Mic too sensitive?

S

Scottdvx100

Veteran
Rented a few mics and tested with a rented Zoom H4n. Fixed boom overhead at 1 foot distance. Decided on a ME64 for interiors based on price and what I want to do. Bought new mic and testing same setup with Roland r26 and I hear every detail. Didn't seem to in initial tests. Raising an arm will cause rustling to be heard from the shirt. Sounded like a lav. Simple foam windscreen on. Experimenting with levels, sensitivity settings, filters, W/ and W/O phantom, etc. I can try angling the mic differently but it's in straight down to 20 degrees range.

Suggestions on getting good dialog without extra sounds?
 
That's going to be an issue with cardioid mics ... their pickup pattern is essentially hemispherical covering 90 degrees on either side of the mic's axis so they're as sensitive to sounds coming from 45 degree off to one side as they are to sounds directly in the line of aim. Aiming the mic carefully so it points directly at the subject's throat area will help a little but the bottom line will be to switch to a more directional mic. You can minimize the extraneous sounds by choosing a mic such as a hypercardioid for indoors or a shotgun for outdoors, thus narrowing the zone of maximum sensitivity. That's why they make 'em. Of course now you're going to have to pay much more close attention to aiming the mic, having an operator who can move it to follow the subject's movements. Changing levels, filters, etc as you mentioned won't do anything - if the mic can hear it the sound will be recorded. You have to get a mic that has a narrow pickup pattern so the sources of the superfluous sounds will fall into the zones of lower sensitivity.
 
Did you test it with dialogue with both the H4n and the R-26? Does it sound differently when at similar volumes?

Without actually hearing the test, I can't tell for sure of course, but I don't think there's anything wrong with your mic. If it's "sensitive" and picks up everything, then voice should be picked up just as well. You can't record dialogue without some amount of rustling of clothes, steps etc since the mic is often pointed directly at the body and feet. They can be comparably low though since the mouth is so much closer.

It could also be because you're listening to other headphones or at a higher level, making it easier to make out details. If the room has hard walls without much furniture and curtains etc this increases high frequency reflections, which makes these kind of sounds stand out a bit more (since the ME64 is a normal cardioid, it picks up quite a lot of the room). There's also a small possibility that the H4n was not able to feed a strong enough current to the mic compared to the R26, which would inhibit it's performance. Or maybe one was fed with a battery?

Also, is the low cut-filter activated on the mic? The K6-series has a cut that starts pretty high in the frequency spectrum (around 500Hz) but with a very gentle slope. This is supposedly to decrease the proximity effect when the mic is very close to the source. If it's activated on your mic and was off on the H4n-tests, then the lows would be a bit decreased on the new and the highs stand out more.
 
As Steve and Jema have said, you basically need another mike, or you have to deal with what you've got. Are the "extra" sounds in your headphones while you're recording, or do you just hear them on the recorded track? Can you minimize movement and extra-sound potential on-set/by choosing a better location?

One thing I've noticed, using standard cardioid condensers in the studio-- You can often hear things miles away in the headphones (traffic, train whistles, dogs barking) that really won't be audible even when the track is solo'd, let alone in context of a mix. I know that dialogue recording should be as pristine as possible, and that music mixes and film mixes are very different, but if you've spent as much money as you can on a microphone for right now, maybe you should experiment more before throwing in the towel; you might be able to make it work, and also learn from your technical/equipment-oriented limitations.

GJ
 
I did try all the various filter settings on the mic and the recorder. With and without battery power. Same basic setup both times in the same room at the same place.
On playing back it did seem like some of the quieter sounds I was listening to previously live in headsets didn't come through.
I figured if it was a normal speaking voice that many of the quieter sounds would be too far down (in ratio) to be picked up.

In any case it does seem to be more sensitive to lower level noise than the original tests with the other recorder and used mic.

On the Roland ZR26 they have a gain control from +4 to -62dBu and an input knob. To monitor they have an internal volume control for each channel and have a dial for the headphones. Are there preferred settings for these different controls? The only info I've seen has been increase the gain until it's within the range to record. Should the volume knob be targeted to 1/2 way and the gain be adjusted to get that close or is it better to have the volume knob almost to the max? Should internal channel monitor settings be at 100% to make sure to get the full volume and then use the headphone knob to adjust? When you plug an iPod into a car input there's a balance there of making sure it's high enough but not too much. Is there a rule of thumb for film recording? I'm targeting -12db avg and all sounds less than -6 if possible. Looking of course to get the widest dynamic range but with the hope that the voice is the most dominant.

