Can you help me improve my audio setup?

J

jrm27

Active member
Hello all,

I'm greatly wanting to increase the quality of my audio. And I'm not really that wise in the ways of film-audio... so this seems like a good course of action.

I'm trying to create a very flexible audio setup. Currently I use a t2i (with Magic Lantern), and have done audio in two different ways. My first experiment was to use my Zoom H1 on a mic stand positioned just out of the frame, but as close as I could to some seated individuals. It worked okay, but the wide pickup pattern of the h1 gave me a lot of noise. My next experiment was to use a cheap lav mic (super cheap radio shack model) to feed the h1, then send the audio from the h1 to my t2i. That seemed to work better, but the audio quality was kinda nasally and inconsistent.. especially when changing the setup between individuals.

My next project will require me to be shooting outdoors... in the woods with a single subject. So at least I can dial in good sound with one setup and work it from there. I'm thinking that something like a Rode Videomic or a Videomic Pro might be the ticket. If I can boom it correctly, hopefully i can get good consistent audio that actually has some realistic "noise" from the filming environment. I dont plan to be too far from the subject, so even hotshoe mounting a mic might be a decent option....

I was thinking I could either have the mic feed the zoom h1, or wire the mic directly to my camera and use the h1 as a second audio source (maybe with a lav) and sync up in post.

Am I on the right track? Would something like the videomic/videomicpro be good for outdoor use in this manner?

-Jon
 
You're moving in the right direction. And the fact that you're striving for better audio is great. I suspect from your post that your budget is limited. The Video Mic pro will indeed be a step in the right direction. Wind protection will be needed so factor that in as well.
 
Thanks for the direction. Yes, my budget is limited as there are a few other things I'd like to aquire (nd filter, basic shoulder rig, lcdvf, etc...). Are there more appropriate options out there? Do I need to consider different models such as the ng-2? Thanks for the heads up on wind protection too...
 
jrm27 said:
Hello all,

I'm greatly wanting to increase the quality of my audio. ...My next project will require me to be shooting outdoors... in the woods with a single subject. So at least I can dial in good sound with one setup and work it from there. I'm thinking that something like a Rode Videomic or a Videomic Pro might be the ticket. If I can boom it correctly, hopefully i can get good consistent audio that actually has some realistic "noise" from the filming environment. I dont plan to be too far from the subject, so even hotshoe mounting a mic might be a decent option....

...-Jon
Click to expand...

Unless 'don't plan to be too far' means all your shots containing dialog will be done with the camera positioned less than about 20 inches from the talent's face, don't count on hotshoe mounting giving you decent dialog recording with ANY mic. The 'sweet spot' for most short shotgun mics is between 18 and 24 inches away from the sound source. Since camera positions that close are rarely flattering to the face, for dialog shots that usually means the mic is on a fish-pole boom and you have a boom operator on your crew to work it. And ditto on the need for wind protection; it's an absolute must.

Try to record the dialog as cleanly as possible ... you DO NOT want the sounds of the woodland environment to be recorded along with the speech if you can possibly avoid it. That's the purpose of using directional mics like the VideoMic; not to bring in distant sounds - they don't do that - but rather to the reduce the amount of environmental sound relative to the voice. Record the voice as cleanly as possible. On a completely separate recording, capture the ambient environmental sounds of the location as clearly and cleanly as possible. You can even do the ambient sounds at a different date and time from shooting the dialog scenes, if that's what you need to do to get the best recording quality on them. Marry the two recordings (along with music, FX, etc) during post. The reason is that if you record dialog and ambience together, when you edit the track the background sounds get chopped up and will sound very unnatural. By recording them separately you can avoid chopping the environment track, instead laying it in under the edited dialog track as a continuous, perhaps looped, cut.
 
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Thanks for the advice. That id very very helpful. Considering I may not have a boom operator, I may just have to rig up a boom/mic-stand type thing and hope for the best. It actually may work since I'm not planning on my subject moving too much. Are these mics pretty good at isolating?

-jon
 
jrm27 said:
Thanks for the advice. That id very very helpful. Considering I may not have a boom operator, I may just have to rig up a boom/mic-stand type thing and hope for the best. It actually may work since I'm not planning on my subject moving too much. Are these mics pretty good at isolating?

-jon
Click to expand...
Too good to have on a stationary stand. If the subject's head moves more than a few inches in any direction they will go off-mic and the timbre of the voice will change.
 
whelp, that's good to know. Thanks Steve. i'll see if I can recruit a buddy to keep the mic in the right place. Should be an interesting experiment!

My next question is, should i run the mic directly into the camera (using ML to defeat autogain), or into my Zoom h1 and sync in post? Running straight into the camera would be easier, but hopefully not at the expense of sound quality. If I do that thou, maybe I could use the zoom and a lav on the subject and sync that up in post. At least I'd have a bit of a fail-safe for my subject's audio at that point. Would you have any thoughts on that?

-jon
 
jrm27 said:
If I can boom it correctly, hopefully i can get good consistent audio that actually has some realistic "noise" from the filming environment. I dont plan to be too far from the subject, so even hotshoe mounting a mic might be a decent option....

-Jon
Click to expand...

NO. You don't want realistic noise from the filming environment.....all you want is the dialog. You cannot boom someone with the mic on a cam hotshoe. It will sound like a camera mic.
 
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