Cheap Good and Robust...

[j]

I'm researching mic equipment for a film school, and I'm asking for advice.

We're looking at buying about 15 audio kits.

There are 3 criteria that I consider most important:

1) Affordable: Not stupid cheap, but not high-end either. The more we can save per unit, the more units the students will have to check out.

2) Good performance: For the most part, these are first time audio users so their first time audio experience should not be with crappy equipment, but at the same time the quality doesn't have to be in the ultra-pro range.

3) Robust: This is most important thing for me. Bullet proof would be best. We have about 15 boom poles, and within a semester, all but 3 have broken necks. Don't even get me started on what one of the students did to the Kinos the 1st 15 minutes we had them in... No matter how much we instruct the students, or threaten them with fines, things do happen on noob film shoots. Stupid things. You know what I'm talking about.


Using the guidelines above, I'm asking for advice on purchasing the following items:

Short shotgun/hypercardioid
shockmount/boompole
wireless lav
external recroder

Yes, I did read all the stickies. (very informative, thanks Dan, Jeremey, Matt, et al...)
I'm hoping most of all for advice in the robust category. (For example, 20 years ago I purchased a bogen 3026 fluid head tripod used from a rental house. It's been dropped more times than I can shake a stick at, yet it's still just as good as new.)

Thanks,

-J

 

[TVSound]

It would be easier to suggest if you list a budget per unit. Also, if you cant afford all higher end, can you get 10 of one thing and 5 of another?

Short shotgun/hypercardioid
akg se-300b with ck93 capsule

shockmount/boompole
K-tek avalon series aluminum boompoles
dont get internal wired. make them learn old school before they get the easy stuff
Rycote Invision shockmount with softies for wind protection
If you can afford it, get some Rycote, K-tek, or Rode wind zepplins

wireless lav
Lectro 400 series if you can afford it. its a standard
sennheiser G2 if you cant go lectro
probably good to do 1/2 and 1/2

external recroder
sound devices 744t(4 channel) and or 702t(2 channel)
Fostex FR2 with timecode(2 channel)

I would also recomend at least 1 analogue to digital unit to do computer recording
you can either use a Mackie or Alesis with firewire card or
Metric Halo 2882, RME Fireface 400 or 800, Apogee ensemble using a mixer or control surface
Macbook
Boomrecorder or Metacorder

 

[j]

The sound equipment will be entry level at this point. As the students progress, we will be building a nice studio with higher level equipment. At this stage, most students don't even know what an XLR is.

The price range for shotguns is $200-$500.
The price range for the wireless is ~$500.

We have to consider the trade off of price/quantity. Is it better to get 20 $200 mics,
or 10 $500 mics and make the students share?
Is the $500 mic really that much better than a $200 mic as far as a first year production student is concerned?

 

[Alex H.]

The sound equipment will be entry level at this point. As the students progress, we will be building a nice studio with higher level equipment. At this stage, most students don't even know what an XLR is.

The price range for shotguns is $200-$500.
The price range for the wireless is ~$500.

We have to consider the trade off of price/quantity. Is it better to get 20 $200 mics,
or 10 $500 mics and make the students share?
Is the $500 mic really that much better than a $200 mic as far as a first year production student is concerned?

If most of the students don't know what an XLR is, it's time for them to learn. You can come up with a budget-minded kit that will allow the students to learn. But now is the time for them to learn proper set-up, operation, care and feeding of an audio package. If you resign yourself to what the students don't know right now, and cater to that, they can end up forming some really bad habits that will bite them later in the professional world.

It takes a short time to form a bad habit... but a long time to break one.

Also, have you budgeted for mixers, cables, and headphones?

For a decent learner kit, that's not stupid cheap but not top-of-the-line, I'd go with:

1 x Sound Devices 302 mixer
2 x Sennheiser G2 100 wireless (that's bound to start a long thread here)
1 x Rode NTG-1 shotgun, for exteriors
1 x hypercardioid, for interiors (check threads around here on Oktava and Oleg, also look at budget-conscious hypers from Audio-Technica and Audix)
1 x Sony MDR-7506 headphones
1 x Rycote shockmount and zepplin system for the Rode
1 x shockmount and windscreen for the hyper

That's a useful, flexible starter kit. If you need to trim, maybe look at going from the Sound Devices 302 to the Mixpre. Gives you two input channels instead of three, but still sounds great.

And perhaps you can't get fifteen kits, but having a few of the right tools on which to learn may be better than having lots of stuff that isn't so great.

There are some cheaper mixers out there (Sign Video has a knock-off of the SD442, PSC has the DV Promix... can't vouch for quality of either, only price).

You could also save about $50 per wireless set if you go with the Sony UWP-V1. I was not impressed with these for some slight noise issues, but for learning tools they'd be excellent.

