Sound editing...

weaverfilms

weaverfilms

New member
Hello, I have a shotgun mic (with windsock and black spongy thing) that came with a boom pole for $200 new on ebay. It picks up great sound, but I noticed it still picks up many other noises in the rooms and the actors' voices sound raw and are effected by the rooms they are in (like i will hear the sound they make mixed with the sounds bouncing of the walls making it sound loud and raw). I know this isn't unusual for any mic, but I want to eliminate some of the noise and have a much richer, more professional sound in the final product. Is there any extra equipment I might need on location when shooting or any software during post production? Please keep in mind I'm on a low budget and that my next project will be shot entirely indoors.

Also, I connect the mic directly to my camera but would like to record on digital tape. I believe this can be done, but what do I use to record the tape? Sorry for being such a noob at sound!
 
Mic placement is something you learn over time. Picking a good sounding location is very important. You also should carry sound blankets to help damp overly noisy doors, windows, etc. Also there's no one mic for all jobs. Booms are ok for lots of stuff but you'll also want wireless lavs, handheld mics and more. Here's a very basic lesson on audio:

http://www.mediacollege.com/audio/01/

If you want even more tips, get this DVD- lots of great tips:

http://www.callboxlive.com/store/sound-film-television-p-40.html

-Noah
 
Can you give us some more specifics? What camera do you have, and what's the make and model of mic?

To be honest, $200 for a shotgun mic with foam windscreen and furry cover sounds pretty sketchy. There are a lot of faux-shotguns out there that are really not true to their names. Do you have a link to a similar (or to the same) mic package?

Indoor audio is a tricky beast, and short shotguns are generally not the first choice on the list. Hypercardioid condensers are the choice, but short shotguns will do you in a pinch... if used properly. It's about mic placement and angle. Get the mic as close to the source as possible, so that you're picking up more direct sound than secondary reflections. And the mic should have an angle of rejection, and keeping that towards the primary surface of reflection will minimize the ambience that you pick up.

And always, always, always wear headphones while shooting. Know what's going to tape, and if you detect a problem, now's the time to fix it. In post, it's generally too late.

But again, it could be that your "shotgun" mic isn't really, and is just a glorified cardioid condenser with some seemingly-fancy housing.

C2V
 
One trick - try moving around the room snapping your fingers or clapping your hands and listening to the reflections. You'll find there's a lot a variability and sometime moving just a foot or so one direction or another will make a profound difference. Try to spot the talent in the places that sound the deadest. As C2V said, indoors in everyday spaces such as homes and offices, schoolrooms and wedding halls, etc, shotguns are generally not the first choice - hypers are strongly preferred because of their cleaner handling of the room reflections. Outdoors (mostly - but paved surfaces like a playground can still give you headaches with a 'gun) or on an indoor treated environment like a soundstage it's another matter.

Why do you want to record to digital tape? Digital tape, or DAT, is old technology that is rapidly disappearing - I don't even believe that any new recorders are currently on the market. The current generation of prosumer and professional recorders write wave, mp3, or flac files directly to either an internal hard drive, CF cards, or both.
 
Okay, thanks for the quick and helpful replies!

My mic is an "Audio-Technicia ATR55 Telemike". It has a 3-way switch. Options are "Tele" "Normal" (use that one most) and "Off". My camera is an $800 Panasonic (PV-GS180) handheld (not a regular consumer model, but isn't on par with HVX200's or anything). When using the mic, I always wore headphones, but it sounded really good when I wore them. But on my PC, I could hear small background noises (air conditioning or my camera humming)..Nothing big..I just tone the volume down and you can't hear it, but then the volume must be way-up to hear the final product. It's not a matter of an extremely noisy environment. I just hear the distant hum of my camera or the small sounds from the indoor environment I'm in, although I'd like to eliminate it so I can keep the voices seperate (for smoother sound when I cut the film) and record a separate environment. I haven't used any professional editing equipment since none of my projects went past my friends eyes, but my next one (hopefully) will have a genre festival run and I'd like to invest a little towards the sound department.

I guess I could use a hyper, but aren't those expensive? It would need to be wireless, but couldn't static be heard if it goes out of range or is interfered by another signal?

I'm not really up-to-date on sound so I didn't know digital tape was a dead technology. Explain more on recording direct-to-dirve. Is that what "sound mixers" are? Is there any such thing as a cheap one?

