microphone choice for documentary field recording

R

rob norton

Veteran
Hello,

I just ordered the AT BP4025 X/Y ([URL]http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/..._Technica_BP4025_BP4025_X_Y_Stereo_Field.html)

I plan to use it to record sounds of ambience that will go with establishing shots e.g. traffic, the ocean, busy restaurant etc.

I also like recording sounds of people's actions. Here's a video I shot where I used my AT4053b (with SD702) to record her actions:


I had the microphone on a c-stand arm and would move it closer to the action, or further away at an attempt to get perspective. Then I filled the track in Premiere Pro.

My question is will the AT BP4025 be a better option for these types of recordings? Of course I'm going to experiment and I know a lot of this depends, but are there any rules in choosing between my AT4053B or Rode NTG-3 versus the BP4025?

Thank you for helping,

Rob
 
What you are really asking is stereo VS mono. Generally dialog is shot in mono. FX are shot in everything so it really depends on whos doing it and who it's done for. I almost always shoot FX in stereo and just favor one side if I plan on using it as mono. Part of that is my set up which is a pair of cardioid mics in an X/Y arrangement so switching to a mono mic would change very little mic wise. If I'm going to be doing a lot that I know will be mono I go with a mono setup because it's lighter. And there are times when I'm shooting with a shotgun so that is significantly different from the stereo rig.

The only "rule" I have heard and it's said more as a joke, though it's not totally silly, is "if it's bigger than your head record in stereo".

Of course the next question is life head or the "big screen" head?
 
Actually I hadn't watched the video. Excelent.

From the nitty picky sound aspect, it would have benefited by a little time with a sound editor. Or maybe even just you in a DAW instead of a NLE. Picture editing programs work in frames sound editing programs work at sample level. A small fraction of a frame can make a big difference in how a sound effect "feels". So some of the sounds "feel" syncy, like if they moved a touch they would work better. There are also a couple that might benefit from some EQ.

Those are fine points. They are what would cause a client to bounce it back to me if I had done it. But I am talking about polishing something that is already good.

The only "story" issue and I'm not sure why I though this or how I would fix it, is since the first part is a guy working on a object and the second part is a woman working on a print, they got disconnected somehow and I though I was looking at a second unrelated project for awhile. It didn't really bother me but it took me out when I realized I had made an incorrect assumption so it interrupted my attention.
 
I was wondering about that. Like with this video or cutting shots to a fast-paced track, they're not completely in sync when zoomed fully into the timeline. Do you bring video into the DAW to essentially get those fractions of frames?

I don't know much about audio post production but would like to learn more - like Basic EQ (if there is such a thing) and a few other things I can do myself to add some polish. Can you recommend any resources as starting points?

Thanks for watching and the comments.
 
With the NLE it is good with image but is a bit klunky with audio. A DAW (most anyway) have no video editing capability at all, so what you are doing is moving audio to put it in sync with your finished video.

There are a LOT of other audio capabilities that are either not available or much more difficult to do in a NLE. "Filters" in FCP for instance had no graphic user interface. You could type in numbers but unless you really knew what those numbers represented it was pretty much shooting in the dark. So the irony was that the one group that would almost never be working with them (sound professionals) were about the only people who could use them in any kind of sensible way.

Track count is another. A lot of NLE's will say "unlimited tracks" but the reality is that you can only see a few at a time so having "unlimited" doesn't do you a lot of good if you can only see 12 at a time. Doing sound in After Affects is actually easier than most NLE's.

How to do it on your own has a lot of parts to it. There is the basic knowing something about sound, and knowing about editing, and then there is the tools. And the biggest is experience.

The stickies on post in this section are a pretty good start on editing and some sound stuff. Kind of like a NLE most DAW's work in similar ways so getting used to one gets you in the ball park with all of them.

For software, again it really depends on who what and where. If you were aiming to work on sound for big films then ProTools is the one to learn. You probably are not so the options expand a bit. The next big question comes down to work flow. Are you going to do pretty much nothing in the NLE and then send the project to a DAW after the picture is locked?, or Do a bunch of work in the NLE and need to send all that work to the DAW? Or just send picture to the DAW and do all the sound work in the DAW? As long as you have very limited hand off needs and/or your projects are really short you can use just about any DAW that can play against video. Once you need to do a more complicated handoff then things like OMF capability start getting important. And that limits the field a LOT.

On the simple handoff DAW's Reaper is probably top on my list. It's cheap works well and has a lot of power. But it will probably never support OMF or AAF or the ability to create a ProTools export, so it's unfortunately not much of an option for more complicated handoffs. There is a work around IF you are on Windows. Another company makes an app that will convert Reaper sessions to OMF, or Protools and Visa Versa, no Mac version though.

I think the Adobe sound app will do OMF/AAF, Nuendo will, ProTools can (used to be extra but I believe it's now built in), and I'm sure some of the Windows apps like Sonar can. Generally you are looking at $500 - $1,000+ for apps that do OMF.

IF you don't need it often you can probably find someone who can open an OMF/AAF (they are really two flavors of the same thing) and convert them to the format you need, so it's not necessarily a deal killer.

The two BIG things to burn into your head are that roundabouts with sound get complicated very quickly, so the standard work low is you finish all of the picture work and send the final locked video to sound post. ANY changes after that to picture require that sound do something called a "conform" and that can be a nightmare. They do it on big pictures all the time but they also have assistants that are tracking all the changes and can produce "change notes" that ease the nightmare quite a bit. And many people use software that can look at the change note or a pair of EDLs and generate the changes. That software starts at around $1,000 and most of it only works with the $$$ DAW's.

The second thing is that picture editing is a subtractive proses and sound editing is an additive proses. It's much closer to doing visual effects than it is to picture editing. That is a big mental change. Even big names who do both almost never do both on the same film. Another reason that if you are going to do it all yourself finish the picture so you can switch your brain into a sound mode, or you will climb the wall trying to do sound.

One last point that really crosses over is that IF you are doing any kind of sound work you NEED a pair of decent speakers that are set up at least close to where they should be in a room that is at least "sound friendly" and you need to at least do a ghetto calibration on them.

If you go to a sound post forum they will be a lot more adamant about that last sentence and a lot pickier about the specifics.

But you are not doing sound professionally and if some film you do gets picked up for distribution etc. you can output it to a sound person to do it up right and get your levels where they need to be etc. What you want is to be in the ballpark.

So decent music speakers that are unblocked and aimed at you that feed from something other than the headphone jack of your computer, in a room that at least has some book shelfes along the walls or a lot of soft furniture and ideally a rug (if you can clap your hands together and you get just the clap sound and not a bouncy echoey sound you should be OK).

Ghetto calibration 101. Get some pink noise @-20 dBfs and stick it on some tracks. With everything in the software playing at unity and all your sound card masters etc set at the place you are going to keep them (mark it with some tape and a marker) play the pink and raise the amplifier so that it's just a bit louder than you would comfortably listen to, louder than you like but just under the point you feel the urge to put your hands over your ears, that will put you at about what a mix stage is calibrated to. For the big screen THIS is the level you should ALWAYS have everything set to. If you do your mix will be consistent and decently balanced, or at least you have the possibility of getting there.

A huge mistake people make is to keep changing their playback settings and so the mix goes up and down all over the place. If it's too loud do not reack for the amp, change the volume on the track.

Go forth and make some noise.
 
Wow - Scott, thank you so much for this fantastic response. I will use this as a great reference to see where I stand and come back to when I'm ready.

I'll need to take some time to process these points (choosing suitable DAW, speaker research etc.) but I will burn the *be sure of final picture before locking* idea into my head right now.
 
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