Is there a preferred interior mic that's less than $1000? Shotguns can have reverb (not too bad in the room I tested in initially).
Most of the recommended mics seem to start at $1500 and go up. Octava's have a lot of complaints about handling and wind noise inside.
 
Some clothing material just inherently produces loud rubbing noise. Buying an 'expensive' mic will not likely 'fix' the problem. A different type of mic may help make it a little less audible. You could ask the interviewee to change clothes, if that's an option, or request that they not squirm around as much... which is usually futile.
 
Clothing - That was just me testing the mic. And I used the same shirt as when I tested the first time and it did present problems for lav mic test. You're correct that it would be best to avoid noisy clothing. It was just odd to seem to pick it up more readily in one test and not another. The new mic seemed to have as much noise live as the lav mic clipped on during the first test.

Side note - should you be hearing more in the headphones live than on playback? As I recall from the days of tape, pro equipment would playback from the playback head instead of just sending the same signal to both tape and headphones. This would allow confirming it was being recorded. Do today's digital recorders provide something comparable? I know the digital data should be fine but i'm wondering if the headphones represent what's actually being recorded or are they split off earlier (before A/D and other resolution/dynamic limiting steps) in the circuit so you hear more?
 
Over headphones, one will hear a lot more extraneous noise that will not be noticeable under normal playback conditions though speakers. An experienced sound person will know what is going to be a problem and what isn't. Monitoring at extreme levels (common with newbies) only makes things worse and doesn't give an accurate representation.
 
So is the live mic providing the same levels as recorded and played back and it's simply the difference of listening on headphones vs speakers? Or is there a loss in the actual recording/playback process? If the latter then a live playback option would be very useful.
 
Scottdvx100 said:
...
Is there a preferred interior mic that's less than $1000? Shotguns can have reverb (not too bad in the room I tested in initially).
Most of the recommended mics seem to start at $1500 and go up. Octava's have a lot of complaints about handling and wind noise inside.
Click to expand...

Look into the Audio Technica AT4053b hypercardioid.
 
At 1000, you can almost get a MKH50, a popular hyper among professionals (next to a schoepps cmc641). You could probably find it for less if you are willing to buy used.
 
Usually the monitoring is done by feeding audio from a mixer to a camera and listening to the camera headphone output. That's not "confidence monitoring" which is what you're referring to with analog tape. There are still stings that can go wrong; corrupted files being one. You may not know that until you playback the file.

About your situation. You bought a $169 mic with a wide pattern that is mostly used by kids in film school. Expecting it to perform like an industry standard boom mic is unreasonable. Without actually hearing the differences between lav and 66 you refer to in clothing noise, it's hard to say what's going on, but a boom mic pointed at a moving arm (and clothing) may (or may not) pick up more than a lav on the same body.

Regards,

Ty Ford
 
The original question involved a few issues:
1. How consistent are the same model of mics? I've read the stories about Octava mics. The original rental mic and the purchased mics seemed to provide different sound quality. Do mics age in terms of their sound response? (will a 10 yr old mic and a new mic of the same model sound the same or do the analog and other parts age enough to cause a shift in quality) Do mics require a burn in time or a warm up time?

2. How much difference is there listening to headphones during the recording or playing back through the same headphones? I would assume they're identical but it's not evident evident they are. If that's the case then the headphones are being connected earlier in the circuit before the data changes (down sampling, etc) Wouldn't pro gear provide the option at least to hear the same experience live versus recorded? I can see the reason to want to hear more but option to hear exactly what's being recorded should be useful. With digital there's no technical reason why it can't be played back at the same time if it was worthwhile but with digital media that itself isn't the issue. In this case I'm doing dual sound, no camera to feed into.

Mic selection - You can spend nothing (use camera mic) or you can spend thousands on a single mic or anything in-between.
Each person needs to make the choice based on their needs. If you're a pro then you need to spend the big bucks and get the best gear because you're being payed for it. If you aren't being paid (student, hobbyist, etc) then the issue will be what is the threshold of cost versus quality you're willing to accept. For audio equipment it becomes diminishing returns. You can pay 4x the price but is it 4x the quality? If your target is youtube or simple shorts, will it matter? You can find a lot of conflicting opinions on all of these things and all the rules of thumb but a lot of times it's better to experience and see for yourself. For everyone who hates mic A or recorder X there seems to be as many people say they love it. AT4053 is a perfect example. Some people hate the bass and off-mic sound, others are fine with it. I don't know, never used it. Is it worth it for non-audio pro to spend $2500 on a recorder and $2000 on a mic? Personally I'd rather get reasonable gear that I can use to do some tests and shorts. If I need pro work done I'll hire a full professional. Having expensive gear spending most of it's time collecting dust in my closet isn't helping anyone.

