Cheapest most durable lav mic with XLR?

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Greg_E

Veteran
Having a bad day cleaning up messes from our students. We just rolled out about $4000 worth of brand new Rode lav mics with our ENG camera kits. After about 4 weeks of use one of them came back with a broken cable that the next user got to find and deal with. Totally preventable by taking a few moments to coil the cable and pretend it is actually a valuable piece of equipment! Most of the rest came out of their storage bag in plies of knots, seems no one can figure out how to wrap a velcro strap around the mics either, they mostly tossed the velcro that each mic had on them.

I'm never buying good stuff again.

Now I'm looking for the cheapest, most durable lav mic that mankind can create. Appearance and sonic performance are pretty far down on the list of desired features.

I'm just short of making up a few kits with the worst gear I have on hand, and restricting the regular abusers to this wrecked (but mostly functional) stuff.
 
David W. Jones said:
Make the proper care of gear part of their grade. Problem solved.
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From 40 years of experience teaching media production (stills, film, video, radio, high school, college and adult), I enthusiastically agree. In some places (not all situations allow this), I've also been able to charge students immediately for the repair or replacement of damaged equipment, and always used that option liberally.

Junky equipment gives junky results and doesn't prepare students for what they'll be using professionally. Learning on decent stuff, but emphasizing how to take care of it as much as how to use it, is a better investment in their long term careers. Things will still get broken sometimes because students are by definition inexperienced. There are frustrations in this approach as in everything in education, but teachers need to take the long view of what is best for the students and the program. (Personally, I think the Rode lavs are great for an educational environment because the interchangeable cables and connectors let you get them back in service quickly if something breaks. But you need to purchase a realistic number of spares.)

I'm working right now with a group of 60 8th-graders who are making an oral history documentary for radio. I've loaned them three of my Rode lavs, a Sound Devices 442 and a pair of Sony 7506s for the last couple of weeks to do their recording. We spent about 90% of the prep time teaching them how to coil cables and store everything properly. Fingers crossed about what I'll find when they finish up and return the equipment to me next Monday.

- Greg
 
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We have investigated charging them, the president says no. In theory abuse of equipment does lower their grades, but in practice nothing happens.

Also a note about Rode... Those Bastards changed the design without telling anyone! We got 20 of the "old" version that you can replace the cable, and another 7 of the new design. upon contacting Rode they said they have gone to this new design because of some reason I can't remember. They will still provide the cables, but no more lavs will be sold with the interchangeable cables. Back to the same as everyone else, once the cable is damaged you get to buy an entire expensive cable and element.

Basically it is way cheaper for them to produce and creates a repeating purchase system. The replaceable cable is the entire reason we went with Rode over Countryman, or any other mic. We had really good luck with our Countryman mics, but after about 6 years they were developing issues and I ran out of spares. I hate wasting money on gear that is supposed to be extra strong and finding out it is junk. Those kevlar fibers did nothing for us. Tie it in a knot and pull it just a little tight, and snap.
 
Darn, I knew they made one with a fixed cable now, but didn't know they'd discontinued the interchangeable cable version entirely. Makes me rethink my whole strategy.

- Greg
 
This is what USA support told us, but all the pictures and descriptions with all the retailers still show the old product and details. The cable being replaceable was the entire reason we chose them, and we got burned by it in the end. The new mics just have an injection molded plastic around the bottom of the capsule like so many other cheap mics. Found some on XYZ mics Amazon for about $40 each, could buy 8 of these for the price of a single Rode lav and XLR connector thing. Thinking of moving these Rode mics to the studio where they might last longer when used with our G3 transmitters.
 
Greg_E said:
We have investigated charging them, the president says no. In theory abuse of equipment does lower their grades, but in practice nothing happens.
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Explain to the students that care of the kit is part of the course and they *will* be charged for breakages just as they will in the real world when they are working. The fact that the president says you can't will only come into effect should they actually break anything which may not happen. Think "Deterrent" :-)

You can also explain the the President that if his decision is you can't charge the students then he has to increase you budget by $4000 a semester... that should help him refocus.

