1/8" miniplug stereo input, splitting the mono to both left and right channels in the camera.

[zephyrize]

Wireless mics come with 1/8" jacks too. Just ask the rental house before you go. A wireless I think IS the best way to go for this project. Your subject will be free to move around, and you won't have to be close to the subject, or worry about getting the mic in the shot.

Go wireless. Bring your camera to the rental house and tell them to make it work.

Yup, I think I'll do that.


One of the mics you mentioned earlier was a Sennheiser G2. Its receiver has several ouput options, including a mic level output on a 1/8" plug. For your shoot, it might just be a good way to go. While a boom is often preferable to a lav and a hardwired lav is preferable to wireless, for your situation the wireless might work out okay. You still need to take care to interface it to your camera properly.

Extension cables and a boompole are not unavoidable but then you have to live with second-rate sound. Mother Nature's laws of physics are at work here and you rarely can successfully do an end-run around them. You have to get the mic the proper distance from the talent to work properly and you have to have some way of getting the signal from the mic to the camera at the proper level and with the proper parts of the signal on the proper terminals at the camera's connector.

You are further hampered by the extremely limited options available on a consumer camera designed and marketed basically for shooting nothing much more demanding then the memories of the kid's 2nd birthday party. As a photographer, would you go to spend a day working with a model for your portfolio with a $100 point-and-shoot from Costco or would you take a Nikon D700, D3, or the new Leica M9 and a bag of lenses? Prosumer gear is designed with an eye to professional standards (usually) to allow for proper interfacing and control among the various system components. Unfortunately, yours isn't - it's a video point and shoot. For example, as far as I can find in the manual, there isn't any way of taking manual control of the recording levels. There are a variety of ways to approach your problem, wirelss lavs being one. But whatever you do, to get the best results you will simply have to go father than a shotgun held near the camera. Regardless of where you put the mic, you'll also need to pay attention to getting the signal from the mic into the camera and with a number of the mics you originally listed as being available to you, supplying them the operating power they need while converting their balanced XLR mono output to drive a 1/8" miniplug stereo input, splitting the mono to both left and right channels in the camera.

You're right. The main thing here is the part that is evaluated is the paperwork and research behind the video. The final video itself takes like not even 10% of the grade.
Now most of the wireless mics use standard AA batteries to power them right?
For sure, I'd have preferred shooting with a EX1 or XH-A1 or even a 7D, but unfortunately, the timing is quite bad. :Drogar-KnockedOut(D
If I had more time and latitude, I would have seriously done much more research and rented professional equipment.
Who knows, maybe one day I'll really do a serious film and get to know the audio world? :2vrolijk_08:

[Steve House]

Yup, I think I'll do that.



You're right. The main thing here is the part that is evaluated is the paperwork and research behind the video. The final video itself takes like not even 10% of the grade.
Now most of the wireless mics use standard AA batteries to power them right?
For sure, I'd have preferred shooting with a EX1 or XH-A1 or even a 7D, but unfortunately, the timing is quite bad. :Drogar-KnockedOut(D
If I had more time and latitude, I would have seriously done much more research and rented professional equipment.
Who knows, maybe one day I'll really do a serious film and get to know the audio world? :2vrolijk_08:

AAs or 9volts, I think Senns are AAs. Best O'luck!