Ambient mics?

M

movieman1005

Member
Does anyone have any recommendations for good microphones for capturing ambient sounds? For example when you're watching a scene, obviously you hear more than just dialogue and music (background noise)
I looked at the Sennheiser MKE 44-P, but that's the only one online I could find anywhere that was suggested for these situations. http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/47037-REG/Sennheiser_MKE44P_MKE_44_P_Microphone.html

My price range would definitely be at the Sennheisers at a minimum, but beyond that I'm not so sure (don't have the money yet that I plan to use, and it's unclear when and how much it will be. Right now I'm just trying to find ideas and suggestions). If there are big price range difference could someone list popular ones in different ranges?
 
So what do you have now? How do you feel you current ambient recordings are deficient?

There are likely scores of different microphones that are used for this application. That Sennheiser (or any other microphone) will need appropriate wind screening when used outdoors. And appropriate outdoor protection may be a bigger factor than exactly which microphone you use.
 
movieman1005 said:
Does anyone have any recommendations for good microphones for capturing ambient sounds? For example when you're watching a scene, obviously you hear more than just dialogue and music (background noise)
I looked at the Sennheiser MKE 44-P, but that's the only one online I could find anywhere that was suggested for these situations. http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/47037-REG/Sennheiser_MKE44P_MKE_44_P_Microphone.html

My price range would definitely be at the Sennheisers at a minimum, but beyond that I'm not so sure (don't have the money yet that I plan to use, and it's unclear when and how much it will be. Right now I'm just trying to find ideas and suggestions). If there are big price range difference could someone list popular ones in different ranges?
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What microphone are you using now?

A good choice is to clip the Ambient Emesser ATE 208 to your current mic. and record MS stereo.

The pro. choice is the Sennheiser MKH 30/40 MS combo., but this is way above your price range.

Having said this, the Ambient will come prety close at a vastly lower price.
 
From your post it sounds like you want to capture "ambient" sound on set while the shot is taking place.

If that is the case it's a bad idea. The "set" is not the world your film takes place in and it won't sound like it.
 
Noiz2 said:
From your post it sounds like you want to capture "ambient" sound on set while the shot is taking place.

If that is the case it's a bad idea. The "set" is not the world your film takes place in and it won't sound like it.
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+1
 
The sonic world of a film is created entirely in audio post. Everything except for the dialog is stripped away from the production sound - and sometimes dialog from alternate takes, dialog wilds or ADR is used to replace the production dialog. Everything else is created from scratch or pulled from a library by the audio post team. The Foley team (walkers and recordists) recreate all of the human related sounds (footsteps, punches, kisses, clothing, props handling, etc.) plus a lot of other things. Sound editors cut in vehicles, explosions, doors and a thousand other details you would never think about. The sound editors also create entire ambiences from scratch with dozens of layers of sounds.

There are quite a few very nice stereo mics to record ambient backgrounds to serve as a bed for your ambiences; some of those mics cost more than most indie types spend on their camera.

So please supply us with more specifics - your budget and your intended purposes. (BTW, sometimes a pair of matched mics is the better choice.)
 
Right now I just use my camcorder's built in mic (canon hv30). After filming something I get at least a good 30 seconds of just filming on the camera to capture the atmosphere/background noise.

I don't mean recording the ambient during the take, but after filming a scene in the same location.

I realize sound effects are usually done with foley, etc. and oftentimes something like a shotgun is used to record those specific sounds. I've also done that.
 
movieman1005 said:
Right now I just use my camcorder's built in mic (canon hv30). After filming something I get at least a good 30 seconds of just filming on the camera to capture the atmosphere/background noise.

I don't mean recording the ambient during the take, but after filming a scene in the same location.

I realize sound effects are usually done with foley, etc. and oftentimes something like a shotgun is used to record those specific sounds. I've also done that.
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I can appreciate your desire for getting the most out of everything you can.

But I would ask that you take a stroll through all the postings and especially the stickies here on DVXUser, especially here in Audio.

What it sounds like is you are wanting "tone". And if it hasn't been said yet, on-board sound is not the greatest for any production.
 
I think the OP means that when there's a scene let's say in a forest and there are some birds singing which he could use in the scene, he would record it in stereo (MS, XY, AB whatever...).

And yes I know you all knew this :-p
 
I looked up both of those devices, and the zoom sounded REALLY good from tests on youtube, as well as reviews on various sites. When looking at the same for the 3d mic I was actually somewhat disappointed. Only a couple reviews (which were double posted on amazon and bandh, causing me suspicion) on most sites and the youtube videos were, overall, just ok imo. Maybe it was just the ones that I viewed (or listened to, I should say) at, but the zoom actually seems a lot better from those two.
 
Movieman,

You can't tell squat from YouTube videos, except maybe how well the filmmaker used the mic. Reviews are always a bit dicey also since usually you don't know enough about the reviewer to judge how much of what they do relates to what you want to do.