Sorry about all the questions! :)
 
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I'm going to go the opposite of my normal recommendation and say stick with direct to camera. Eventually you will probably want to go with a separate recorder but at this stage I think it would be a bad idea. You can improve your sound in other ways like technique and mic choices that will a bigger difference now and will carry through to better equipment etc.

First as stated above a hyper is a much better choice (usually - sound doesn't have many hard and fast rules). What ever mic you use it should be as close to the actor as possible. If you don't ruin a take or two because the mic dipped into the shot your boom operator is probably not close enough. Those two things will go a long way to getting a better recording.
Listen to your space, with nothing going on, notice what is humming and buzzing and turn them off before you shoot (if at all poss.). Deadening will also help but a normal carpeted room with some furnishings will usually be dead enough IF you get the right mic CLOSE enough.

Lastly in "big time" films the only thing that is recorded on set is dialog. That's a slight exaggeration but not much. They pad the souls of shoes and the bottoms of cups and plates etc. The idea is to record nothing but dialog, and some room tone. The footsteps and the cup downs and door closes etc are all added in post. Most low budget films try to record EVERYTHING on set. It's a great time saver when it works but it's a killer when it doesn't. I would compromise and don't worry too much about getting "extras" because your probably not doing a lot of audio post. One trick that can help with the "extra" sounds you don't want is to add some background sound that you do want (in post) and "ride" the volume of your dialog track. If you don't have too much noise on your dialog track the background will "eat it up" and because you have a steady BG you will be able to cut out a lot more of what you don't want with out the aud hearing the moves.
 
weaverfilms said:
My mic is an "Audio-Technicia ATR55 Telemike". It has a 3-way switch. Options are "Tele" "Normal" (use that one most) and "Off".
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Sadly, the ATR55 is one of the faux shotguns I was talking about. It's a consumer-level product and is not designed for any professional use. It's hardwired (cable is permanently attached) with a very short, unbalanced 1/8" connection... made to be camera-mounted as a marginally better alternative to a camcorder's built-in mic.

The "tele" setting just kicks up the volume. This mic is made much like the internal mic on a camcorder: hot, to pick up as much as possible. There's no way, especially indoors, that you'll get the rejection needed for clean, strong dialog.

I bought one of these for my brother a few years ago, so he'd have it with his camcorder after their first child was born.

weaverfilms said:
But on my PC, I could hear small background noises (air conditioning or my camera humming)..Nothing big..I just tone the volume down and you can't hear it, but then the volume must be way-up to hear the final product.
Click to expand...

That sort of defeats the purpose. The idea is to record a clean signal at the right level, and simply turning down the overall level doesn't do anything for you except lower the volume. Sounds redundant, but that's intentional. By having to turn the volume way up to hear the finished product, you're bringing the background noise back up as well as instroducing all sorts of other noise to the playback signal.

Why would a hypercardioid have to be wireless? Running a 25' r 50' cable to the camera, mixer, or recorder is a much better solution. But you'll need phantom power, as well as a way to get a balanced XLR signal into your camera's 1/8" input. That'll require an active XLR coverter box with phantom (see Beachtex or Sign Video).

And to get proper isolation, you'll need a shock-isolating mic mount for the end of the fishpole.

Also evaluate your headphones. The typical, basic models available at Best Buy won't cut it. You need to have high-quality, closed-back, covers-the-entire-ear headphones, such as Sony MDR-7506.

Audio is an investment, but it pays off in the end. Your basic fishpole kit should include:

Hypercoardioid condenser (for interiors)
Short Shotgun (for exteriors)
Fishpole
Shockmount
Windscreen and/or zepplin for the shotgun
windscreen for the hypercardioid
plenty of cable (a 50' cable plus 2 or 3 25' cables)

Then add in good headphones and the XLR converter (active, battery powered, with phantom).

Hope this helps.
C2V
 
weaverfilms said:
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I guess I could use a hyper, but aren't those expensive? It would need to be wireless, but couldn't static be heard if it goes out of range or is interfered by another signal?

I'm not really up-to-date on sound so I didn't know digital tape was a dead technology. Explain more on recording direct-to-dirve. Is that what "sound mixers" are? Is there any such thing as a cheap one?

Sorry about all the questions! :)
Click to expand...

Why wireless? While you could go wireless there's nothing wrong with cable - in fact it's usually preferred. Some hypers are expensive but not all of them - the Oktava M012 and the AKG Blueline series offer very affordable hypers.