Consider also that you'll need mixer-to-camera snakes (three channels: two XLR sends and one headphone return) for each kit, plus a carry bag for the gear (Porta Brace, Kata, Petrol).

 

[j]

CV,

Thanks for your response.

>Also, have you budgeted for mixers, cables, and headphones?

Yes.

>For a decent learner kit, that's not stupid cheap but not top-of-the-line, I'd go with:
>1 x Sound Devices 302 mixer
>2 x Sennheiser G2 100 wireless (that's bound to start a long thread here)
>1 x Rode NTG-1 shotgun, for exteriors
>1 x hypercardioid, for interiors (check threads around here on Oktava and Oleg, also look at >budget-conscious hypers from Audio-Technica and Audix)
>1 x Sony MDR-7506 headphones
>1 x Rycote shockmount and zepplin system for the Rode
>1 x shockmount and windscreen for the hyper

That's a good list to start from, but the question is have is more about about durability. I'm not so sure that the G2s will hold up in a student environment. I've also read over the threads about the short shotguns, and judging by the handling noise, I'm leaning to the AT875 over the Oktava (although I'll probably get an Oktava for myself.)

There are plenty of useful threads about quality vs value, but I haven't seen much regarding how durable the equipment is. Again, it doesn't matter how lightweight and professional the boompoles are if 12/15 of them will break in the first semester.

 

[Alex H.]

That's a good list to start from, but the question is have is more about about durability. I'm not so sure that the G2s will hold up in a student environment. I've also read over the threads about the short shotguns, and judging by the handling noise, I'm leaning to the AT875 over the Oktava (although I'll probably get an Oktava for myself.)

There are plenty of useful threads about quality vs value, but I haven't seen much regarding how durable the equipment is. Again, it doesn't matter how lightweight and professional the boompoles are if 12/15 of them will break in the first semester.

Honestly, durability with production gear like this has more to do with the user than the gear. You can spend $550 on a G2 or $2-3k on a Lectro system, but if they're going to be abused, either will eventually die. The G2s can take a beating (but like anything: to an extent). We have a rental house here in Knoxville that has a few in stock, and they rent often enough that they're hard to reserve. And we know how well folks take care of rental gear...

What you may find breaks quickly, even with care taken, is the stock lav. And most likely at the connector end. So having extra lavs, or some one who's ready to do repairwork on a regular basis, is a good idea.

And even the most delicate gear can be kept for years. I have a Countryman B6 that I bought in 1997... still kickin', without ever having needed repair. But I've seen some one destroy a Sanken COS11, fairly new, by pulling the leads loose in the capsule of all places.

By the way, the AT875 vs. Oktava is a moot point. One's a short shotgun (AT) and the other's a hypercardioid (Oktava). Short shotguns are pretty versatile, but generally useless indoors. That's why it's helpful to have a hyper on hand as well.

The Sound Devices stuff is also solidly built, but again can be destroyed if you try hard enough.

For so many fishpoles to be destroyed so quickly makes me wonder what's going on there. I wouldn't worry about threatening fines. I'd just say nothing, and start sending invoices to students who destroy equipment. I have found that, as hard as it is to get folks to adhere to policies, it only takes a couple times actually enforcing the policies to get them to understand.

The sad truth is that stuff isn't built like it used to be. Thinner metals and more plastic. Your 20-year-old fluid head is probably more solid than anything Bogen makes now. But to get the wireless systems that ARE built like bricks, you have to spend $2k+, even up to the $5k top-end. Otherwise, you have to make sure that what you have is kept in good shape. Yet even at the top end, constant drops and kicks will render the unit useless.

If you don't trust your students ever to be capable of keeping equipment from damage, there's not much else I can say. You can go uber-cheap under the assumption of disposable gear, but to do that you'd have to buy things like Azden wireless... and that's just not right. You're right that things do happen with noobs, but you can't idiot-proof anything. The G2 should hold up. The Sony's would as well (though again there's a noise issue there that I wasn't happy with).

 

[John Willett]

I'm not so sure that the G2s will hold up in a student environment.

They will hold up better than anything else.

The G2 are solid metal construction - the battery door is plastic but easy to get a replacement if it gets trashed (but I have never known one to get trashed).

The G2 are about the most rugged inexpensive systems out there.

Antennas are very robust - they look flimsy, but they bend with the body and don't break - about 1,000% more reliable than the original G1 antennas (and they were good).

I hope this helps.

 

[j]

Thanks John, that's exactly the information I need.

It seems that durability of film equipment in general is of utmost importance, yet it's never really mentioned in regards to audio equipment. I guess it's just something that's considered super fragile like lens filters and so goes without saying...