Looking to improve sound for interviews . Which mike to buy?

L

LDV20

Well-known member
Lately I have some projects where the budget will not allow to hire a sound man. I am not a sound expert but I manage, nor do I know microphone capabilities that well. In listening to some of my projects where I had a sound man; I am disappointed with the quality of the sound. with my equipment. Not that I had any problems - audio sounds more like news interviews. Actually for my clients it really is no problem. But I miss that warm,rich sound. I am using cos11 with a lectrosonic wireless and at times a 416 on boom (which indoors is not great as most of you know - ) So I am looking at either AUDIX SC1 HC or SANKEN CSM1.
The question is will that improve the interview sound where the quality justify's the expense. I am using a FX6 and was told I will get much better sound with PreMIx3. But using a mixer with limited help would not be easy -
Any advise would be appreciated. Thank you
 
As part of your research, I would check out some tests on YouTube between various mics that showcase how warm or rich any difference may be.

Most test are without post-producing, but there are also videos about tools/plugins that may help get more out of your other mics.
 
The distance to talent is by far the most important factor. Room acoustics and talent’s voice have a large impact.

I can do a decent job when doing a solo interview by placing a mic on a static boom. But if you don’t have a proper boom, your talent is moving turning their head etc, or need wider shot for safety, without a boom op…

Sure you can select certain mics that work better with different voice types but this is a very subtle thing. Curtis Judge has some good comparison mic videos but you really have to be discerning to pickup on the differences.

A good test to run is take your mic and record yourself. Try three distances 8”, 18” and 32”. You’ll be surprised how different the same mic will sound.

Lastly using a quality mixer and not using wireless are other things that will improve audio quality .

I’m saying all this based on all the threads I’ve seen over the years, people looking to solve their audio issues by purchasing a more expensive mic.
 
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You should be able to get high quality sound with the gear you have. Yes, a hypercardioid to use inside instead of the 416 would be a good idea. If you are not getting good sound with the COS11 and 416 then something else may need to be looked at. Mic placement is extremely important, as is your gain structure. I would address those before spending more money.
 
Thank you both NoBro and Peter - I did U tube research and could definitely here a richer and less echo sound with Audix SC1 HC - the reviewer compared it to 416 - as for boom being close I did have it around 8 -11inches or so. No boom operator but I could have my lighting asst do it. Actually when I tested both mikes in my living room with a test set up and live person the 416 sound good much better that the lav. Maybe the talent moved on the last project a bit and I did not catch it - so the 416 got bit of a echo. I do have a static boom - perhaps the talent was off axis.

Maybe the mixer in first thing to upgrade -
 
Rob Neidig said:
You should be able to get high quality sound with the gear you have. Yes, a hypercardioid to use inside instead of the 416 would be a good idea. If you are not getting good sound with the COS11 and 416 then something else may need to be looked at. Mic placement is extremely important, as is your gain structure. I would address those before spending more money.
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Thank you

I will do a re test with both mics and see - good idea before I male a large investment
 
You need to take your sound into DAW. A lav mic like a cos 11 is out of the box not going to sound 'right' as its made to be under clothes and sanken made the lavs characteristics sound bright to compensate for that.You need to equalize in post to match boom mics. Here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_RqesDZhec
 
As has been said, mic placement and environment are the two biggest things. If you can't get the mic close and the room is just a bouncy box, it's all going to sound bad.

COS-11's are pretty much THE standard, as far as lav's go. I also have been using Countryman B6's more and more, lately, though.

As far as "boom mics", the Sanken CS-3e is my main weapon of choice. It sounds great and is at home doing almost anything. It has a nice low-end and is pretty good in reverberant environments, compared to some other mics in its class.

I just added a Sennheiser MKH50 this summer and it sounds great with a really nice low-end, as well. It's probably a little warmer, overall than the already awesome CS-3e, but it's kind of a one trick pony. You are really only going to use it for dialogue indoors and it's kind of sensitive to placement. You can tell a real difference when the source is off-axis. But when it's on the money, it's a very rewarding sound. I saw someone post a few days ago, that the 50 "sounds better than real life", and that's a pretty good way of putting it. But it also depends on what you are going for and need, too. Sounding "better" isn't always better.