As for grades. Shirley you can fail any assignment where they come back with broken kit and no acceptable reasons. Acceptable reasons will be that they actually got pulitzer/oscar winning footage that no one else has (and the physical scars to prove it) in which case you take a cut of the revenue from the footage to replace the kit.
 
The threat falls down very quickly when we don't charge them, part of that is lack of faculty action. Acceptable breakage covers a lot of cases, I've been in TV for the last 30+ years... Things break. When negligence comes into play, that's when they need to pay the price. The worst punishment that has ever happened was when one of our students used the camera in a snow storm, saying he put it away fairly quickly. Ended up with a $2000 repair bill for the lens and that student got a zero on the project. If I don't need to spend a bunch of money on a repair, then there is no punishment even when all their footage shows they were shooting the entire time in the rain.

I've pretty much decided I'm going to "build" some sets of gear that is in the worst shape, and push some of them worst into that group on our scheduling software so they can't use the better gear.

This semester it has mostly been gear coming back wreaking like pot. Our faculty still haven't decided what they will do, out lawyer hasn't given us a clear set of actions, and out police can't tell us to do anything firmly. You'd be surprised at some of the common crime that happens on any campus that is simply dismissed because the administration don't want their campus to appear like it is full of crime. There are few drug or alcohol violations that can get a student kicked off campus (country wide, not just where I work).
 
Greg_E said:
The threat falls down very quickly when we don't charge them, part of that is lack of faculty action.
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Some deterrent is better than no deterrent! At saying it "will be charged" as an "official policy" (even if the "unofficial policy" is it won't be) will help make them be much more careful.

Plus it might take them a year or two to realise that unofficial policy is different from the official policy! ;-) Hopefully by that time they have either learnt to be careful, or moved on to be somebody else's problem instead.
 
IronFilm said:
Some deterrent is better than no deterrent! At saying it "will be charged" as an "official policy" (even if the "unofficial policy" is it won't be) will help make them be much more careful.

Plus it might take them a year or two to realise that unofficial policy is different from the official policy! ;-) Hopefully by that time they have either learnt to be careful, or moved on to be somebody else's problem instead.
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That was my point exactly. If the students think they will be charged and fail parts of the course it should have a positive effect. Also it should work even amongst those whose heart is not in it as the cash fine will be a deterrent even if the course fail isn't. These students are likely to disappear when you tell them there is a big bill to pay. Therefore the other students will assume they have been thrown off the course and that will further reinforce the deterrent.

Also if you can find a suitable excuse "reasonable grounds" for not fining what will be I susspect the very few who do get their kit damaged you should be able to keep it going for a long time to the point where it becomes a de-facto reality.

You could of course say to the students who have damaged kit "do you want to pay to have it fixed or go to the President who is likely to fine you on top of the repair and drop your grades...." The lesser of evils will prevail. Pay the repair bill, keep the grades and don't pay an additional fine.

For heavens sake man! You are in story telling and creative arts! Be creative and tell them a story! :-)
 
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They are quicker than that. Our official policy is to charge them for lost, damaged, destroyed parts and repair. But it all goes out the door when you fail to charge them for a missing lens cap. And then what do you do about a big repair like a lens getting soaked?
 
Greg_E said:
They are quicker than that. Our official policy is to charge them for lost, damaged, destroyed parts and repair. But it all goes out the door when you fail to charge them for a missing lens cap. And then what do you do about a big repair like a lens getting soaked?
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Then charge them for the lens cap....

Shirley part of the course should be about looking after the kit? BEFORE they get to take it out.
 
Greg_E said:
I would be happy to charge them, but it goes beyond me, and that's where it all breaks down.
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Tell them you will handle it unofficially so it does not go on their record or affect their grades. That way you tell them the President or his administrators, don't need to be aware of their misdemeanours. Be creative.

As it is unofficial as long as they pay the bill and he kit is still functioning there does not need to be any paperwork for for collage.

BTW are you this negative with other aspects of your life?
 
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