Protecting mics in wet conditions

T

TeleDan

Well-known member
I'll be providing video/audio coverage for an all-day marching band competition this Wednesday and the weather forecast is not looking good. I'm prepared for the wind but not the potential rain/ice/snow. I'll be in the pressbox but my mics will be exposed. I did some checking around and found that a mic can be protected with a non-lubricated latex condom (ok, let the wise cracks begin :) ).

Just curious if anyone has done this before and what effect it might have on my sound. Accoustically speaking, would this be fairly transparent? Once the event starts, it won't be easy for me to stop and put the condoms on (now there's a setup line :cheesy: ). Any experience out there for dealing wth wet weather conditions like this?

Thanks,
Dan
 
Dan,

One thing to keep in mind is if you're using blimps, you will need to cut the noise of the rain hitting the blimp. While I have never had to deal with this directly, I seem to remember some folks over on RAMPS talking about using some sort of insulation over the blimp to both keep it dryer and cut that rain noise.

Phil
 
Thanks for the suggestion, Phil. I'm using a pair of small diaphram condenser mics with BBGs. I have thought about constructing some sort of rain shield but so far have not come up with a design or material that would not potentially create more problems with wind and rain sounds. I took a look over on RAMPS and the suggestion there is using 'hog's hair' insulation. I know what they are talking about although I'll have to track down a local source.

-Dan
 
hogs hair is the accepted standard, HOWEVER, hogs hair is only effective for short bursts. when the hair becomes saturated with water it stops being useful, so for long static placements this probably wont help you.

I once used condoms to record some underwater sound effects with a 416 and a schoeps mk4, and they were cool for that, but I cant imagine one being acoustically transparent above water - the whole nautre of acoustically transparent materials is that they allow pressure to flow through them - this is not the case with an air and water tight condom.

I would imagine for a long static placement you are going to need to look at some custom housing.
 
Maybe an umbrella or some sort of mini-tent like structure covered with hogs hair to cut the rain noise on the structure? And then hogs hair over the blimp.

Phil
 
Thanks, Tim. I wasn't thinking that the hog's hair would be waterproof but that I could use it with a rainshield made out of coroplast. The coroplast itself would be too noisy in the rain but some sort of coarse insulation like hog's hair that won't itself absorb water might help control the sound, like Phil is suggesting. One advantage I have is that the mics are stationary and placed above the sound source. So an overhead shield could work.

As for the condom idea, I have my doubts as well. I'll pick some up today and test it out.

Thanks, guys, for the ideas.

-Dan
 
You don't really need a seperate structure for the hogs hair. Simple wrap it around the zep like a dead cat. It is not sonically transparent but does stop the rain slapping noise.

For light drizzle you usually don't need that much, a zepplin and furry will get you there. Assuming your shotgun is water friendly. For me, this is one of the reason's I went with the Sennheiser MKH mics. I have had the thing literallly dripping wet and not had one hiss or fizzle. Because of this I don't use the condom which I have found muffles your audio drastically (maybe a more sheer "lifelike" condom would have been better :grin:).

Good luck
 
And, it is for this type of scenario that I still have my AT897. Not only does it hold up well with fish guts, it holds its own in the rain. And if it dies, oh well, in the trash it goes. But, I haven't been able to kill this thing yet, so it stays in my bag of tricks.

Phil
 
Yeah, but the resale value on the ME66 (crap!) is significant enough that if I still had one, I would sell it again on eBay (lots of stupid folks out there). Not a lot of resale value in the 897, and it cost me less to begin with.

;-)

Phil
 
No go on the hogs hair at my local Home Depot. It might depend on the size of the store and time of year. I found it at a brand new Lowes that has more floor space. They had both natural and synthetic fiber versions.

Thanks for all the suggestions

-Dan
 
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