Need Advice Quick Re. Doc. Interview Mic Use

B

brandtb

Active member
I will be recording video/audio of a farmer (sit-down intervews outsided on his sometime windy farmyard) as a part of a personal oral/visual history project this coming week. I own a ME66 with K-tek zep. and a A-T AT803 lav mic. Camera DVX100B I am considering using both during interviews so I have the option of mixing the two when all is finished (this seemed like an obvious thing to me...)

(Note that this project is not funded...there are no monies for sound etc. etc., or any additional equipment). I have used the equipment before succesfully and am quite familiar about the performance.
I would very much appreciate some advice/comments about this as soon as possible please.
 
brandtb said:
I will be recording video/audio of a farmer (sit-down intervews outsided on his sometime windy farmyard) as a part of a personal oral/visual history project this coming week. I own a ME66 with K-tek zep. and a A-T AT803 lav mic. Camera DVX100B I am considering using both during interviews so I have the option of mixing the two when all is finished (this seemed like an obvious thing to me...)

(Note that this project is not funded...there are no monies for sound etc. etc., or any additional equipment). I have used the equipment before succesfully and am quite familiar about the performance.
I would very much appreciate some advice/comments about this as soon as possible please.
Click to expand...

Where do you plan to place the shotgun? If the it is going to be picking up the subject as well as having the lav on him, mixing them is a bad idea. You'll have phasing problems due to the different arrival times at the lav and the shotgun. Certainly recording using both is fine but record them to separate tracks and in post select the track that sounds the best and stick with it.
 
I was going to place the ME66 approx 15-20 in. off the mouth on a boom stand... either above or below...depending on how windy it is. I didn't think there would be a much of a phasing issue here...but I think you may be right.
 
I wouldn't worry about the lav at all in this situation. Certainly, having the shotgun/zepplin alongside is great if you're running the lav on a wireless system, but if the lav is hard-wired, there's no risk of dropouts. And wind is the most difficult thing to tame with a lav if you're sans audio engineer.

If it's outdoors, and the sun's angle isn't a shadow risk, I'd go strictly stand-mounted shotgun. But, set Ch. 2 to record about -5dB from Ch. 1 as a safety, just in case the interview subject laughs or gets really energetic about something and Ch. 1 overmodulates. This gives you a little extra headroom, but if you find yourself having to rely on the safety, it's from the same mic and will intercut seamlessly.

Set your shot first, then creep the boom in just until the tip of the zepplin starts to show on the edge of the frame, then back it up about 3" and lock it in.

In post, you need only use one of the record channels.

Good luck!
C2V
 
I agree with going with the overhead shotgun as well. Bring the lav though you may find it helpful if there's a lot of background sound where you're shooting the interview (highway or something) the lav will probably reject more of the BG than the shotgun. If the background sound is acceptable I would follow the advice above and feed the mic to both channels and calibrate one lower than the other for an overload protection.

Also! Make sure you record a minute or so of pure background sound, just have the interviewee sit silently, or have him step off to the side, and record just the ambient sound, wind, birds whatever. This well help when editing later. You can lay the ambience in as background and just cut in the voice from open of mouth to close (cutting the ambience out here as not to double it). This can really help clean things up, though may be unnecesary if it's a really solid recording.

Good luck.
-d
 
Thanks D - had additional question. In previous shooting on this project, I have kept the high pass switched on for the ME66...as it is a bit windy around the site. However, I recently bought the K-Tek zepplin with the furry cover for the interview portion upcoming...in your estimation would the heavy furry cover mitigate the need for the high pass function? I realize that you have no idea about the actual conditions...I was curious about your experience with these products. Note that I do monitor using Sony MDR 7506 headphones...
 
I would probably switch in the mic's high pass to kill some of the low end right at the source. I'm assuming that the me66 switches in a hpf at around 80Hz or so, there's not much in the voice below that so switching it in can help to keep wind noise down without affecting the voice much.

However if the switch is for a wider-affecting eq like a low shelf attenuation where it pulls everything below say 200-300 Hz down a certain amount I would leave it out as that would cut into the vocal range.

...do a simple, quick test. Have your subject speak into the mic as it will be set-up during the interview. Roll tape on a sentence or two. Just tell them to talk about the weather or what they had for breakfast or something. Then repeat the process but switch in the filter on the mic. Now review both clips playback from the camera and listen. If when the filter is switched in you hear a noticeable difference in the quality of the subject's voice then leave it out. If you only hear a a reduction to the low end of the background sound then leave it in.

Also.. dig through all the camera menus in search of audio settings. If you're using the mics on-board HPF then turn off the camera's high pass filter (sometimes labeled as wind reduction or some other lingo). No sense in doubling it. While you're in the menu make sure you're rolling audio at 48k 16b and have ALC/AGC off.
 
Looks like it will cut into the voice a bit, not drastically but enough to notice. It starts rolling off at 200Hz.. so by 120Hz you'll be down about 6-7dB or so. Leave it flat and maybe try the camera's wind filter. If it's a calm day leave it off completely. If you need to it's easy to roll off later at 70-80Hz in post.

In all honesty though, you're average listener is not going to notice a little low end roll off on someone's voice. They would notice distortion and rumbling from wind overload tho.. So take that into consideration. Also consider the end format of the program. If it's only going to post on the internet then go ahead and put the filter on.. With web compression it's all a crap shoot anyway. On the flip side if it's destined for a distributed documentary format or for TV then get it right! ;)

Final word.. use and trust your ears!
 
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