The Skinny on EX1 Audio

Mark

Both the NT4 and NT3 are terribly susceptible to wind. It's just the nature of condensers. I was hoping you tried the Rode Nt4 fuzzy. I bet that, on top of the foam would be pretty good, and wouldn't add much bulk like a zep would.

All in all I just love Rode mics. I think people discount them because they paid a lot more for something else. Of course there are better mics, but I think Rode is a great place to start. I have an NT1, NTG-2 two NT3s, and an NT4, which happens to use the same capsules as the NT5. I do prefer my Senn Me66 over the NTG-2 though.

C
 
I also use Sennheiser - the ME66 & ME67. Very predictable performance and a nice match with the EX3.

On the other hand, I happened to invest in an Audio-Technica BP4029 stereo shotgun and the results have been disappointing for the very reasons mentioned in this thread. The limiter pumping and inability to find a working sensitivity setting for this mic. With Mark's insights I'll have to set some more time aside to see if I can get this mic to work properly.

Thanks for all the input and comments.
 
I use NTG-3. What will be a good setting for NTG-3 type shotgun mic for dialogue recording (on a movie set)?
 
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Chadfish said:
Mark

Both the NT4 and NT3 are terribly susceptible to wind. It's just the nature of condensers. I was hoping you tried the Rode Nt4 fuzzy. I bet that, on top of the foam would be pretty good, and wouldn't add much bulk like a zep would.

All in all I just love Rode mics. I think people discount them because they paid a lot more for something else. Of course there are better mics, but I think Rode is a great place to start. I have an NT1, NTG-2 two NT3s, and an NT4, which happens to use the same capsules as the NT5. I do prefer my Senn Me66 over the NTG-2 though.

C
Click to expand...


The thing with condenser mics is that they have a very robust low frequency response by design--it goes well down to single digits--and their electrical output is large--remember, it is an amplified signal --either by a FET or a vacuum tube, depending on the mic design --so it's going to overload a lot of mic preamps if the user is not familiar with these characteristics.
A radio station owner I know refuses to use a large diaphragm condenser because he claims it brings up too much room noise. But the problem is he's replacing a mic with a -65dB sensitivity with one having a -37dB sensitivity without re-strapping the attenuation on the master control board. Naturally, that's not going to work out very well, but he became argumentative and refused to listen, so his loss. :happy:
 
ColorBalance said:
I use NTG-3. What will be a good setting for NTG-3 type shotgun mic for dialogue recording (on a movie set)?
Click to expand...

Just normal conversation, or shouting? Any other sounds being made on stage? For example, in Miss Saigon, there's a gunshot as the woman commits suicide. One has to take that into account on the levels when recording--it ain't always dialog that we're worried about!
 
Just dialogues. Sometimes, a bit soft, sometimes, a bit loud, but all well within our normal range of hearing. I do have a mixer, but can never figure out where to keep the various levels at. Yes, a sound engineer will be helpful, but still, good to understand the basics.
 
'Been a bit busy around here (the inlaws moved in recently) with spring cleaning and other stuff, but I realized this thread had updated...

To answer your question, I'l start with the lowest atten setting in the -30s (-32? I don't have a camera near me and turned on to check the value) and see how that works.

DSP can really mess with sound. I had a classic example of that on my editing workstation, which has the newer Turtle Beach Montego DDL. Any audio playback level greater than 6dB below maximum or 0VU woudl see massive dynamic compression, and it was just like the EX1 before fw 1.11. I'd been back and forth with TB tech support for months. They finally pointed me to a C-Media (reference driver?) and I installed it tonight and the sound card sounds completely like a different card now--no more compression--full impact comes through now. So DSP software can have drastic effects on audio on today's digital devices, both with recording AND playback!
 
For some reason I'm not getting email notifications on this thread any more, so I'm just putting up a little message to kick it into gear again.

Still saving for the EX1! 5/6 of the way there.
 
Latest discoveries about the gain staging of EX1 audio with v. 1.11 firmware:

The downstream gain has decreased slightly. A record dial setting of '5' will no longer drive the record to media all the way to 0dB. I find that dial setting has increased to a point that's a hair's breadth away from '6' on the dial.

Even when using rather sensitive (for the circumstances) attenuator settings, I found the camera redlining on the VU meters, but on playback, heard almost no obvious compression, no obvious distortion and no artifacts that the average listener would notice. The audio overdrives quite gracefully--in fact, I suspect that Sony adjusted the fast peak limiter to just at the clipping threshold, but it's controlled in such a way to prevent the ducking of volume to the extremes that was the case in prior FW versions.

