Bartlett Floor Recording Mic - great microphone but is it overkill for me?

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DanDU

Member
Hello everybody, this is my first post on dvxuser!

I am in the process of buying equipment for a project and could use some advice. I want to create videos with older folks in my town reminiscing as I show them old photographs on a television in my living room. My living room is 15ft square. The television is centered and against one wall. Approx. 6 to 10 subjects will be seated around the room in sort of a semi-circular fashion. I want everybody to feel relaxed and feel free to move around so I thought an unobtrusive boundary microphone would be ideal for my needs. I will record the video on a Panasonic GH1 and a Canon s95 and the audio on a Tascam dr100 mk II. (everything will be combined using Final Cut Pro X).

The microphone I am considering is a Bartlett Microphones Floor Recording Microphone. You can see specs and hear samples at this link:

http://bartlettmics.com/floor_recording_mic.html

The owner of the company developed Crown's line of microphones including the PCCTM-160, you can read about the owners here:

http://bartlettmics.com/about.html

I am wondering if anybody here on the board has had experience with the Bartlett Floor Recording microphone. This sounds like a great microphone from a reputable company but at $249 I am wondering if this is overkill for my purposes. The audio for my project is actually more important than the video so I am willing to spend a little more for higher quality audio. I just don't want to spend money unwisely.
 
$249 is not an amount to consider overkill if audio is that important. A proper sound kit can cost twice the camera kit, or more.

That said, boundary mics like the Bartlett or like the Crown PZM, in a room like that, will make the conversation sound like it's in a cave. Not only is it a wider pattern that will record more of the room's reflections, it's going to be placed too far away from any one person to be effective. The closer, the better, and the effective working distance for a mic for dialog is under two feet.

The best thing you can do for minimalist coverage is to have to boom ops covering the group with hypercardioid mics. One boom op could do it, but you'd have to have conversation pause here and there to get the mic from one end to the other, and the flow won't be as natural at that point.

The ideal situation? Every person on a lav, and a multi-track recorder to capture it all.

I wouldn't spend money on insufficient equipment. Your best bet is to hire a sound professional who has the right gear, and the knowledge of how to use it. You'll spend a little more than that Bartlett mic on a day rate, but not a whole lot more. And that's money much better spent.

If you cannot hire (no sound folks available), the second best plan is to rent the gear you need just for the shoot... also very doable within the price of buying one, good mic.
 
You have set yourself up for one of the more difficult (and expensive) kinds of recording projects you could want. As Alex.H says, ANY microphone at that distance, no matter whether it is on the floor or above it at any height is simply WAY TOO FAR AWAY from the people who are speaking. Even under the most ideal acoustic conditions (which you are very far from), it would be WAY TOO FAR AWAY.

Your best bet would be (again as Alex.H said) to hire a professional who will bring all the proper equipment to do the job right. If you really want to do this yourself, you can buy or rent something like an auto-mixer (or multi-track recorder) and a bunch of lav microphones, one for each talker.
 
Dan,

What we consider overkill would be the usage of wireless microphones on every speaking subject in the room recording all the channels discretely. No, your situation is just fine. The most practical approach is to keep it really simple for yourself and others who are going to be working with you.

I've been using Bruce Bartlett's TM-125 and TM-125HP microphones for almost 3 years in all types of field situations and wouldn't consider them lacking in definition. Tabletop situations like yours is typical and I would place at least one mic covering per 1-3 subject. If your table is a semi-circled shape placing two of these mics on the edge in front of the television with the grills facing your speaking subjects in a NOS or wide XY configuration would work. What you would pickup is the room, their voices, and anything that gets bumped on the table.

More ideal approach would be to use handheld microphones w/ holder shockmount placed directly in front of each subject all connected to a mixer summed down to your recording device. Your camera wouldn't be sufficient in this type of scenario unless you care for a hissy recording. What other equipments do you have or have access to?

A.
 