In my case I rented a NTG-3, ME66, ME64 and G3 lavs to try out. To my ears the ME66 and ME64 weren't horrible. The NTG3 had a little more bass but it's not like some mic differences where it's an extreme change. The mics were all reasonable outside. The wind levels with softie gave me a hands on idea of what that threshold is. The mics didn't reject airplanes or sounds from next door. Inside the mics did well also. Not as terrible as some comments would lead one to believe. I did go into a hard walled large bathroom specifically to see the difference and that where the issues became more evident.
I could hear the differences of the lavs to boom mics so it was easier to understand the tradeoffs. The lav was the only one I was hearing the cloth problems with the same shirt in all the tests, including the latest.

In my case I chose the ME64 since it sounded reasonable on the test, my simple shooting needs was to be indoors and one of the only 'interior' mics available at the local film sound company. I'd prefer to support locally when reasonable instead of going to the internet. i wasn't expecting it to be the top of the line sound results but my original rental tests sounded fine for what I needed. When I did the same test with the purchased mic it sounded different. Was it because there was a difference between the two mics? Was it because I wasn't used to live monitoring? Could be. Would it help if I used a different shirt and angled the mic differently? Sure. Would it sound a lot better going to a $700-1400 mic? Possibly but is it worth it to me on my projects and worth it if simply repositioning or re-adjusting will achieve better results?
 
Would it help if I used a different shirt and angled the mic differently?

>>maybe

Would it sound a lot better going to a $700-1400 mic? Possibly but is it worth it to me on my projects and worth it if simply repositioning or re-adjusting will achieve better results?

>>Or it depends on which mic and how you used it. There's a lot of room to grow above an ME64. If you know where to put the mic, that helps even more. Do yourself a BIG favor. Rent a Schoeps cmc641 and spend the weekend with it. Yes, really.

Regards,

Ty Ford
 
Due to the length or the post, I'll respond to just one issue for now.
"How consistent are the same model of mics? I've read the stories about Octava mics. The original rental mic and the purchased mics seemed to provide different sound quality"
- Oktava is legendary for quality control.. or lack thereof. Pick two off the shelf, one can sound freak'in great.. the next one, like crap. Serious buyers purchase them hand picked, of coarse one pays for that service. Or, "do ya feel lucky?" Then there's the Chinese/Oktava 'counterfeits'. (long story, search the web)
Unfortunately due to it's low off-the-shelf price, Oktavas are often purchased and used by the inexperienced, when in fact, it's one of the least forgiving mics out there. Even a pro boom op needs a light touch a good pole and shock mount.... A foamy windscreen will be needed even indoors.
Other quality manufactures models are usually consistent. However 'stereo pairs' are often purchased as a 'matched set.' with consecutive serial numbers and/or hand picked and tested..

No doubt about it, the Schoeps is a great mic. Will you get the same results with the Schoeps as Ty or another pro with many years of experience? (with or without a premium pre-amp) Will buying a Strat suddenly make you the next guitar hero like Eric or Jimi? Or a Les Paul / Marshall set-up like Slash?
 
Thanks for all the feedback and advice.

AT4053b $600
MKH 50 $1200
CMC641 $1918

I have no doubt the very expensive mics pick up full range and smoothest sound. And if I was being paid for anything or creating something that I would be charging others for then yes, I'd probably consider the top. But at that point I'd probably hire a pro audio person so I can focus more on the directing.
As it is now I'd have to avoid getting some of the audio, camera and computer gear to end up with the mic.
I'll probably try to switch out with the AT4053b to up the quality.

Octava mics - If someone ordered from the Sound Room (only place recommended) how would you hand pick the mic? Or are all Octava's from the sound room considered hand picked?
 
The Sound Room is a great company with top shelf customer service and only sells premium, tested Oktava mics. They also offer multi capsule matched stereo sets. The Sound Room Oktavas do not have the infamous 'Dorcey' or Micheal Joly modification, which optimizes the mic and helps the handling noise issue some. Neither 'mod' is designed to 'repair' a lemon though, it just makes an already good mic a better mic.
 
Last edited:
Still if you're buying one mic for the long haul, buying a nova and dropping a corvette engine in it isn't as good as buying a corvette.

Buying right once is less expensive than buying once and then buying again and every second of audio you record with the better mic you saved to buy will sound a lot better.

Regards,

Ty Ford

PS: Of course, your intent is everything.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top