I recorded the sounds of a parade on Monday, including loud Harley motorcycles, just 3' or less from their exhausts, had bass drums and snare drums pass within 2' of my microphone, and all the time at an atten setting of -35dB, the camera never did anything ugly to the sound.

The parade was a kind of 'acid test' for audio, because the the extremes of loudness that came up occasionally, as when it went from just people marching, to drums being beaten just two feet from me, as I crouched down to get closeups of the passing parade.

It's certainly a very impressive performance track record and I have no reservations about using the audio system for any type of recording situation now. It is quite robust.
 
basspig said:
Some ballpark figures with the Rode NT4 as mic in use:

Soft nature sounds ......... -38
Acoustic music ................. -26
Rock band ....................... -14
Fireworks ........................ -8
Click to expand...

Hey Mark

Chadfish here, digging my EX1! I am about to delve into some audio. Are these numbers for the "Trim" setting under "Audio Input" menu? Because the setting of the numbers on my cam don't allow for 1db incriments. it goes in 6db increments: -11dBu, -17dBu, -23dBu etc, and defaults to -41dBu.


Also it seems your numbers are counter intuitive, as I would think you would want louder sources to be attenuated more. Anyway, I am looking at my audio menu on the EX1, and don't have a lot to adjust.

What am I missing here mark?

Thanks.

Chadfish.
 
There's a couple of points to update now:

The new firmware reduces the trim resolution to 6dB steps (the old FW allowed 3dB steps).

The numbers don't refer to the amount of attenuation in dB. The refer to the sensitivity level of the preamp. With the attenuator set to -38dB, for example, a signal strength of -38dB would give you full recording level. A -10dB signal level would be too much, so you'd drop the sensitivity to the next lower available increment, which is -8dB. Remember, we're working with negative numbers here, so smaller is bigger. :)

PS: Congratulations on choosing an EX1! As you become familiarized with it, you will shoot better and better video. Try out CINE1 for daytime shoots. It's got amazing lattitude!
 
So if, looking at these settings:

Soft nature sounds ......... -38
Acoustic music ................. -26

-38 = a louder input signal than -26, because you don't want to blow out the input. But knowing that with negative numbers = "smaller is bigger" - 26 is bigger than -38, which is confusing.

I guess -38 is "more sensitive" than -26. Coming from an audio background this in just confusing... It doesn't help that I am slightly dyslexic. I'll just turn trim up for louder sources, but for some reason this seems a strange way of displaying it. If I was working with a mixer, and the input signal got louder, and clipped the input, I would turn the trim down.


Chadfish
 
Chad, I'm with you on this. It seems completely backwards. Since this is basically a "gain" control, it "should" be 0db as the loudest just like the gain control on a mixing board.
 
It makes perfect sense if you think of it as matching the sensitivity rating of the microphone. For instance, a Shure SM57 has a sensitivity around -56.0 dBV/Pa, so you'd set the attenuator to the nearest 6dB step just below that gain level. Setting the gain to -54dB means you're matching it to a source that can produce -54dB of signal with a 90dB SPL at the mic element.
For another data point, if the mic is a large diaphragm studio condenser, the sensitivity is -37dB for the Neumann U87A. In this case, you'd set the attenuator for -35dB, the nearest 6dB step on the EX1. The mic output is hotter than the SM57, because it has a FET preamp adding about 25dB of additional gain, so the EX1 preamp doesn't have to reach as deep to bring the mic's signal up to 0VU.
An easy way to think of the attenuator numbers is that larger negative numbers reach deeper under 'ground'. The weaker the signal, the larger the below ground level gain that is needed. Weaker signals, deeper reach below that 0dB ground floor level. Bigger negative numbers. Smaller negative numbers are like the elevator coming up from the basement levels to the ground floor. :)
 
Thanks for breaking it down Mark. When I get around to doing real audio tests with my various mics I'll review your info, look up the sensitivity ratings on my mics and adjust the trim appropriately, and listen to the signal while changing the trim.

I think I am confused about dBv too. I just found this page:

http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~hgs/rtp/microphone.html

And will do a little more research.

Thanks again.

Chadfish
 
There's a lot of great info on that page, but I would disagree with their declaration that dynamic and condenser mics sound the same. They don't. Due to the coil's mass, a dynamic mic cannot go as high, nor respond as accurately to transients. A condenser mic typically produces far superior s/n ratio because it's signal output is large, overcoming pre-amp noise and noise infused through the cabling. I've been a convert to capacitor (condenser) mics since 1976.
 
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