Best lav for hiding under clothing

V

vip77

Active member
I have been googling around for information, and so far what I've found as far as lav mics recommended for hiding under clothing:

Countryman EMW

or

Tram TR-50


I'm also really very interested in the Countryman B6 because of its size, but I don't know about how well it functions under clothing. Also, I've read that the B6 doesn't handle wind well, so that may rule it out as I'll be doing a lot of exterior shoooting. Can anyone verify that?

Anyone have any recommendations, suggestions, or experiences?
 
I have a lectro with the countryman EMW. Works well under clothing. Note that if you decide to get the EMW, go for the model with a high frequency boost.

Jason
 
Also, if you're willing to spend a couple extra bucks, the coutryman B6 is smaller than either Lav and sounds incredible. You can hear it in action in the video here.
 
The B6 is the best for hiding in plain sight - neither the EMW or the Tram are particularly small lavs so sticking them under clothes would be about the same. In general, the EMW is a fairly good sounding lav, but I've never worked with the Tram so I can't offer a comparison. There is another thread going right now where people are expressing their opinions on these two lavs among others, and of course it appears to be evenly divided. I will say that one person who's opinion I respect highly does not like the Tram but likes the EMW - but YMMV.

Phil
 
That's the beauty of the B6, it is so tiny that it does not need to go under clothing. If I were doing narrative where mics cannot be seen at all, B6 would be my first choice. There is no other lav that can be placed side by side with a button, through a button hole, in plain sight.

Placing mics under clothing is a whole art, there are a lot of tricks of the trade. I will be writing an article and shooting copious amounts of photos of the process, step by step, for an article that will appear sometime over the next few months.

Dan
 
Yep, I agree with Dan on this one. :-)

I've hidden B6's in all sorts of different places. It goes into hair really well, I've put it on eye glasses, hidden in plain site behind a button. They are, without a doubt, the easiest to hide.

Phil
 
The B6 is the bomb. Hiding mics under clothes is a recipe for scratchy/ruined soundtracks, but the B6 you can hide anywhere. I used it all over Cold Calls, it's actually taped in plain sight on the telemarketer's headset right where his mouth is. Got great sound from that. Blanchard also had it wired up her arm and then taped right on the phone she was using in the end-ish scene where she's pacing through the room. Worked fantastic, and no under-clothes rustling hassles.
 
Another mic that you can hide in plain sight is the Sanken COS-11. I used it in theatre mostly but I had an actress wired up who was completely paranoid that anyone find out she was using a mic, a Name who didn't quite have the voice she used to have. The sell for her was when her daughter came is and talked to her for 10 minutes and couldn't see the mic.
 
I'm definitely leaning towards the B6 as I'll be shooting mostly exterior narrative work.

In the link posted by RandomHero the B6 seemed to sound pretty good even on a windy day of 10-20mph gusts.

Conversely, in another thread, Rippie posted "the b6 is useless without a windscreen outside and by the time you put the supplied screen on it..its as big as any other mic."

So, any opinions?
 
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