Alan H. Chang said:
Dan,

What we consider overkill would be the usage of wireless microphones on every speaking subject in the room recording all the channels discretely. ....
Click to expand...
Why equate "lav" with wireless? Agreed that a wireless on each person would be totally unnecessary - they're sitting still, not moving about where a cable would be an issue - but "lav" does not mean "wireless." A hard-wired lav on each would be a perfectly valid way to go and would give a cleaner recording of each voice than the boundary mic placed some distance away from them.
 
Alan H. Chang said:
Tabletop situations like yours is typical...
Click to expand...
It might be typical IF it were a tabletop situation, but my reading of DanDU's description included no table. Unless he has his dining-room table in his living room.

And even if it were a tabletop situation, I would have serious reservations about the surface mcrophone with use by a group of elderly people. Even under ideal conditions, where the "talent" is aware of the problems with table noises, you are taking a chance. Based on previous experience, I would have little faith in this solution.

Nobody here proposed wireless microphones. Mr. Chang must be reading some other thread.
 
Steve House said:
Why equate "lav" with wireless? Agreed that a wireless on each person would be totally unnecessary - they're sitting still, not moving about where a cable would be an issue - but "lav" does not mean "wireless." A hard-wired lav on each would be a perfectly valid way to go and would give a cleaner recording of each voice than the boundary mic placed some distance away from them.
Click to expand...

Wireless is unnecessary in this type of situation, thus, I stated that it was an overkill idea in the first place. The OP stated that he wants all the subjects to feel relaxed and able to move freely at will if necessary, which led me to think that a tabletop or floor microphone would realistically fit into the scene. Depending on how complicated this would turn out, everyone being hardwired needs a lot more attention than a two-microphone setup in the middle of that circle. He somewhat already feels that buying a $249 microphone is overkill for this project/application, and him buying at least 6 hardwired lavaliers costing a minimum 3-5 times his original estimate is exorbitant.

I love using hardwired lavs, but unless he's prepared to handle that many mics on set at the same time and recording them discretely to a recorder would require more resources. The boom in the room is also another simple, yet effective approach. As already mentioned by several others, hiring a sound professional would be the absolute best investment.
 
Richard Crowley said:
It might be typical IF it were a tabletop situation, but my reading of DanDU's description included no table. Unless he has his dining-room table in his living room.

And even if it were a tabletop situation, I would have serious reservations about the surface mcrophone with use by a group of elderly people. Even under ideal conditions, where the "talent" is aware of the problems with table noises, you are taking a chance. Based on previous experience, I would have little faith in this solution.

Nobody here proposed wireless microphones. Mr. Chang must be reading some other thread.
Click to expand...

Even recording from the floor up is normal. I'm throwing the tabletop idea just if there's ever a table present during the actual recording of this event, but all else the idea I got was all subjects are sitting in a semi-circle in front and around the television set white DanDu is recording with the video camera from either side of the wall pointed directly at the folks.

You're right, nobody has proposed the use of wireless, and I'm surely not reading some other thread. Just stating that recording with one of Bartlett's microphones wouldn't be considered overkill as compared to wireless microphones in a situation like this.
 
Alan H. Chang said:
Just stating that recording with one of Bartlett's microphones wouldn't be considered overkill as compared to wireless microphones in a situation like this.
Click to expand...
Agreed. I think we were trying to make the opposite point, it is likely UNDER-kill (i.e. it would not produce acceptable results.) Barrier microphones don't provide immunity from the laws of acoustics and physics. Notably the inverse-square law. And using several of them to reduce the distance then gets you into the mode where you are in jeopardy of the 3:1 rule.

Barrier mics are invaluable and extraordinary in certain (niche) applications. But attempting to use them for anything and everything was a game people were playing several decades ago when PZMs first came out. Eventually they discovered that most of what was being proposed and tried was just stupid and the practice died out.

My favorite stupid PZM trick was at a moderate-size outdoor venue. They had a couple of enormous light stands at full height with arms out from the top holding 3-ft square pieces of plexiglas with a Crown (or RadioShack?) PZM in the center. A light breeze came up and caught those plexi sails and toppled one stand, and sailed the other one into the trees. I wish I had my camera.
 