The CS-M1, I actually mainly use as a nat mic, but it sounds good. A couple of my audio guys have used mine for dialogue and I've had it on the camera when we were shooting stand-ups in a good environment and they could have actually used the sound from it on the camera, instead of the real audio and no one but the sound guy and me would have known. It doesn't have the low-end that it's bigger brother, the 3e, has, and because of that, I'd almost say it's closer to the more neutral sound that you get from a Schoeps 641, than it's sibling, the 3e.

The Schoeps 641, honestly, is probably my least used mic out of the bunch. Don't interpret that as there being anything wrong with it, because it's one of the most highly regarded mics out there for dialogue, and it's very neutral and natural. But with the 3e being such a good "all-arounder", it's usually already on the pole and just stays there. Plus I have two 3e's, so it makes the choice easy when we have to double boom interviews.

Bottom line, if you're looking for a "boom mic" that has "warmth", I'd say audition a Sanken CS-3e and a Sennheiser MKH50.
 
I have the Audix SCX1-HC and I love it. I think it sounds really rich and warm, especially with bassy voices that can be hard to do justice to with other mics.

One large downside is that it requires a ton of pre-amp. It's a quiet mic and also doesn't have a lot of reach/off-axis rejection since it's not a shotgun. So I only use it when I can get the mic close and there isn't a lot of background noise. The other downside is that the frequency response suffers if your aim is off.

But I'm not a sound guy and, as others have mentioned, you may want to diagnose your entire pipeline to look for other weak points. If you or I were to really up our sound game, it would probably make sense to seek out youtube tutorials for actual sound mixers and find out what we don't even know we don't know
 
Run&Gun said:
As has been said, mic placement and environment are the two biggest things. If you can't get the mic close and the room is just a bouncy box, it's all going to sound bad.

COS-11's are pretty much THE standard, as far as lav's go. I also have been using Countryman B6's more and more, lately, though.

As far as "boom mics", the Sanken CS-3e is my main weapon of choice. It sounds great and is at home doing almost anything. It has a nice low-end and is pretty good in reverberant environments, compared to some other mics in its class.

I just added a Sennheiser MKH50 this summer and it sounds great with a really nice low-end, as well. It's probably a little warmer, overall than the already awesome CS-3e, but it's kind of a one trick pony. You are really only going to use it for dialogue indoors and it's kind of sensitive to placement. You can tell a real difference when the source is off-axis. But when it's on the money, it's a very rewarding sound. I saw someone post a few days ago, that the 50 "sounds better than real life", and that's a pretty good way of putting it. But it also depends on what you are going for and need, too. Sounding "better" isn't always better.

The CS-M1, I actually mainly use as a nat mic, but it sounds good. A couple of my audio guys have used mine for dialogue and I've had it on the camera when we were shooting stand-ups in a good environment and they could have actually used the sound from it on the camera, instead of the real audio and no one but the sound guy and me would have known. It doesn't have the low-end that it's bigger brother, the 3e, has, and because of that, I'd almost say it's closer to the more neutral sound that you get from a Schoeps 641, than it's sibling, the 3e.

The Schoeps 641, honestly, is probably my least used mic out of the bunch. Don't interpret that as there being anything wrong with it, because it's one of the most highly regarded mics out there for dialogue, and it's very neutral and natural. But with the 3e being such a good "all-arounder", it's usually already on the pole and just stays there. Plus I have two 3e's, so it makes the choice easy when we have to double boom interviews.

Bottom line, if you're looking for a "boom mic" that has "warmth", I'd say audition a Sanken CS-3e and a Sennheiser MKH50.
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damn dude you roll deep
 
LDV20 said:
Thank you both NoBro and Peter - I did U tube research and could definitely here a richer and less echo sound with Audix SC1 HC - the reviewer compared it to 416 - as for boom being close I did have it around 8 -11inches or so. No boom operator but I could have my lighting asst do it. Actually when I tested both mikes in my living room with a test set up and live person the 416 sound good much better that the lav. Maybe the talent moved on the last project a bit and I did not catch it - so the 416 got bit of a echo. I do have a static boom - perhaps the talent was off axis.

Maybe the mixer in first thing to upgrade -
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If the room has hard surfaces you're going to get echo no matter what you do. If I had to guess, I'd say room acoustics. I've been recently filming interviews at a ballet studio. Same issue. Nothing I can do. Sure you could bring in blankets but it's not the type of job that warrants that setup and effort.
 
