Lav Mic Issues

awelgraven

awelgraven

Well-known member
First off, let me clarify that I'm not an audio guy. I'm usually DP/Camera Op/Editor, but sound has never really been my thing. So there's that.

Anyway, occasionally I have to mic people for my work. I use an Audio Technica Lav Mic that was provided to me, from there into an adapter to send it out to XLR, and from there, into a Tascam DR-100.

Lately, my audio has been popping like this

http://economyofmercy.com/downloads/audio.aif

Does anyone know what this would mean? Since I don't know audio, I'm not sure what to troubleshoot... Or is it just the way the person is speaking?

I really appreciate your help here... It's making me crazy when I edit :)
 
To me, it sounds like you're hitting the limiter hard. How hot of a signal are you recording? Typically we try to keep dialog around -20 on the meter, with the occasional peak of -12 to -9. If you're recording hotter than that, You may be either hitting the limiter, or hitting digital 0.
 
Well, the "pops" aren't hitting peaking levels from what I can see from Final Cut Pro. Although I didn't know the bit about -20 on the meter... I've been trying to aim for an average of -12 on the meter, with peaks in the -6 area. But I can give that a shot...
 
It sounds like the result of "plosive" sounds (B, P, T, etc)and air hitting the mic, but since it's happening on words without those letters we'll rule that out for the time being.

Question for you, do you use a windscreen? There is the possibility of the air from someones nose actually hitting the mic like that and making the same kind of sound.

Could also be a mic issue or wire issue. Try moving the wire around very slowly while listening and see if that can reproduce it. Also the mic connector, move it, pull it a little.

Also try talking directly into the mic with words starting with the letter Boy, see if that reproduces the same exact effect on your gear.
 
Those are good suggestions all (see above); give them a try. But your example sounds like plosives and over-blown "wind" noise (actually coming from the talent's mouth, but same effect).

First step, windscreen; second step, move the mike a little farther away from the on-camera person's face/mouth... It sounds like you've got decent signal other than those pops, but the third step would be decreasing your input gain as suggested.

If you need to try and salvage what you have, try some parametric EQ on the low end (and maybe on the very high end as well). You should be able to remove a lot of the "Wuh" sound, and maybe you can duck those words just a bit in your mix (automate a volume envelope to drop the volume just a bit on the egregious popped words, then bring it right back up). Not sure how that works in FCP, but I'm pretty sure you can do it. If not, export to something like SoundForge, tweak it up, and bring it back in to FCP.

GJ
 
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