Dan,

Mics like what you linked to, pcc, PZM, etc. Work well for table top positions and lecterns. You could get decent results but it would take having a lot of them so that they were close enough to each speaker. Didn't look at yours but this type of mic can be tuned to be a bit directional so you probably wouldn't get a huge amount of room sound but it's an expensive route. If you were going to go that way I would probably recommend hunting up some of the old Radio Shack ones (they were made by Crown) since they are pretty good and originally went for about $50 a piece.

The up side to PZM's are that you can mix a lot together and not have phase issues. The down side as I mentioned is for a large group you need a lot of mics to get decent coverage.
If you look on the web site you linked to they are placing mics about two feet from performers and spacing them every couple of feet.

The lav. (wired or not) is probably a better choice but might not be practical. If you were going to boom you would need more than one boom op and you would still probably mis things. And how distracting is it to have a bunch of boom ops swinging mics arounf trying to cover a group this large. Very. The best compromise is probably a bunch of mics on stands. You could use cardioids from above and depending on how close people are sitting you may be able to cover more than one person per mic.

As you can kind of gather from the thread there really isn't a good way to do this with out a fair number of mics and a mixer. A multi track recorder would also be a big plus. An interface and recording software is probably the most economical route.

BUT, I wouldn't do any of the above. I would get a sound person to do it. You don't know sound really well and this is a complicated set up however you do it. So I would find somebody local to work on the sound aspect so you can focus on the rest.

This is the kind of project that you may well find someone willing to donate time to. Even an amateur just focusing on sound will be better than you trying to do it on top of everything else. Because even if you went the high tech route and had a truck load of wireless lavs and a multi track recorder (ie dropped quite a few grand on "stuff") you will still be distracted with details and not focused on making sure the sound is good.
 
If this would be a TV-show it would be as following:

- one cameraguy,
- one soundguy,
- a reporter/director having a wireless mic.


The old people are watching the pictures, but as soon as one comments the reporter will react on that and say "aaah, ok, well, tell me again (now the boom can come close enough) about that picture.
The video is paused and everyone else has to be silent... Well they can interact but then it's trying to look who's going to talk and then with the "I didn't understand" kinda questions trying to let them re-say it with the same "intention".

And inserts are taken to make cuts possible.

So maybe that could also be an option ? Having it kinda "controlled" with a director/reporter (someone with experience in interviews). And then search for a boomoperator/soundguy.

It's just another thought....
 
First, let me say thanks for everybody who responded. Your help has been invaluable. Due to your advice, I am making a few changes. Instead of attempting to record people while they are scattered around the perimeter of the room I plan to construct an elongated "D" shaped table with six participants sitting along the curved side. I think that instead of using my TV I will instead place a computer monitor on or behind the flat side of the table so that I can move around behind the monitor without blocking the participants view.

Here is what I plan to do as far as audio equipment goes: purchase four used Shure MX393/c cardioid boundary microphones (plan to use only 3 in this situation but it is nice to have an extra as a spare or for use in the future) they seem to sell for $30 - $50 used on eBay. I already own a Tascam DR100 MKII but it only has two XLR inputs so it looks like I will have to buy some sort of mixer or purchase a second recorder (perhaps a Tascam DR-40?)

While researching mixers I came across a few threads mentioning the Sure SMC-410 auto mixer:

http://groups.google.com/group/rec....4a35e7418fd?lnk=gst&q=scm410#f250b4a35e7418fd

http://forums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/topic,136408.0.html

People over at those forums seem to be having good results with the combination of desk mounted boundary mics and the scm410. The SCM410 goes for around $200 used on eBay.

I need a somewhat automatic system that I can set and then check only occasionally since I will also be running the video camera by myself. I am still considering hiring a professional but I want to learn how to do this since I would like to try recording several other similar groups of people in the future. Anyways, I am just curious as to what you think. I figure with this setup that my total outlay for audio equipment will be about $700. (including my already purchased DR-100 mk II)

By the way, the DR-100 mk II is still new in an unopended box so I can sell it pretty easily on eBay if it is not an appropriate recorder for this situation.
 
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The Shure SCM410 is nice, however, inherently, it ain't fool-proof, and not properly adjusted, can do more harm than good. The SCM810 has 8 channels and direct outs, the same warning apply though. I would not advise either for a novice user.
 
