Help: How to avoid the dreaded cloth friction noise on hidden lavs?

L

Lkorver

Well-known member
I have Sanken cos-11D lavs and use the Rycote undercovers when I need to hid the lav. I'd say 70% of the time I use this method, I'll get friction noise when the subject moves their arms.

What's the best practice here to avoid friction noise? I've heard some people have success attaching the mic (sandwiched in moleskin or similar) to the skin and then leaving a sticky side out so the shirt sticks to the mic sandwich to avoid the shirt moving over the mic. Any luck with this? Better ideas? I've got an all day "day in the life" shoot this saturday and I'm looking for better options.
 
I use COS11 lavs all the time. Various sandwiches work. One that I like is: place the lav head on the fuzzy side of some moleskin, and place half of a Hush Lav sleeve, cut the long way, over the lav. Then place a bigger piece of moleskin over the hushlav. Make that last piece big enough to also attach to the talent's skin (best) or clothes (less good).
https://www.gothamsound.com/product/hush-lav-black-2
Also: genuine moleskin works better for me than other brands.

But do you think the noise might be coming from the cable rubbing on the clothing? Maybe try taping down the cable.

Also, imo COS11 cables get more microphone (or just stiff and noise catching) after a couple years. Lavs really are an expendable. Bummer, but that's the way it is.

There are so many ways to attach lavs. Depends a lot on the clothes the person is wearing.

Thomas Popp produced a nice iPad tutorial on lav placement. Looks like he's turned it into this Udemy course. $12. Probably worth it; he's a smart and experienced guy.
https://www.udemy.com/course/dttwbook/

And Andrew at Deity made this 20-min video that I recall as being pretty good. Free and worth a look, I'd say.

Good luck!
 
That’s the million dollar question...

You basically need to create space(air) between the mic and clothing. There are techniques like moleskin sandwiches and numerous pre-made manufactured mounts that work well and offer conveniences like clips and pre-cut adhesive strips. There are also lots of videos on YouTube with real sound guys showing techniques, but honestly, some of it comes down to luck. As in the luck of the draw with what the subject is wearing. Starchy dress shirts and dry-fit type golf/polo shirts are usually the worst. Sometimes you can plant the mic perfectly and you’ll still hear rubbing and it’s not the actual mic itself being rubbed, you’re hearing the mechanical noise of the shirt rubbing against skin and itself(one of my audio guys refers to it as the clothing is self-generating noise). I did a series of interviews a few weeks ago. All executives of a company and all wearing dress shirts and jackets. On one or two of them, I could hear clothing rub from the boom. That’s how bad the shirts were. Also, tying a loose knot in the lav cable can help reduce/prevent transfer of mechanical noise through the cable itself.
 
Last edited:
I use Bubblebee lav mounts. They are the best I've tried so far. Except for when the subject rubs directly on the mount it has worked really well. Dealing with hidden mics is difficult and it takes a lot of trial and error to get it right as there are so many variants on cloths and other unforeseeable things.
 
I have a ton of Undercovers. Free to good home. They’re not very useful.

Your COS-11 should have come with an RM-11 rubber mount. That can be helpful; just add a strip of double-stick adhesive. These mounts are okay - not my favorites - and will work in some situations.

Having a good expendables kit allows you to adapt to just about any wardrobe situation. Ursa MiniMounts and Bubblebee Lav Concealers are two great tools to have in your kit, with plenty of adhesives for each. Also, moleskin and bunion cushions (same material as moleskin) are good tools to keep around. The traditional “moleskin sandwich” can work quite well, though not in every situation. A similar mount can be made by sandwiching a lav between a full bunion cushion and a half bunion cushion.

There are still times that I’ll go to the old-school vampire clip, especially in situations where there’s a lot of sweat and the adhesives won’t stick to fabric or skin... or will stick at first but then fall off after a short time.

There are several other types of mounting expendables on the market, but whichever you use then brings up the bigger question: where to mount the mic. Go to fabric if you can, skin as a last resort. Especially if you’ll be working for several days - or weeks - with the same talent, skin-mounted adhesives can cause irritation for the talent after repeated use.

One other tool I rely on from time to time is the Ursa chest strap. Where hairy chests are involved, the hair rubbing on fabric can be an issue under the lav mount, and sticking the mount to the chest either won’t last long or will cause some pain being removed (likely both). The chest strap offers a stable place to mount the mic that can avoid all those issues.

There’s a great eBook available called “Down to the Wire”. It’s a bit dated at this point, but still has a lot of good information about burying lavs.
 
Alex H. said:
I have a ton of Undercovers. Free to good home. They’re not very useful.
Click to expand...

I accidentally bought undercovers instead of overcovers SMH. Are they good for anything, anything at all?

Since then I bought a pack of 100 overcovers to make things right.

Do people use one overcover per talent (that's what I've been doing)? Seems the most hygienic but most expensive. At $75/100 pack, can we add 75 cents to invoices for each person we mic? This would look ridiculous on an invoice!
 