A mixer is just that - controlling and mixing the signal(s) from one or more microphones and send the resulting signal on to either the camera or a separate recorder (or both) to be recorded. There are some relatively cheap recorders but you get what you pay for. However you'll find that while recording to a separate recorder can raise the quality over recording to the camera it also brings with it a whole new set of problems and until you have the experience and budget to deal with them you'll be better off sticking with 'single-system' and recording in camera. Putting your budget towards upgrading mics, a fishpole, XLR adapter that provides phantom to let you use those better mics, etc, will give you the most bang for your buck initially.
 
I won't be able to put a ton into audio on this one, but I will go ahead and get a hypercoardioid condenser for the movie since it's all based indoors. There's one outdoor shot but there is no dialogue and it's very short...

For the mic, I was thinking the Audio-Technicia U873R since it's one of the cheapest ($189), but the fact that it's the same company that made my fake shotgun, I was wondering if it was any good... I might try and find a rental place in my town because I'm shelling out most of my budget on a 35mm adapter..
 
weaverfilms said:
I won't be able to put a ton into audio on this one, but I will go ahead and get a hypercoardioid condenser for the movie since it's all based indoors. There's one outdoor shot but there is no dialogue and it's very short...

For the mic, I was thinking the Audio-Technicia U873R since it's one of the cheapest ($189), but the fact that it's the same company that made my fake shotgun, I was wondering if it was any good... I might try and find a rental place in my town because I'm shelling out most of my budget on a 35mm adapter..
Click to expand...

There's nothing wrong with Audio-Technica mics, they make some very professional equipment. I have a couple of their AT3031 small-diaphram studio cardiid mics and they're quite acceptable. Your "shotgun" just happens to come out of their budget consumer line, is all. A real shotgun from them, such as the AT4073a, would be fine. They make the AT4053a which is a well respected hypercardioid.

The particular mic you're looking at was designed as a hand-held vocalist's stage mic - true, it's a hypercardioid but there's more to selecting a mic than just the pattern. I'd suggest you consider something like the Oktava M012 with the hyper capsule if you're on a tight budget. Look beyond just price as buying cheap is usually the most expensive approach in the long run.
 
Just to help clarify... we're talking about hypercardioid condenser mics. As Steve pointed out, it's not all about the pattern. The pattern is important, yes, but a dynamic mic on a boom isn't going to do you much good at all.

Keeping that in mind, you'll need to have a phantom power supply to run a condenser mic.
 
Okay, I found an Audio Technicia AT3528 online. Although it says it's a cardioid condenser mic, I'm skeptical. Anyone know if this is the real deal?

I searched up the Oktava MK-012 it's about $100 to expensive, but there is another one called the MK-012-01 . It costs only 250 which is perfect. Is that mic any good?
 
weaverfilms said:
Okay, I found an Audio Technicia AT3528 online. Although it says it's a cardioid condenser mic, I'm skeptical. Anyone know if this is the real deal?

I searched up the Oktava MK-012 it's about $100 to expensive, but there is another one called the MK-012-01 . It costs only 250 which is perfect. Is that mic any good?
Click to expand...


There is a very signifigant difference between a cardioid and a hypercardioid pattern. That Audio Technica is a cardioid mic of the sort that's typically used for micing musical instruments, drum overheads, and sound reinforcment applications. I would expect it to be a good mic for its intended purpose if it's in good condition (I assume it must be used because it has been discontinued by A/T) but not for recording dialog simply because that's not what it's designed for. HYPERcardioid or SUPERcardioid, not just plain cardioid, is what is recommended for booming interior dialog.

Oktavas have a good reputation for value as a budget mic that give good performance for the money. What accounts for the disparity in price between the two you mention? Looking at The Sound Room site the Oktava M012 with hyper capsule is $249. You might be looking at the package with all three of the optional capsules for the higher priced mic.
 
The gs180 you're using is a consumer camera , the only difference is it has a 3 ccd imager..........If you're going to spend hundreds on audio equipment perhaps you should also look into a pro-sumer camera, I'm not trying to bash your camera choice (I used a gs120 for alot of outdoor footage) but if you are professionally shooting footage i don't think the GS180 is going to cut it, especially trying to operate manual settings on the camera if lighting or other conditions change.

Just my 2cents.
 
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