Combining Mic's

[jdmkenji]

Has anyone tried combining different brands of Mic to shoot a scene? For example, booming an Oktava MK12 and booming a NTG2 at the same time? What are your opinions on this? Or booming an Oktava while using the NTG2 as shotgun?

 

[timapter]

you dont have much choice, the NTG2 IS a shotgun. thats not going to change.

its not generally a good idea to mix boom mics, but it is possible. try get them to sound as similar as possible through placement, and EQ in post.

 

[SMuir]

Or booming an Oktava while using the NTG2 as shotgun?

Uhm... the NTG2 is a shotgun, and like the Oktava its best deployed on the end of a boom.

As for using multiple mics in the scene, there are a lot of issues to take into account. If you're booming a shot with a single mic, its often better to disable the on-camera mic and use that second channel for split-mono recording (ie. one mic into two channels, with one input lower than the other in case of overloads). It may seem like a good idea to use an on-camera mic as an emergency backup during a shot, but you'll be much better off concentrating on getting exactly what you want out of the boom mic. For difficult shots, you may want to use a second mic as a plant mic on a boom or clamp, but the difficulty there is you won't be able to reposition it to follow the action.

When using two mics for a scene, its a good idea to keep them on sepperate tracks. Summing two mics on a single track can introduce phase issues, and will make it difficult to EQ the mics to match or re-adjust their relative levels in post-production.

 

[wabbit]

Booming multiple mics is done but mixing polar patterns would be tricky and far from ideal. If you are expecting a situaion that would demand more then one boom, I would suggest renting a second mic instead of using a less then ideal mic for the situation.

Cheers