audio advice jungle

T

teupaksa

Active member
hello.
i am planning to make a documentary in the jungle of asia. i will have problems with getting electricity, so i would prefer a AA-battery mic or a mic powered from my canon xh a1.

can someone help me with recommandations? i want a good allround mic since i also want to keep my equipment as small and light as possible...

what about stereo and mono? i have a small sony stero mic (sony ecm-ms907) (not xlr). Is that a good option? or should i go for a xlr mono mic? but isnt it a bit boring to have only one track to work with? then i should have 2 xlr monomics, or what?

i do want as good quality as possible since my ambition is to distribute my docu later. and i think sound is very important.

please give me some viewpoints and recommandations.

thanks
teupaksa
 
if you want to use your sony you can get an XLR adaptor for it if you need that kind of connection (not sure what connections can be used on the XH-A1.) You can also go the mono XLR route and in post copy your audio channel then send one signal right and the other left to produce stereo.

Not sure what your budget is for this project but there are tons of mics that can be powered with AA batteries but without knowing how much you want to spend its hard to make recommendations.
 
If your camera can provide phantom power then don't worry about AA powered microphones - just use the phantom power. If you're out in the jungle you're going to need a solid, sturdy, humidity resistant mic (i.e. not a Schoeps). I strongly recommend the Sennheiser 416 - it is a workhorse that never seems to die. Don't forget wind protection, cables and a boom pole.

Phil
 
thanks for replies.
i checked out the sennheiser. looks good. but i should hav told a bit more about the general sound picture i will be in.

mostly it will be a lot of people talking around the videocamera. and there will be noise all around from people and jungle. so the sound will not always be directed to the picture of what is happening in the camera.

when in the forest there will be alot of surrounding animal sounds too.

so, how directional is this sennheiser? how will it work in these surroundings? what about stereo?

the price i am willing to pay for a sound system (mic) is about 500 $

thanks...
 
The Sennheiser MKH416 is very directional, so you'll have to keep the desired sounds on-axis. Humidity can be a real problem for mics, but the `416 shrugs off environmental conditions that would choke most other mics. Its a great mic for both dialogue as well as ambience. There are plenty of used `416 mics on the market (a testament to their durability), so you should be able to find one for a little more than $500.

Stereo is useful, but phase-coherent stereo micing can easily double the cost and weight of you're kit. Dialogue is almost always recorded mono, and mono ambience recordings can be used to build a stereo (or even surround) soundscape.

Take a look at the Sennheiser MKH418s: an M-S stereo mic that essentially adds a back-electret figure-8 mic to a `416. The size and weight of the `418s is only slightly more than that of the `416, although the side-element is of a lower quality than one would expect from an MKH-series mic. Both elements need to be fed phantom power, so you'd be well advised to make up some XLR-5 cables ahead of time.
 
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