(Part 3) Top products from r/LocationSound

I second what Qualsa said. Don't feed into cameras when you can avoid it. hopefully you can get someone to slate and log the shots down. it'll save your lives and make things SO much easier.

notice how your Zoom writes the file names. I think they are usually STE-000 or MONO-000 depending on how you record it (haven't used 4 channels yet) and then write that on the slate. I also have an h4n so the naming conventions might be a little different. for films i'd recommend it naming by the shot or take over by the date. it'll be easier, trust me.

next: don't worry about lavs. Not yet. you have enough to worry about and lavs and 50 cables are going to tie you down, OR you're going to have a hell of a time trying to figure out what frequencies are usable and not. plus you can even still get interference on frequencies that you thought were empty, but they actually weren't. So, please avoid that for now. You need to set aside non-project time to get that stuff right. Even then, it's different in every county or city.

now, Learn what your mics can and can't do. This is essential. The Zoom has great warmth, so maybe for closeups in the studio, you might get better audio using the zoom's sensitive microphones verses a shotgun or something with a long pole, but I can't know for sure without being there, so that one is up to you.

third, back to the slating, if you've never slated before, here is a good one we are using for a feature we are filming. God it has helped out tons:
Right here

if you want to make things a little easier, you can get some [Gaff tape]9http://www.amazon.com/Pro-FLGRN250-Gaffers-yards-Length/dp/B000SYYIGU) to write down things that wont change. IE director, production name, etc. that and a sharpie will save a lot of time.

But what's a slate without a log book? We've been fine with just:



Roll | Scene | Shot | Take | Audio File | Good/bad/fair
----|-----|----|----|----------|-------------
01 | 1 | 1 | 1 | STE-000 | **
01 | 1 | 1 | 2 | STE-001 | (train horn)
01 | 1 | 1 | 3 | STE-002 | (distant horn during whispering line)
01 | 1 | N/a | N/A  | STE-003 | ADR - Whispering Line
01 | 1 | 2 | 1 | STE-004 | (actor fell down)
01 | 1 | 2 | 2 | STE-005 | (might have clipped)
01 | 1 | 2 | 3 | STE-006 | ****
01 | 1 | 2 | 4 | STE-007 | Safety
01 | 1 | 3 | 1 | MONO-000 | Wide

This is how we've been slating: http://i.imgur.com/dMVsGbp.jpg

It's pretty simple and saves a ton of time when editing. If you don't have your own adaptation of logging things, this is a great time to get in the habit. If you think you can handle not logging it, at least make sure to see if you can call out your audio file name and get a loud CLAP once the camera has started rolling and before the director calls action and definitely before yall both cut. that way the editor can know what file to look at.

if you cant get it during the shot, try and ADR. If you can ADR on set in between shots or once yall wrap up, please do. it'll be so much easier to do while everything is fresh on the actors minds. Don't be afraid to get everyone quiet. sometimes you can't get in that sweet spot where you know it sounds the best, but they gotta get the shot. So pull the actors aside and get their audio if you need to. But try try try and get the audio as best that you can so you don't have to do the extra work and can move on to other things.

DEAD CAT'S for the external mics. Find one that fits your setup.

and RED HEADs for the zoom.

Those will save your life.

feel free to correct me. I am just another dude learning his craft. I told you everything to the best of my current knowledge. I'm sure that eventually I'll find better methods than what my crew is currently using someday down the road.

There are a few good tricks you can use to get realistic gunfire recordings like the example you linked to. The first thing to be sure of is that your microphone(s) are capable of handling high sound pressure levels. With your zoom H6, the XY microphones can handle 135 dB, so that should be good for distant coverage and to get stereo perspective following the actual shot. For the closeup dialog and sounds I'd suggest a hypercardioid condenser like the Audio-Technica 4053b because of its 155 dB maximum spl. Most full shotguns like your Rode don't handle high levels impulses like gunfire gracefully (it's rated at 120 dB maximum SPL). A blend of these mics should give good results, but you still want to be sure you don't have any analog overloading happening. That way you can control the way the impulse and recovery are shaped (in post and digitally) to get a natural sound in your final product.

The next thing to do is make full use of the 24-bit recording capability of the H6. If used correctly, you can get a theoretical 144 dB dynamic range, so you can record whatever either of these mics puts out. And do not use compression or limiting during recording. This is NOT what you normally do in recording field sound for video. You want to be sure that when you fire a round the tracks you are recording don't overload--at least not very much. That means if you set recording levels accordingly, your dialog and quiet sounds will barely move the meter. You will need to use a gain plug-in during editing to bring it up to normal levels. Because of this and because of the possibility of noise to be introduced elsewhere, I suggest you use a mic splitter like this which blocks phantom power from one channel to avoid damage to the mic. Then record the mic on two channels, one set for the gunshots and the other set for maybe -20 dBFS on narration and incidental sounds. Be sure you don't limiting or compression on either of the two XLR channels.