J.Brown said:
I use Bubblebee lav mounts. They are the best I've tried so far. Except for when the subject rubs directly on the mount it has worked really well. Dealing with hidden mics is difficult and it takes a lot of trial and error to get it right as there are so many variants on cloths and other unforeseeable things.
Click to expand...

Alex H. said:
I have a ton of Undercovers. Free to good home. They’re not very useful.

Your COS-11 should have come with an RM-11 rubber mount. That can be helpful; just add a strip of double-stick adhesive. These mounts are okay - not my favorites - and will work in some situations.

Having a good expendables kit allows you to adapt to just about any wardrobe situation. Ursa MiniMounts and Bubblebee Lav Concealers are two great tools to have in your kit, with plenty of adhesives for each. Also, moleskin and bunion cushions (same material as moleskin) are good tools to keep around. The traditional “moleskin sandwich” can work quite well, though not in every situation. A similar mount can be made by sandwiching a lav between a full bunion cushion and a half bunion cushion.

There are still times that I’ll go to the old-school vampire clip, especially in situations where there’s a lot of sweat and the adhesives won’t stick to fabric or skin... or will stick at first but then fall off after a short time.

There are several other types of mounting expendables on the market, but whichever you use then brings up the bigger question: where to mount the mic. Go to fabric if you can, skin as a last resort. Especially if you’ll be working for several days - or weeks - with the same talent, skin-mounted adhesives can cause irritation for the talent after repeated use.

One other tool I rely on from time to time is the Ursa chest strap. Where hairy chests are involved, the hair rubbing on fabric can be an issue under the lav mount, and sticking the mount to the chest either won’t last long or will cause some pain being removed (likely both). The chest strap offers a stable place to mount the mic that can avoid all those issues.

There’s a great eBook available called “Down to the Wire”. It’s a bit dated at this point, but still has a lot of good information about burying lavs.
Click to expand...

The Bubblebees and Ursa's have become my Go-To's in my lav kit, with the Bubblebees seeing the lion's share of work for hides. I also have some assorted vampires and "pads" similar to the stock Sanken mount(have those, too), but with fur on them. I also have various thicknesses of moleskin, "hush lavs"/sponges, medical tape, top stick(double sided toupee tape) and fur for the Ursa's(could also probably be used on the Bubblebees).

I also have some super short Nite-Ize Gear Ties to secure the excess of the lav cables instead of just wrapping them around the transmitters.
 
Mentioned it a number of times. Got fed up trying to eliminate the noise from Lavs whether they be Sanken, Sennheiser, Sony, DPA, Rode or whatever. Ten years ago a soundie said to me "Keep a set of these in your kit for bad clothes days". Never looked back since. Have four of them and their noiseless performance beats any other brand, even the best if you can't overcome the noise problem when using them. Starched medical overcoats are not a problem with these. One of the best-kept secrets in the land of Lavs.

Chris Young

 
rob norton said:
I accidentally bought undercovers instead of overcovers SMH. Are they good for anything, anything at all?
Click to expand...

Not really.

rob norton said:
Since then I bought a pack of 100 overcovers to make things right.

Do people use one overcover per talent (that's what I've been doing)? Seems the most hygienic but most expensive. At $75/100 pack, can we add 75 cents to invoices for each person we mic? This would look ridiculous on an invoice!
Click to expand...

An Overcover can be used several times, until the mesh starts to fall apart. Even before COVID, I was using ready bags for talent (Ursa and Orca both make very useful, transparent zipper pouches) that contain TX plus lav and expendables. Post-COVID, those are now clean bags, meaning I’ve wiped down both lav and TX (and mount if using Ursa or Bubblebee) and it’s ready for the next use. If the kit will be going out to the same talent day after day, I keep their expendables in a smaller pouch in the ready/clean bag. This is a good place to stash the Overcover for re-use... on the same person, of course.

And no, you don’t invoice for each Overcover. That’s just silly. If I have to blow through a whole lot of adhesive (or expendables like Overcovers), I’ll invoice just like battery stock. Or, depending on the show, I can send an expendables list to production if they’re offering to take care of ordering and having it shipped to the PO. However, this is also something that needs to be discussed up-front with production so they aren’t caught off-guard by invoiced expendables.

Honestly, if it’s a commercial shoot or some other 1- or 2-day gig where I don’t need to burn through a lot of my stock, I won’t even bother with expendables. Batteries, maybe, but not adhesives and the like. For series work or feature films, I’ll absolutely pass the cost for all of that to production. For things like Ursa MiniMounts and Bubblebee Lav Concealers, I’ve added those to my kit. They’re reusable across many productions. The only time I’ll pass the cost of the actual mounts off to production is in the case of L&D. But the adhesives on a long-run production, absolutely.

For example, we’re prepping for a third season of one of the Discovery series I mix. They just brought us (two mixers on team sound for this one) a couple boxes full of AA and 9V batteries, and they ordered a couple of 90-count packs of Ursa MiniMount adhesives for us as well. They also bought the gallon of hypochlorous acid that we need for our COVID cleaning station.
 
