BUZZING Audio --- help!

John C Lyons

John C Lyons

Veteran
Hello

This weekend I filmed at several different indoor and outdoor locations.  At the end of the day my sound man told me this (keep in mind none of my crew are seasoned professionals so if this is obvious try not to beat on me too bad, he he):

"It doesn't happen in every location, and mostly happens indoors, but sometimes I would get a buzzing sound coming through the mic."  (it may have never happened outdoors)

If he touches the base of the mic itself the buzzing would go away.  We couldnt figure out if this would happen if he was close to lights or other electricals.  One scene in particular we were in a rather small courtroom, and my last battery had ran out.  When I hooked the cam power up to an outlet he said it was particularly bad.  Could be just coincidence though with the outlet power.

Here's my audio setup:
I have a 50 foot AT XLR cable coming from INPUT 2.  It goes to a Lightwave wired GT-10 boom pole.  A short XLR cable comes  out the top of the pole and into my AT835B MIC.  which is held by the AT8410A shock mount.  My buddy is monitoring through decent headphones that are running from the cam's headphone jack from a 50' headphone cable.

On the camera:
I have both input channels set to INPUT 2 behind the LCD and "MIC" selected on the switch next to INPUT 2.  I have one of the audio dials set a bit higher than the other.  And on the audio monitor on the cam most (if not all) of the important sound is in the red.  Not so high its cutting out or anything however.  

Between takes (when we played all our day's filming back on a TV at my house) I could sometimes hear this BUZZING on playback he was talking about.  It wouldn't matter if there were loud sounds or not being recorded, its a constant electrical sounding buzz.  

The weird thing, and maybe it is the most helpful, is that it goes away when he was touching the base of the mic itself.  It sounds like some kind of interference.  It's not white noise or anything really low like people have talked about in other posts here.  The white noise doesnt show up in playback, this does.  

Anyone have any ideas here?  Am I missing something in the settings or setup?  

HUGE THANKS AHEAD OF TIME!
 
Re: BUZZING Audio --- help!

IT sounds like you have a grounding problem with the mic itself. you might try using a different mic and a different cable to see if you can find out the exact problem.
 
Re: BUZZING Audio --- help!

Grounding hum (should be called UNgrounding hum)...I'm betting on the cable.
Ken
 
Re: BUZZING Audio --- help!

I called my vendor who said "Hmmmmm, I will run this by my audio guy and get back to you."

So I am still in the dark. I also told him your comments so thanks everyone!
 
Re: BUZZING Audio --- help!

hmmmmm, I would take it over to hum-ty dumpty on the wall over there.
If its not the grounding problem which it sounds like it is, it may be the florencent lighting since you say its the indoor shoots that are effected.
 
Re: BUZZING Audio --- help!

hey this should be a stand-up comedian forum!

still havent heard back from the vendor. i guess no one else has ever had this happen?

buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
 
Re: BUZZING Audio --- help!

Did you not read our actual posts?

We all seem to suspect either your mic cable, and/or (to a lesser degree) your microphone.

Without having them in our hands whaddaya want us to do about it?

In the meantime, do you have another mic cable you could do a test with? Could you borrow one? Do you have a different mic you could try on the same mic cable? Could you borrow one?
 
Re: BUZZING Audio --- help!

yep its either grounding or the issue oppressor brought up .. lots of time you dont hear ambient noises that are there  becuse they are..well ambient, and you get used to them.. its could be floescent lighting, or an air conditioner, or fridge, or fan, or a number of things that woulve been going on the whole time, and you didnt notice. ..i was getting some sound the other day, and didnt even notice a train whistle going off very loudly in the background unitll i played the footage back. its easy to just get lost in what your doing and not notice stuff like that. or your mic was just turned up to loud, and getting feedback somehow.
 
Re: BUZZING Audio --- help!

yeah unfortunately i dont have any extra cables or any other mics thats why i am just waiting it out till i hear from the vendor.

thats why i just wondered in the meantime if anybody here had first hand experience with this problem.  i definitely read the posts, hooked on phonics worked for me! my question was had anyone ever had this problem themselves since i dont have extra equipment on hand.

we filmed in a restaurant, a courthouse, outdoors, in a taxi cab, and in an office this weekend.  the restaurant and the courthouse were the obvious places where we were getting the infamous BUZZ but the restaurant didnt have flourescent lighting.

thanks for the comments!  if i dont hear back from the vendor in time i will try and locate another XLR cable to try for this weekend's filming.
 
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