The ATR-55 and Edirol R1

yagfxg33k

yagfxg33k

Well-known member
Yesterday I went to the location for my film that I am shooting next month to rehearse some setups with my DP and to get my sound guy up to speed.

After I got home and listened to the audio that was recorded, what I found was that the audio is VERY faint. So I did some tests in the house. Basically what I noticed was that unless the mic is VERY close to the mouth of the person speaking and they are speaking at a volume slightly higher then normal, the audio is VERY faint.

Additionally, it has always been the case that I have had to have the input sensativity on the R1 at max.

At first I thought it might be the K-Tek wind screen since this was the first test using that device - previous soujourns to the location indicated that the indoor foam windscreen was insufficient to overcome wind noise at the location. However, a series of tests at home bore out that this is not the issue.

So, this begs the question:

Is the issue the recorder or the mic? Is it reasonable to somehow amplify the signal that the mic produces to drive the recorder a bit better?

And, yeah, I verified the battery at all stages of testing :)

As a side note, when I tooke the audio into Adobe Audition and boosted the amplitude, the sound quality was excellent. But I do not want to have to do that as doing so will tend to bring up the BG noise level.

Any suggestions here would be GREATLY appreciated! I just need to understand what a reasonable solution is before I run out and buy a Sennheiser MKH-70 out of desperation!

Thanks!
 
There's a lot of good choices between the atr-55 ($60) and the mkh-70 ($1500)...

I don't know that it's the 55 that's causing the really faint audio, but if you do a search on that mic you'll see that one of those was my first external mic years ago... at the time I thought it was so great that I bought a second one! Eventually I got into dramatically more expensive mics... and I'll just leave it at that.

I'd be surprised if the 55 isn't hurting you more then anything else. It's clearly the weak link in that chain. Are you getting the mic REALLY close to everybody that's speaking? Like 2 or 3 FEET close?
 
The 55 is not what you could call a hot mic. Are you setting it to normal or tele as you use it. What are you setting the input and gain to on the DVX? Are you monitoring audio as you record?
 
I HAVE to use it on TELE and I have the input gain on the Edirol R1 set to maximum. Based on some other research here today, it seems I will need either a pre-amp or a hotter mic. If I get a mic, it cannot use phantom power but MUST be battery and use the mini-jack connection. If I go with a pre-amp, it needs to support the mini-jack as well as be battery powered.

Any suggestions for either one on a budget of say $350 or so?

Thanks!
 
I'd say go for the at (audio technica) 897, about $250 at Bhphoto.com. I've never used the 55 so can't say whether it's hotter, but it is battery powered and you can just order a F-XLR to M-1/4" Cable with it. Hope that helps, and hopefully Matt agrees with me.
Peace,

-Harry
 
OK, getting an ME66 tomorrow. I will post my results on Friday after I run some tests.

Thanks all for your help!
 
Here is a quick test. First part is ME66 with R1 input level at about 1/5th. Second part is the ATR55 with input level at max. Both mics in same place relative to me during recording.

Test MP3

I am VERY satisfied :)
 
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