Help with recording a sit down group.

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patrickbaldwin

Well-known member
I have to quote for recording a sit down group of about 6 people in the room in the attached image. They should be sitting on chairs in a U shape or on three sofas. The tables won't be there. My feeling is the best method would be lav mikes for everybody and ISO recordings. I am waiting for a sound guy to quote me but in the meantime is that the only option? Do I have any other options? Would a single mike boomed into the middle work at all? I am happy to be educated. It's for youtube so I think 6 channels of wireless (they might move around) might prove too expensive for the client but if the advice is that that is the ONLY thing that will work then so be it.
Many thanks.
 

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For a panel discussion, lavs really are the best option. Not the only option, but the best option. Anything else is a compromise between cost and quality.

A single boom in the middle, while the least expensive way to go about this, is going to lead to the worst quality. It’ll be on par with just using the on-camera mic. Too much territory to cover and a mic that is too far away from any one voice to matter will lead to hearing more “room” than voices.

A single boomed mic with a boom op would be an improvement, but that’s a lot of territory to cover for one boom op. Expect some off-axis moments when the boom op has to swing from one end of the panel to the other.

Two boom ops could cover the discussion reasonably well, but now you’re hiring two extra crew.

Three boomed mics could be centered on pairs of the panel members (hypercardioid rather than shotgun), but static booms tend to show their weakness when people lean forward or to the side, or turn their heads.

That brings us back to six lavs. They don’t necessarily need to be wireless, and hard-wired lavs are cheaper as far as gear rental than wireless systems (plus free from RF concerns). Unless the folks decide to stand up and mingle, and then the cables can be problematic.

Side note: seeing your other post on lighting that space... anything boomed is going to become a logistical concern for avoiding shadows.
 
Another possible option is PZM or PCC microphones. The catch is they want a hard surface so a rug would not work well. But Coffee tables would probably work. The plus is they are very low profile and the pickup pattern is wide enough that you could probably get away with three, if folks are not roaming too far away.
 
Noiz2 said:
Another possible option is PZM or PCC microphones. The catch is they want a hard surface so a rug would not work well. But Coffee tables would probably work. The plus is they are very low profile and the pickup pattern is wide enough that you could probably get away with three, if folks are not roaming too far away.
Click to expand...

I’d considered suggesting that. If the table were part of the equation, absolutely. I use those on classroom desks when I work on C-SPAN’s “Lectures in History”, to catch questions from the students.

Chairs or sofas in a u-formation kind of knock those out of consideration unless, as you suggest, coffee tables are inserted.
 
Alex H. said:
For a panel discussion, lavs really are the best option. Not the only option, but the best option. Anything else is a compromise between cost and quality.

A single boom in the middle, while the least expensive way to go about this, is going to lead to the worst quality. It’ll be on par with just using the on-camera mic. Too much territory to cover and a mic that is too far away from any one voice to matter will lead to hearing more “room” than voices.

A single boomed mic with a boom op would be an improvement, but that’s a lot of territory to cover for one boom op. Expect some off-axis moments when the boom op has to swing from one end of the panel to the other.

Two boom ops could cover the discussion reasonably well, but now you’re hiring two extra crew.

Three boomed mics could be centered on pairs of the panel members (hypercardioid rather than shotgun), but static booms tend to show their weakness when people lean forward or to the side, or turn their heads.

That brings us back to six lavs. They don’t necessarily need to be wireless, and hard-wired lavs are cheaper as far as gear rental than wireless systems (plus free from RF concerns). Unless the folks decide to stand up and mingle, and then the cables can be problematic.

Side note: seeing your other post on lighting that space... anything boomed is going to become a logistical concern for avoiding shadows.
Click to expand...

Brilliant. Thank you. I think it can only be wired or wireless lavs can't it? I had thought that but I just need the confidence to say that to the client and you have given me that confidence.
Many thanks.
 
Noiz2 said:
Another possible option is PZM or PCC microphones. The catch is they want a hard surface so a rug would not work well. But Coffee tables would probably work. The plus is they are very low profile and the pickup pattern is wide enough that you could probably get away with three, if folks are not roaming too far away.
Click to expand...


I did wonder about that but there are no plans for coffee tables.
Many thanks. I really appreciate getting answers.
 
I know that there is no table in this situation, and boundary mics have been ruled out. But just to piggyback on the discussion, does anyone have any demos of boundary mics on a table, picking up several people? I just spent several minutes searching Youtube, and couldn't find anything demonstrating the name-brand PZM mics like Crown. Just curious about the sound quality.

Boundary mics always seemed too good to be true. Let's see, to pick up six people sitting at a table, you could:

A. Set up six boom mics or hire two boom operators
B. Wire six channels of lavs
C. Toss a boundary mic on the table

What's the catch?
 
PZM's are often used on stage lips (if the show is miced) and I slapped a pair on some big plate glass windows to pick up a concert once. They sound a lot better that you would think. They are also very common in theatres for monitoring the stage. Since the pickup is hemispherical they have great rejection from the back side and pick up just about everything on the front side. You can shape them a bit with a soft blocker (ie a bit of carpet) and they become essentially 1/2 hemispherical. You will see that on stage lips so you don't pick up audience.

To have much bass they need to be on a fairly large surface. The other plus is that they are all in phase naturally, so you can place them anywhere and not fet phase issues when you mix them.

Oh the catch is physics is still at play so unless everyone is equal distance from the mic you will need more than one. I suggested three.
 
I haven't thought about this for some time, but Maier was making a "boundary" mic holder where you could mount a mic of your choice. I think it was mostly designed for small condensors and most probably with an omni pattern. Haven't used one, but it looked like pretty nice hardware.
 
I used to own an earlier version of this intellimixer back in the days when I did a lot of multi-cam shoots with 4-6 talent. It really worked great to keep the number of open mics to a minumum, thus reducing that echo/delay effect you get when too many mics are open at once and picking up each speaker on other people's open mics. No matter which mics you choose, this will still improve the sound . . . automatically.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/prod...20_dan_db25_digital_intellimix_automatic.html
 
To piggyback on Dougs suggestion...
The auto mix on the Sound Devices 633 and 688 is supposed to work extremely well. There are two variants on each mixer: Dugan Automixing and Sound Devices' MixAssist.
 
Anything wrong with just using an old fashioned handheld mic? You might even run it cabled! Dirt cheap. So cheap, you might even run a couple of handhelds with ease.

As you say it is just for YouTube, and the budget is very low, then this might be a worthwhile option to consider exploring if it is ok with the client's expectations.
 
Here is a great tutorial by Shure called "Shure Webinar: Microphone Selection and Placement for Conference" It demonstrates how various microphones sound. It is especially striking how bad a single microphone hung from the ceiling sounds.

My guess is that the best compromise between cost and quality would be 6 wired lav mics hooked up to an automixer of some sort.
 
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