Lavalier connected directly to 5d Mark III vs connected to tascam dr-40?

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payal_choksi

Well-known member
Hi all,

i have a very cheap wired omnidirectional lavalier (around $10-$12). Earlier when used with a camcorder (canon xh a1s) it use to give a very rich quality audio. Of course, on the camera i use to keep the attenuation switch on hence i was able to use the lav in noisy environment with clear audio quality.

Now the times have changed and i use 5d mark III for my work. When i use the same lav connected directly into 5d mark iii, i don't get the same quality i use to get with my camcorder. The lav seems to be very sensitive and it picks up lots of ambient noise. Using it directly with 5d mark iii, there are not much controls within the dslr except adjusting the sound levels.

So the question now is, if i connect the same lav into tascam dr-40, will the quality of audio improve or will it be same as connected to 5d mark iii? Is there anyway that i could reduce the sensitivity of my lav through tascam (or any other field recorder) so i could use it in noisy environment?

pls advice

regards,
 
Noisy environments are not mitigated with level adjustments, they're handled by mic placement. The mic must be close enough to the desired sound source so that its level is signifigntly higher than the undesired ambient noise, the old inverse square law in action. Recording gain adjustments such as you describe in your post raise or lower the voice and the background by equal amounts when what's actually needed is to change the RATIO of voice level to background level. Proper placement of the lav on the subject is the key to that.
 
Many DSLRs by default are set to (or only have) AGC and should be avoided.. If it's a camera mounted mic, it won't sound much good for dialog no what you have or spend.
DSLRs inherently sound pretty awful anyway.. After all; it's a camera, not a audio recorder. Many feed an input from an external audio recorder for sync purposes only.
 
Rick R said:
Many feed an input from an external audio recorder for sync purposes only.
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That, and if something goes wrong, you still have a "backup" audio that can be used. Not the best, but better than nothing in the worst scenario.
 
thanks all for your valuable inputs and advices, but one question that remains unanswered is, will i be able to change the RATIO of voice level to background level, if i use digital field recorder like tascam dr-40? further, will there be difference in quality of sound if the lavalier is attached to this field recorders as compared to attaching it directly to the 5d mark iii?
 
payal_choksi said:
thanks all for your valuable inputs and advices, but one question that remains unanswered is, will i be able to change the RATIO of voice level to background level, if i use digital field recorder like tascam dr-40? further, will there be difference in quality of sound if the lavalier is attached to this field recorders as compared to attaching it directly to the 5d mark iii?
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No, the ratio of voice to background is determined by the intensity of the sounds hitting the microphone, any gain adjustments to the microphone's signal will afffect both equally. The "noise" being referrred to in discussions of recorder versus DSLR recording quality, etc, is not background sounds, it is the noise of the electronics itself. Generally speaking, the quality of the recording will be better with an external recorder than it will be connecting mics directly to the DSLR so there probably will be a difference if you do it but that has nothing to do with the presence or absence of ambient background interference. To reduce the background noise being picked up by the mic, get the mic closer to the talent's mouth so his voice is louder than the backgrounds sounds also hitting the mic. Halving the distance between the speaker's mouth and the lav will increase the voice level 4-fold while the intensity of the background won't change. Lavs are designed to work about 4 to 6 inches away from the speaker's mouth. Of course this is dependent on the location of the shoot as well ... if you're doing interviews on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier during flight operations nothing you can do will prevent the sounds of the aircraft from interfering with the speaker's words.
 
Steve House said:
No, the ratio of voice to background is determined by the intensity of the sounds hitting the microphone, any gain adjustments to the microphone's signal will afffect both equally. The "noise" being referrred to in discussions of recorder versus DSLR recording quality, etc, is not background sounds, it is the noise of the electronics itself. Generally speaking, the quality of the recording will be better with an external recorder than it will be connecting mics directly to the DSLR so there probably will be a difference if you do it but that has nothing to do with the presence or absence of ambient background interference. To reduce the background noise being picked up by the mic, get the mic closer to the talent's mouth so his voice is louder than the backgrounds sounds also hitting the mic. Halving the distance between the speaker's mouth and the lav will increase the voice level 4-fold while the intensity of the background won't change. Lavs are designed to work about 4 to 6 inches away from the speaker's mouth. Of course this is dependent on the location of the shoot as well ... if you're doing interviews on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier during flight operations nothing you can do will prevent the sounds of the aircraft from interfering with the speaker's words.
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very well explained sir, but just to cross check again, if i attach my lav to the field recorder i will be getting better sound quality as compared to connecting the lav directly to the dslr, right?
 
The preamps in a field recorder are much better than those in any DSLR, so yes, the quality from the tascam will be better.
 
