Transmitter for boom

P

Parapluie

Member
Hello!

I'm considering to buying a transmitter to mount on my boom, so I don´t need any cable between boom and mixer. Maybe the Lectrosonics HM plug-on microphone transmitter. I have no experience with wireless booming.

My question is: are there any disadvantages to use a boom wireless? Will the sound quality get worse in any way versus to use it with a cable?


Thanks.
 
A cable is ALWAYS better in terms of quality and reliability. There are two basic reasons for this:

1) Wireless will fail at some point, and that's the only thing you can count on 100%. It may fail more often with cheaper systems, but every system will suffer from signal interferance at some point.

2) A wireless transmitter compresses the signal to transmit it within the bandwidth of the rad signal. The receiver will expand the signal. This takes a toll on the signal's audio quality. Some systems (typically the more expensive) have less noticeable companding artifacts, but all of them have it. A cable will never compress the signal, and quality will be unaffected along the path of the cable.

Please note: you're talking about buying a plug-on transmitter, but you don't mention a receiver. That may be an oversight, but you have to have both, and they both need to be of the same make/model.
 
How will the boom op monitor the audio.. this usually means another wireless system for monitor and mixer to boom op communications.
Another option is a preamp/HP amp in front of the transmitter, but then the mixer won't be able to talk to the boom op.
 
Two receivers, one transmitter - easiest to set up and use. I often use remote shotguns, on the touchline of football pitches (proper football, not the start/stop running thing with virtually no feet involved). In most cases, it's fine, but the occasional path loss problems with people in the way can be very annoying. However as boom to camera distances are smaller used to replace a short cable, as has been said, the main issue is just some mild compression. The companders in most systems upwards and including G3 Sennheisers are pretty transparent. I must admit that contrary to almost universal advice, I do swap different brands sometimes. The mismatch in the companding ratios seems to work for me. Shotgun into brand X and brand Y receiver to camera works nicely, as it produces a little expansion in the audio chain, while handheld the other way around, into the brand Y transmitter and reception on the brand X receiver producing a lightly compressed output. Always worth trying these things out before committing yourself. The plug in Sennheiser transmitter I am not fond of on a boom. It seems to interact with the metal in the boom pole, and using an AT shotgun with internal battery, and an unbalanced cable to a Sennheiser lapel mic pack worked better than the 416 into the butt plug type TX. Extending the cable and putting the butt plug into my pocket worked much better. I got odd fluttery 'pfff' noises when the plug in unit was taped to the boom, even when isolated from metal-metal contact. I guess the pole was interfering with the radiation pattern from the internal antenna?
 
Interesting that I use carbon fibre booms and have not had any problems using them with a sennheiser SKP500 / AT875r radio set-up.
 
The Rode one I have is aluminium, and I assume the black is an anodised finish? So it's conductive - the outside of the plug-on transmitter though is isolated, with the aerial inside I thought, unless it uses the the metal of the casing as the aerial? I don't know. Carbon fibre is conductive, so I wonder why Gary didn't get the problem.
 
I've used my Lectrosonix plug-on transmitter on my fish pole with my NTG-2 (under battery power) without any problems at all.
 
The reality is "most" of the films you see these days were probably recorded with a wireless boom. Using a cable has just become too difficult to deal with, with today's shooting methods. Of course cabled is better but with a quality system you should be fine. If its strictly to use as a one man band only 3ft from ur mixer I don't see the point but with proper set up and a good system you'll be OK.
 
If you have the cash, you could get the Zaxcom system - which also has an internal recorder.

The current iteration seems to have similar preamps to their Nomad recorders - so I doubt there's much of a quality loss!

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
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