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Some good mics have been recommended. And you know, if the location looks like a reverb-y place, some reverb in your tracks can be OK.

For me, with a Schoeps 641 and the ability to get close, I can usually get something that will work work. When I have three-four blankets and a team-oriented crew, I've made pretty bad locations work decently. Dealing with blankets is tricky as an OMB (mainly in terms of load in and time), but on a crew of two (camera and sound, with both of us simpatico), it's worth it, imo.

But my Schoeps mics are expensive. I could probably get close-enough results with the Sanken CSM1 (just recently bought one), the Audix, and the MKH50... I think it's definitely worth auditioning a couple of those mics (and maybe the new Rycote mics...?) and see what you think. In addition to the distances Peter suggests, check out the off-axis response like you'd get from an interview subject who moves around a lot (or an actor who improvises...)

And even when you can't use blankets or otherwise get rid of all the room 'verb, that can be OK. The video below was a tough location for sound. Concrete floors and walls. For the interview, the calligrapher was standing on some thin black cloth that was there to protect the floor from her ink.... Maybe I got her on a sound blanket, I can't recall...definitely didn't do much treatment of the room (or in post), and I probably wanted to get in a bit tighter. But the camera shows enough of the background to motivate the reverb. And there's a music bed. :-). I think it works.

The FX6 supports 24-bit/48k audio, so I'd think it'd be just fine for recording dialog, especially if the limiter is decent. I haven't worked with a FX6, and I'm an audio snob (and user of Sound Devices gear), but really, with good mic placement and decent levels, I'd think it'd be good. And if you're an OMB, the added complexity of working with an external recorder like the MixPre 3 might not be worth it...

Hey, let us know what you end up using! Good luck!

 
morgan_moore said:
you wear headphones while rolling?
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Yes, always wear headphones SONY 7506. Did not hear any off axis change. He was mostly in position. With limited crew I am focused on talent performance - image quality - vu meters - so alot is going on. The audio on this project from the LAV is good no issues - I am going to try and EQ a bit with the lav in post as MICO suggests to see if I can make a bit richer sounding.
 
Jim Feeley said:
Some good mics have been recommended. And you know, if the location looks like a reverb-y place, some reverb in your tracks can be OK.

For me, with a Schoeps 641 and the ability to get close, I can usually get something that will work work. When I have three-four blankets and a team-oriented crew, I've made pretty bad locations work decently. Dealing with blankets is tricky as an OMB (mainly in terms of load in and time), but on a crew of two (camera and sound, with both of us simpatico), it's worth it, imo.

But my Schoeps mics are expensive. I could probably get close-enough results with the Sanken CSM1 (just recently bought one), the Audix, and the MKH50... I think it's definitely worth auditioning a couple of those mics (and maybe the new Rycote mics...?) and see what you think. In addition to the distances Peter suggests, check out the off-axis response like you'd get from an interview subject who moves around a lot (or an actor who improvises...)

And even when you can't use blankets or otherwise get rid of all the room 'verb, that can be OK. The video below was a tough location for sound. Concrete floors and walls. For the interview, the calligrapher was standing on some thin black cloth that was there to protect the floor from her ink.... Maybe I got her on a sound blanket, I can't recall...definitely didn't do much treatment of the room (or in post), and I probably wanted to get in a bit tighter. But the camera shows enough of the background to motivate the reverb. And there's a music bed. :-). I think it works.

The FX6 supports 24-bit/48k audio, so I'd think it'd be just fine for recording dialog, especially if the limiter is decent. I haven't worked with a FX6, and I'm an audio snob (and user of Sound Devices gear), but really, with good mic placement and decent levels, I'd think it'd be good. And if you're an OMB, the added complexity of working with an external recorder like the MixPre 3 might not be worth it...

Hey, let us know what you end up using! Good luck!

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Great interview very creatively done. I will look into several of MICs - for budget reasons I am leaning to AUDIX. I am a Production Company - I do projects from seed to finish - so when I have the budget I will hire sound and camera. On larger projects we used sound blankets so I understand. I also found a U tube video where the reviewer looked at the difference between the audio record quality on the FX6 vs MIX PRE - sure the soundesgin sounded a bit better - but FX 6 was certainly good enough.