This also pops up a lot when looking at reviews on music sites if your doing film. Somethings they don't really care at all about, usability in a bag, pre roll buffer, good low end roll off, real li miters, etc, are actually pretty important for film work.

Best is to get your hands on one and see if you like it. Second best is to find someone who is doing what you want to be doing and who uses whatever it is and ask them. If you know them it counts more.

Dead last are posts by folks you don't know (if you have been following there postings you kind of know them). The reason is you have no idea if the problem they have are because they don't know what they are doing or because something is actually a problem with the product. Also a lot of folks get all wound up about meaningless "facts". You will get endless discussions about noise floors etc. when the worse figure they pull up is way below the self noise of the microphone. And some folks love pictures. Graphs of measured XYZ value. It all looks good but with out knowing what kind of controls they used it's a waste of thought. This is the same problem with "shootouts". A lot of shootouts don't have a level playing field. It's actually very hard to do, and very few take the time.

I'm not saying don't read any of this stuff because it is of some use but don't count on any of it being "truth", just an opinion with extras.
 
OK I thought I would put this in a separate post since the last one is really a different topic.

Movieman, Good, I'm glad I was wrong about what you were planning.

As somebody else said I would advise looking at the stickies because there is actually a mini course in sound up there.

Stereo is a very common format to record FX in. If you need it mono just drop one side. Partly folks tend to record stereo is that it keeps your rig smaller and that is a plus. Shotguns are actually not so common. They alter the sound a bit and you can usually get close enough to what you want since you don't have frame lines to worry about.

As long as you are using on board mics for your production sound one of your biggest problems is making anything you add noisy enough to fit in. The extra your recording for Room Tone (it's not ambience) you are doing correctly. It needs to be with the same setup as you did the production with. It is good to do it but it doesn't get you a whole lot these days. The idea originally was so that you would have "air" to fill in the wholes when you edit. When you were editing on mag it was important to have some clean Room Tone to splice in. And the band with was so limited that it generally fit well. These days however you usually just steal some "air" from the track close to where the whole is. That was not possible with film but is a piece of cake with digital. And now that the quality (mechanical quality) of the sound track is much better it's a lot harder to toss in "room tone" that is maybe an hour away from where the hole in the track is.

For actual ambiences etc. you should record separately, and probably not around the set. You need to think of where your movie takes place not where you shot it. Then go to places that sound like where the movie is and record those ambiences. You should also record any background, ambience etc for at least 1.5 min. with out changing perspective. Bring a watch. Ideally three min. is the goal but that is really hard on the arms/patience.

And since nobody else mentioned it "Foley police moment" - it's Foley not foley. It's always capitalized.
 
Yeah, I realize that now with the reviews/tests online. I guess the only thing concerning me about the 3d pro mic is the lack of reviews. IDK how much of a reputation it has in general.
I suppose I should try calling local music stores to see if any carry the mic, too (can't think of any other type of store that would carry it)

sorry bout the Foley:Drogar-KnockedOut(D It seems the Foley police let me off with a warning this time....:happy:



Do you (Noiz 2) or anyone else have any other specific mic suggestions? And I've searched this audio section with words like "ambient mic" and "tone mic", as well as looking through some recent pages. Not any luck with other threads concerning this issue. If anyone knows of any specific threads like this and would be able to guide me to them, that would be greatly helpful
 
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movieman1005 said:
Do you (Noiz 2) or anyone else have any other specific mic suggestions? And I've searched this audio section with words like "ambient mic" and "tone mic", as well as looking through some recent pages. Not any luck with other threads concerning this issue. If anyone knows of any specific threads like this and would be able to guide me to them, that would be greatly helpful
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Ambiance and Tone are two different things. Ambiance is the sound of the environment ... traffic on a distant freeway, birds singing in the trees, the babble of the brook beside the lover's picnic site before Freddy crashes out of the forest. You record ambiance with whatever mic is best suited to the particular sound you're capturing and the ambiance track itself is assembled in post from perhaps dozens of such separate recordings. Tone, OTOH, is the sound of silence, that subliminal sense of space that goes unnoticed until it goes missing. Tone fills in the spaces between words in dialog. As such, it should be captured with the same mic that is used for the dialog recording, held in the same position as it was during the dialog take, and with all the same people and equipment present in the same locations but standing still and silent. It provides a sense of the physical space in which the action is taking place. In a quiet location record someone saying "Sliced...(5 sec pause)...Bread", then record them again saying the same words with no pause between but in your NLE split between the words and insert 5 seconds of silence. Play the two recordings. They will both have a word, a 5 sec pause, and another word but comparing the two the overall impression will be very, very different. Tone is that "non-sound" that fills the gap between the two words in the recording where the talent paused for 5 seconds between his words and it's missing from the one where you inserted a gap of silence in your editor
 
What your looking for is stereo mic. Though a lot of people don't use stereo mics and instead use stereo pairs (two mono mics).
You can get really expensive stereo mics and you can go all the way down to some very cheap Sony stereo mics. You can go a lot cheaper but it's not recommended.

So on the high end you have something like this. I don't like big contraptions like this but...

