Lav Article Debuts

Dan,

Thank you for doing another great job of testing microphones!

I noticed that sometimes you mention off-axis sounds, and I was wondering what you meant by this. Most of the lavs tested were omnidirectional, so nothing should be off axis.

(Some examples: COS11 with female voice: "... featured good rejection of off axis sound." MKE2 with female voice: "notable for its rejection of off axis sound." etc.)
 
Off axis, in the way that I was using it, would be any noise besides the person wearing the lavalier.

If you are shooting an interview, you really don't want to hear the person in the office next door rustling papers, right? That would be off axis.

Yes, technically an omni pattern picks up sounds from all directions but in production, we obviously don't truly want to hear everything.

Dan
 
puredrifting said:
Mavoz:

Did you ever end buying your DPA mic?

Dan
Click to expand...

Hi Dan.....yes I ordered the DPA 4061 last week and am hoping to receive it tomorrow. (has just shipped)

Thanks very much for your advice!

Probably the biggest challenge I (and the salesman) found with ordering the DPA mics was the rather obscure references on the "dpamicrophones.com" website to what is included with their accessory boxes!

For example the DAK 4060 sounds like it is just a plastic box!!

"The DAK4060 Accessory Box is a complete accessory kit with room for a Miniature Microphone and one or more connection adaptors. The box is extremely rugged and will give both microphone and accessories perfect protection against the rough life in an active sound engineer's tool box. The box has a transparent lid, so that the user can make sure that he has a complete kit without opening the box all the time."

Sounds like a great box!! Be just nice to know what "complete accessory kit" actually entails! :thumbsup:Sites such as http://www.dv247.com/invt/7671/ actually give more info but DPA themselves could probably make things a little simpler.

Anyway I went with the IMk 4061 Instrument mic kit as it has the 4061-BM and XLR adapter DAD6001-BC (+ a few other bits)..then you just need to get a clip with it...I went DMM0004B.

Look forward to trying it all out! Thanks again.
 
A good characteristic of lavs is that, when set up properly, they don't pick up a lot of ambient noise, even though most are omni-directional.

The sound guy told me it has to do with 2 things. First, they are usually placed within very few inches of the actor's mouth and the sensitivity is adjusted accordingly. Second, they are smaller than the condensers in a shotgun for example, and just don't catch as much sound wave, so the falloff is much more pronounced.

I don't know what the physics are, but I use lavs alot and do not have all the problems I've read about in the site...albeit, I use them for live performance vs. film.
 
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puredrifting Thank you so much for your indepth report. This will be useful for years to come. I am in the middle ground concidering a wireless system.
 
Mavoz said:
Hi Dan,


"The kit includes 4071 Miniature Omnidirectional Microphone with Presence
Boost, a variety of pins, clips and holders, a colour mix of windscreens
as well as a windjammer and miniature mesh .....also includes an XLR adapter which provides a 3 dB attenuation
around 800 Hz, the final tonal adjustment needed for going directly on air
or to track without equalising."


Thanks!
Click to expand...

What's the difference between a windscreen and a windjammer?

Also, what is a miniature mesh?

Thank you,

Trey
 
trey said:
What's the difference between a windscreen and a windjammer?

Also, what is a miniature mesh?

Thank you,

Trey
Click to expand...

Windscreen is foam, windjammer is fur.

Miniature mesh is the hard, mesh windscreen cap that some lavs offer.
 
I'm assuming this:

Indoors= miniature mesh
Some Wind= windscreen
More Wind=windjammer

Yes?

Trey
 
trey said:
I'm assuming this:

Indoors= miniature mesh
Some Wind= windscreen
More Wind=windjammer

Yes?

Trey
Click to expand...

Something like that. Really depends on the environment, the wind, whether you even need to use either, if you're burying the lav, etc. Just remember that the foam and the fur will provide protection at the expense of some of the high frequencies. Short of a rule of thumb, it's whatever works best for each unique situation.
 
Great article. One mic you omitted is the countryman EMW. It looks like a tram and it's a nice low cost mic. I've seen them as low as $159.00 with an xlr connector and clip set. It needs phamtom power. It comes in different colors as well. I have a couple of these along with a tram and a B6. I noticed the B6 is much more senstive to wind noise on exteriors
 
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Hi:

Glad you liked the article. If you read it carefully, you will see that for some unknown reason, Countryman refused to partcipate in the article, I only inlcuded the B6 because I own one. That is why there was no EMW and no B3.

Dan
 
88 vs 55 vs 66

88 vs 55 vs 66

Dan

thank you very much for the review

I have two questions, please

The sony 55 is famous for avoid ambient noisy. Is the sony 88 same proximity as the sony 55 rejecting the background noisy as the 55 does?

Do you know the sony 66? Do you think it is as proximity as the 55 and its unidirectional feature can be better than the sony 55 for rejecting the ambient noise in the streets?

thanks
 
Dan, I was wondering if you ever got a chance to write that article about how to rig a lav. I've seen some tutorials and videos but they've been pretty basic and I keep getting myself in trouble with rustling noise, visibility, wires coming loose etc...
 
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