As Vic said but the interference from noise in the environment will still be present. Because the overall recording is better, you'll be able the hear the background sounds better. The voice will sound more like the actual speaker's voice sounded but so will the interfering environment sound more like it originally sounded. And if your plan is essentially to use the Tascam as a preamp, using the track recorded in the DSLR as the actual production sound, you'll find yourself right back where you started, perhaps even worse off. As said before, recording to the Tascam will probably give you a "better" recording but it won't fix the issue of the voice being muddied by a noisy environment.
 
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so in this scenario what should i do to avoid the background noise?

cardioid lav?

what is the difference between unidirectional lav and cardioid lav?

regards,
 
payal_choksi said:
so in this scenario what should i do to avoid the background noise?

cardioid lav?

what is the difference between unidirectional lav and cardioid lav?

regards,
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Generally speaking, unidirectional lavs are cardioids, though there are a few hypercardioids out there. But cardioids are intended for sound reinforcement use where feedback control is an issue, you don't want to use them for video recording. The reason is that when you use a directional lav, every time the subject moves their head they go off-mic and the timbre of the voice changes. Film and video recording use omnidirectional lavs almost all of the time. I'll say it again, mic sensitivity is not the issue, mic placement is. If you could tell us exactly what you are shooting and in what environment perhaps we can give you more explicit guidance. Where have you been putting the microphone in your troublesome recordings?
 
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What should i do to avoid the background noise?
- Move away from it

What is the difference between unidirectional lav and cardioid lav?
- Terminology

Unidirectional / cardioid lavs are not recommended .
 
thanks ric and steve for your inputs.

i usually attach the lav near the first button on the shirt of my subject facing straight up. Even then the lav picks up the ambient noise. At times i have to interview my subjects in office area where the person in the next cubicle might be talking on the phone and the lav would pick up his audio, not completely but it is audible and it doesn't give a good feeling. Some other times i have to interview my subject in open near the street where there is lot of traffic or inside the factory. At all this places the ambient sound could not be controlled.

Don't you think in such cases or locations, unidirectional lav would be useful, since my subject would be speaking directly into the camera and would not be moving his head away while speaking?
 
Your never going to totally eliminate extraneous noise, get the mic as close to the source as possible. The Sennheiser MD46 reporter's H/H mic would be a good choice if the mic can be in the shot. Otherwise the (proximity type) Sony ECM-55 (omni) lav picks up less 'noise' than most other omni lavs... though it's relatively huge by today's standards.
 
In almost every situation you described, I'd have a hyper condenser mic on a boom or stand. If possible, I'd have a hard-wired lav on them too and choose or mix in post. I think a lav is a last resort in most cases and a wireless lav is only if distance or movement makes a wire impossible. In a noisy environment, having both a hyper condenser and a lav can be a huge help.

I've never once interviewed someone in an office setting where we couldn't get people to shut up for 10 minutes or move to a quiet office. In a factory or street setting... well, if the interview needs to show them in a certain environment, it should sound like they're actually there, so ambient sound doesn't bother me as much.

Lavs generally aren't used in interviews because they sound awesome - they're a compromise sonically in most cases.
 
i would also like to ask what to look out for in the lav if i want a nice rich audio of my interviewer with bass in their voice. My lav cuts out the bass in the voice even though the person's has bass.
 
payal_choksi said:
i would also like to ask what to look out for in the lav if i want a nice rich audio of my interviewer with bass in their voice. My lav cuts out the bass in the voice even though the person's has bass.
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Proper lav placement (at or just above the solar plexus) will catch enough chest resonance to balance the sound. However, you said your lav is a $12 mic and chances are that it doesn't have a very good frequency response. It simply may not have the low-end response you want.

Want better lav sound? Get a better lav. That may not be the answer you want, but there's only so much that a dirt-cheap mic can do. Lavaliere mics from Countryman, Tram, DPA, and Sanken are the front-runners. Look also at RØDE. There's also the very-low-cost Oscar Sound Tech (OST).
 
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payal_choksi said:
i am using a lavalier with frequency response of 100-15,000Hz. is it good enough?
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That's what the manufacturer cites, which isn't as informative as you might think. It may technically or theoretically have a low-end response down to 100Hz, but that may be just on the cusp of measurement in their R&D lab: enough to say it's there, but not enough in the big picture to matter in real-world use.

They might even have a graphed response curve available, and that will also be inaccurate. Further, if you look at the curves from many mic manufacturers, you'll notice the curve starts to roll off well above the lowest frequency in the response.

I'm with Steve: if it doesn't sound good enough, it isn't good enough.
 
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