The mics should work pretty well in that layout. I've never used an auto mixer so? What I probably would normally recommend in this set up, assuming nobody watching the sound, would be running them through a SD mixer with the limiter set up to keep you clip proof. Not ideal but you can push the levels past what you would normally and not worry about blowing out the recording.

That however would cost a lot more. As long as the auto mixers don't crank the gain when things are quiet they should work OK.

You are going to want to do a bunch of tests before the big day though.
 
Noiz2 said:
The mics should work pretty well in that layout. I've never used an auto mixer so? What I probably would normally recommend in this set up, assuming nobody watching the sound, would be running them through a SD mixer with the limiter set up to keep you clip proof. Not ideal but you can push the levels past what you would normally and not worry about blowing out the recording.

That however would cost a lot more. As long as the auto mixers don't crank the gain when things are quiet they should work OK.

You are going to want to do a bunch of tests before the big day though.
Click to expand...

Not sure what you mean by SD mixer. A frature of the Shure mixer mentioned above is that it prevents feedback which wouldnt be an issue in this case. any recomendations?
 
dre83 said:
The old people are watching the pictures, but as soon as one comments the reporter will react on that and say "aaah, ok, well, tell me again (now the boom can come close enough) about that picture. The video is paused and everyone else has to be silent... Well they can interact but then it's trying to look who's going to talk and then with the "I didn't understand" kinda questions trying to let them re-say it with the same "intention".
Click to expand...

This is a terrible idea. You're dealing with people who may not be comfortable on camera, and that would put them directly on the spot. And making them start repeating themselves in this manner is super awkward.
 
DanDU said:
Here is what I plan to do as far as audio equipment goes: purchase four used Shure MX393/c cardioid boundary microphones (plan to use only 3 in this situation but it is nice to have an extra as a spare or for use in the future) they seem to sell for $30 - $50 used on eBay. I already own a Tascam DR100 MKII but it only has two XLR inputs so it looks like I will have to buy some sort of mixer or purchase a second recorder (perhaps a Tascam DR-40?)
Click to expand...

I would vote for the second recorder over the mixer in this situation, so you can record each track separately (if you can return the DR100 and get a 4-track recorder instead, that would be even better). Set levels conservatively, then do a lot of work in post to make everything sound nice. On a super-low budget like yours, recording multitrack and spending time mixing in post is often a good tradeoff when compared to mixing live.

As has been said, test well!
 
Thanks for your input everybody.

Ok, here are two recording options that may work best for me taking into consideration cost, overall usefulness, and acceptable sound quality (using the 3 Shure boundary microphones).

1. Keep my Tascam DR100 MK II but add a Tascam DR-40. 0ver all cost is about $400. Pro and con: A pro is that my cash outlay for both recorders would be about $400 (i got a great deal on the DR100 MK II), I will also have the flexibility of having a small recorder to use for other times when I do not need four channels. Con: I will have to keep an eye on two separate recorders when I need four channels. Also, the dr-40 has a shorter recording time so I will have to keep an eye on battery level.

2. Sell my Tascam DR100 MK II and get a Tascam DR680. Pro: 4 channel recording with only one unit to worry about. Cons: Bulky, probably will still need a small recorder for use on other occasions where I don't need 4 channels. Battery life is worse, will need AC power.

The problem I see with using a good 4 channel mixer with a decent two channel recorder is I will have less flexibility when I go to edit. With recording to two channels I worry that I will have to get a perfect recording right off the bat.

This is my current thinking on the matter. Thanks for bearing with me, I am a novice when it comes to audio and open to any advice or correction. I will have a month to practice so I hopefully I will be prepared when the big day comes.
 
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Hi Dan,

I'm going to pick your #2 option and go directly toward the investment of a DR680 recorder. Setup your Shure boundary mics in a triangle covering 1-3 people per microphone. Set your levels and listen to to how each of the microphones or a combination of them sound to you and record away. In post, you don't need to go through the hassle of re-sycing files from two different recorders. Have fun!

A.
 
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