Thank you for your help
 
ahalpert said:
I have the Audix SCX1-HC and I love it. I think it sounds really rich and warm, especially with bassy voices that can be hard to do justice to with other mics.

One large downside is that it requires a ton of pre-amp. It's a quiet mic and also doesn't have a lot of reach/off-axis rejection since it's not a shotgun. So I only use it when I can get the mic close and there isn't a lot of background noise. The other downside is that the frequency response suffers if your aim is off.

But I'm not a sound guy and, as others have mentioned, you may want to diagnose your entire pipeline to look for other weak points. If you or I were to really up our sound game, it would probably make sense to seek out youtube tutorials for actual sound mixers and find out what we don't even know we don't know
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I am leaning towards to Audix - what camera are you using with it or are you using a mixer. Since it requires a powerful pre-amp wondering if FX6 can drive it. Your right, time to up the sound game - I will do alot of research and tutorials.
 
Late to the conversation, but my thoughts:

”Sound man”, as a general term, does not give proper respect or acknowledgment to the fact that there are quite a few women in the industry - more and more these days. “Sound Mixer” opens up that space. That said...

I recently picked up a Sanken CSM1. I’ve kept it rigged and ready much more than my hypercardioid since I bought it. It sounds great, even if it’s missing a little on the very low end (which a low-cut filter would take out anyway), but the best aspect of this mic is that it does cut through the noise in less-than-ideal locations. I think the price is well below its performance, making it an absolute bargain. But I do still keep my hypers on hand (AKG Blue Line CK-93).

Lavs can also be helpful in problematic locations. The human torso absorbs a bit of the ambient sound. Lav placement is the difference between sounding like a local news interview and sounding like a higher-end production. There’s a sweet spot on the sternum, and there’s a little differentiation from individual to individual, that strikes a balance between frequency response and “opening up” the sound enough to give it some life. Too low, and you may as well just use an on-camera mic. Too high, and it’s in the pit of the throat and sounds muffled and cheap. And for seated interviews, unless you’re shooting extreme wides where you’ll see feet and floor, there’s no reason to go wireless. Get a lav terminated for XLR and phantom power conversion and run a cable.
 
LDV20 said:
Great interview very creatively done. I will look into several of MICs - for budget reasons I am leaning to AUDIX. I am a Production Company - I do projects from seed to finish - so when I have the budget I will hire sound and camera. On larger projects we used sound blankets so I understand. I also found a U tube video where the reviewer looked at the difference between the audio record quality on the FX6 vs MIX PRE - sure the soundesgin sounded a bit better - but FX 6 was certainly good enough.

Thank you for your help
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It’s not necessarily just the absolute sound quality difference between running a source into a camera vs. a dedicated mixer, it’s being able to adjust that incoming source quickly, easily and seamlessly, on the fly, if necessary.
 
No worries about the budget constraints. Maybe also think of how you could use the mic when it's not on a boom. I mean, in just the short time I"ve had it, the Sanken CS-M1 has worked well on camera, and when swung on a boom (it matched OK with a couple Schoeps)... Of course, other mics can go on camera, too...


Maybe see if you can audition a Rode NTG5, about US $500. I have used one, but I've worked with tracks recorded on one and the tracks sounded pretty good. https://www.rode.com/microphones/ntg5

And perhaps also the new Rycote HC mics. About US $750. Again, I haven't worked with these but Roland here gave them a spin:
https://www.dvxuser.com/forum/annou...nformation/5678484-rycote-s-first-microphones

https://rycote.com/microphone-windshield-shock-mount/hc-shotgun-microphones/

LDV20, if you live near LA or NYC (or another town with a good location-sound dealer), see if you can haul down your camera and headphones and try out a few of the mics. Then get the one that resonates with you. So many good choices these days...

Jim
PS- thanks for the nice comments about the Aoi Yamaguchi piece. Props go to Logan Kelsey who directed, and Russ & Jim, the gaffer and grip who set up a 20x20 book light powered by two M18s, and for fill a 12x12 booklight powered by a couple M8s (if I recall correctly). And an attitude of everyone where they let me get the sounds of the brush and stuff... I have plenty of other examples of sound recorded in tough situations, but Aoi's work is so compelling... https://www.aoiyamaguchi.com
 
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