Then you have mics like this sennheiser. I have it and it does a lice job and is a true XY (many stereo mics are MS and then convert to LR). The one issue I have had with it is that it is susceptible to picking up some radar signals. In the SF bay area I would get hit by navy radar sweeps in certain locations. Otherwise it's pretty nice.
This Shure is also popular. I find it pretty heavy but a lot of folks like it.

And a Sony like this is very affordable and OK for this kind of recording. At under $100 it's not the high end super low noise standard but for ambiences a lot of times that is not super critical. Content will trump minor technical flaws.
The water recordings used in The Black Stallion were recorded with a similar mic on to a cassette recorder and are fantastic. There is often a fair amount of white noise in "ambient" spaces so the self noise tends to get masked out. Also if you are using a recorder with a 1/8" mic in you can go in with out adapters.

Generally for FX and Foley you would want a quieter mic, but you could get by with the Sony. If you are doing your production with the onboard I would go fairly cheap on the FX mic and use the rest on getting some better production sound. You can use the production mic to do FX recording if you need an upgrade there.

I have a Sony similar to this one that I still use to steal ambiences where I have to be light and small.

My normal FX mics are a pair of Oktava cardioids and a Oktava Hyper, depending on if I'm going stereo or mono.
 
"Ambiance and Tone are two different things. Ambiance is the sound of the environment ... traffic on a distant freeway, birds singing in the trees, the babble of the brook beside the lover's picnic site before Freddy crashes out of the forest. You record ambiance with whatever mic is best suited to the particular sound you're capturing and the ambiance track itself is assembled in post from perhaps dozens of such separate recordings. Tone, OTOH, is the sound of silence, that subliminal sense of space that goes unnoticed until it goes missing. Tone fills in the spaces between words in dialog. As such, it should be captured with the same mic that is used for the dialog recording, held in the same position as it was during the dialog take, and with all the same people and equipment present in the same locations but standing still and silent. It provides a sense of the physical space in which the action is taking place. In a quiet location record someone saying "Sliced...(5 sec pause)...Bread", then record them again saying the same words with no pause between but in your NLE split between the words and insert 5 seconds of silence. Play the two recordings. They will both have a word, a 5 sec pause, and another word but comparing the two the overall impression will be very, very different. Tone is that "non-sound" that fills the gap between the two words in the recording where the talent paused for 5 seconds between his words and it's missing from the one where you inserted a gap of silence in your editor"

OIC, so you always want to have a track playing audio from the same mic used for the dialogue, even when there is no dialogue, and this is too keep it sounding consistent.


Noiz 2, have you any knowledge/heard anything about this mic? I just discovered it, and it seems to be the same type of mic and in the price range of the Sennheiser and Shure mics you listed (which seems to be the likely price range at this point in time). http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/602082-REG/Audio_Technica_BP4025_BP4025_X_Y_Stereo_Field.html


Also, when talking about ways to record fx/Foley, it sounds like you're saying a cheap one like the Sony one you posted would likely be ok, or even the same ones you use for dialogue, correct?


BTW thank you all for your help!
 
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Noiz2 said:
So on the high end you have something like this. I don't like big contraptions like this but...
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LOL

This is a mic. really designed for the concert hall and not used on location.

A top-end ambient (wild track) mic. set would probably be the Sennheiser MKH 30/40 MS rig.

Some people often keep an MKH 30 (the new Ambient EMESSER is an excellent less expensive alternative)on their normal gun mic. and use this combination for wild track.
 
movieman1005 said:
Noiz 2, have you any knowledge/heard anything about this mic? I just discovered it, and it seems to be the same type of mic and in the price range of the Sennheiser and Shure mics you listed (which seems to be the likely price range at this point in time). http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/602082-REG/Audio_Technica_BP4025_BP4025_X_Y_Stereo_Field.html


Also, when talking about ways to record fx/Foley, it sounds like you're saying a cheap one like the Sony one you posted would likely be ok, or even the same ones you use for dialogue, correct?
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That is a pretty heavy mic at 9.5 oz. It's almost up there with the VP88 at 14.7. By contrast the Sennheiser mic I mentioned runs around 4.5 oz.

That is not a killer by any means but keep in mind you are going to be holding it a long time. We had an earlier stereo mic from AT and we liked it.

It's always better to get the best you can BUT if your doing a hollywood stile post and layering up tracks then the self noise of cheaper mics tends to get eaten up in the mix. The more "bare" the sound is in the mix the more you have to worry about really clean recordings.

There are other downsides to cheap mics, durability being a big one. Also you not likely to be getting much big low end off most cheap mics because they have smaller elements. So it's not so much that it's OK but that you can get away with more.

Dialog is the star of the film and that needs to be as clean and sweet as you can get it. If I had $X to spend on mics 80% would go to the production mics and the 20% would be for a stereo setup. IF you have a nice hyper for dialog you can use that on any mono FX.

Not sure if that was all that clear.

The short version is because of how FX are used a lot of flaws will get masked but that is not the case with production.
 
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