The Deity video kind of sucks(I stopped watching after the first few outfit sets). They don’t really show you much actual rigging technique, especially with female talent and you never get to hear how the lav sounds where they placed it(I can hide a lav with the best of them, if you never have to hear the audio from it). They seem more concerned with transmitter placement, which lets be honest, is usually the elementary part of it, for the bulk of the situations most of us are going to run into.
 
cyvideo said:
Mentioned it a number of times. Got fed up trying to eliminate the noise from Lavs whether they be Sanken, Sennheiser, Sony, DPA, Rode or whatever. Ten years ago a soundie said to me "Keep a set of these in your kit for bad clothes days". Never looked back since. Have four of them and their noiseless performance beats any other brand, even the best if you can't overcome the noise problem when using them. Starched medical overcoats are not a problem with these. One of the best-kept secrets in the land of Lavs.

Chris Young
Click to expand...

Have they released an update since the ECM-88? The SONY lavs for wireless on B&H show six mics (all ECM-: V1BMP, 44BMP, 77, X7BMP, LZ1UBMP, FT5BMP).

Chris, as an aside it seems like you're pro sony for many products in several different categories. Other than being professional tools you believe in, is enjoying the brand part of it as well?
 
Alex H. said:
Not really.



An Overcover can be used several times, until the mesh starts to fall apart. Even before COVID, I was using ready bags for talent (Ursa and Orca both make very useful, transparent zipper pouches) that contain TX plus lav and expendables. Post-COVID, those are now clean bags, meaning I’ve wiped down both lav and TX (and mount if using Ursa or Bubblebee) and it’s ready for the next use. If the kit will be going out to the same talent day after day, I keep their expendables in a smaller pouch in the ready/clean bag. This is a good place to stash the Overcover for re-use... on the same person, of course.

And no, you don’t invoice for each Overcover. That’s just silly. If I have to blow through a whole lot of adhesive (or expendables like Overcovers), I’ll invoice just like battery stock. Or, depending on the show, I can send an expendables list to production if they’re offering to take care of ordering and having it shipped to the PO. However, this is also something that needs to be discussed up-front with production so they aren’t caught off-guard by invoiced expendables.

Honestly, if it’s a commercial shoot or some other 1- or 2-day gig where I don’t need to burn through a lot of my stock, I won’t even bother with expendables. Batteries, maybe, but not adhesives and the like. For series work or feature films, I’ll absolutely pass the cost for all of that to production. For things like Ursa MiniMounts and Bubblebee Lav Concealers, I’ve added those to my kit. They’re reusable across many productions. The only time I’ll pass the cost of the actual mounts off to production is in the case of L&D. But the adhesives on a long-run production, absolutely.

For example, we’re prepping for a third season of one of the Discovery series I mix. They just brought us (two mixers on team sound for this one) a couple boxes full of AA and 9V batteries, and they ordered a couple of 90-count packs of Ursa MiniMount adhesives for us as well. They also bought the gallon of hypochlorous acid that we need for our COVID cleaning station.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your system overview Alex, it sounds like a pretty good way to stay on top of it all.

I was just kidding about the individual overcover invoicing, except you bring up a good reminder to set expectations with expendables and when to not worry about it.
 
Alex H. said:
There’s a great eBook available called “Down to the Wire”. It’s a bit dated at this point, but still has a lot of good information about burying lavs.
Click to expand...

That's the eBook by Thomas Popp that I called an iPad tutorial, but I didn't remember the title. I'm guessing the Udemy online course reuses a lot of the same material. So I agree with Alex-- Popp's electronic learning resources are worth the (small bit of) money and time.
 
Run&Gun said:
The Deity video kind of sucks(I stopped watching after the first few outfit sets).
Click to expand...

You could be right. Perhaps it's another Deity video I'm thinking of. Anyway, there is somewhere a Deity video on lav placement that I recall as being helpful. And I think the Thomas Popp ebook and Udemy class Alex and I mention are better.

With lav placement, there are lots of little gags (from Rycote, the drugstore, Bubblebee, Ursa, LMC, etc. that can be helpful. Check out Trew Audio's list of what they sell:
https://www.trewaudio.com/product-category/expendables/expendables-lavalier-accessories/

But the real thing needed is being able to judge what will work given various clothing, camera, and noise constraints. At this point, I can suss out and solve most lav mounting challenges pretty quickly. I'm reminded of this aphorism:

Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment.
 
Last edited:
Busted my ME2 clip at a shoot today & didn't have anything else to use - so we grabbed a band-aid & taped the mic with it under her shirt - worked great!
 
Jim Feeley said:
But the real thing is needed is being able to judge what will work given various clothing, camera, and noise constraints. At this point, I can suss out and solve most lav mounting challenges pretty quickly. I'm reminded of this aphorism:

Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment.
Click to expand...

Yes sir. All that.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top