In post, you will have two clean channels and a boosted safety channel that you can control.

You should do a lot of testing to get the best sound here. If you're lucky, you can put a fast-decay digital brick wall limiter on the boosted stereo and mono tracks and get very clean, realistic results with no pumping or unnatural sounds of compressors recovering.

Hope this helps. Let me know if any questions.

Hey there! Sound engineer specializing in broadcast here!

I saw a comment recommending the Sennheiser G3 kit with a Countryman headset and I wanted to support this idea. You definitely don’t want to go low budget on audio, your video and broadcast will suffer most from bad sound than from bad quality image.

Also, I want to try and steer you away from any Behringer products. My highest recommendation is to look for a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 interface. It’s compact and portable, and your control knobs for volume and gain are on the front face of the unit. As well, it has balanced ins and outs to guarantee the cleanest audio feeding into and out of the unit. I’ll share links in a future edit, as I’m on mobile right now, but you can find the Scarlett 2i2 used from most Guitar Centers at around $80. The Sennheiser kits are also very popular and you can find them used for sale from a sound guy pretty often. Try looking at Los Angeles Craigslist as well as eBay or other sources. I know a lot of us are on a Production Sound Engineer Swap page on Facebook.

Edit: Links

Scarlett 2i2 product page
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1251655-REG/focusrite_scarlett_2i2_2nd_gen_scarlett_2i2_usb_audio.html/?ap=y&gclid=CjwKCAiA0O7fBRASEiwAYI9QAl1TciskEdEmUHOJtXpGxuGx3nWtSHen1hqOc4aMnCZwgiwSkTN8yBoCaW8QAvD_BwE&lsft=BI%3A514&smp=Y

Used Scarlett 2i2 on Guitar Center.com
https://www.guitarcenter.com/Used/Focusrite/Scarlett-2i2-USB-Audio-Interface-114759755.gc

Sennheiser G3 kit on Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Sennheiser-100-ENG-G3-G-omni-directional/dp/B002CWUKCC/ref=sr_1_3?s=musical-instruments&ie=UTF8&qid=1543266428&sr=1-3&keywords=sennheiser+g3+kit">

Sennheiser kit MUCH cheaper on Craigslist LA
https://losangeles.craigslist.org/sgv/ele/d/brand-new-sennheiser-ew112-g3/6754786267.html

Countryman headset with behind-the-ear band and Sennheiser connector
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/877941-REG/Countryman_h6ow5lsr_H6_Omnidirectional_Microphone_Headset.html



Good luck! Let us know what you decide to go with!

In my admittedly limited experience, yes you are using moleskin to mimic what undercovers do. I've found that the thinner moleskin tends to work best. This is a good bulk roll that I've found works great, and is not as thick as it says: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001ANMYRI/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I've found that moleskin with a little Joe's Sticky Stuff works really well and will stay put.

You can also buy packs in any pharmacy, usually found in the foot care section. Hope that helps!

The best (and often only) way to improve your sound on no budget is to move your existing microphone closer to the source. There's no cheap way to get good audio from mics that are 10-15 feet away from the audio source.

Can you put the snowball on the boom closer to everybody? You say you're thinking about a shotgun on a stand, so it sounds like everyone is stationary. A usb extender would let you get it closer to everyone.

A shotgun might pick up everyone equally at 10-15 feet, but it isn't going to sound much better than the Snowball. If you can set it up closer, it isn't going to be good for 5 people because it's very directional, so it'll pick up one person fine and the rest will sound wrong. The Snowball Ice is directional, but has a wider pickup than a shotgun so it might work ok.

It sounds like you're doing some kind of talk show? You could get a non-Ice Snowball and set it between everyone, kind of like Rhett and Link do with their much nicer mic (A Moue by Blue).

Here are two other options that might work, but are probably bad ideas.

You could get cheap lavs on Amazon for everyone and run them into everybody's phones, though that's prone to user error.

You could get a bunch of cheap lavs and 1/4 inch adapters and find a cheap mixer like this and run that into your computer.

I got a call from On-Stage (the mfg of my mic stand) and they gave me a FANTASTIC recommendation: these goose necks are threaded on both sides, and are flexible removing the need for a rotating ball adapter for certain mics/cameras.

I bought two 19" ones, so now my 30" boom pole will be able to reachabout 68", be flexible more than half that length, and cost me a grand total of 16$ for the solution, rather than 30 for a painters pole that i would have had to adapt, or a replace the whole boom pole for god knows how much and adapting it to the tripod mount on the stand somehow.

I've heard good things about Amazon as well. The biggest complaint I have with EBL is that they get beat up super quickly - the foil label/cover started to tear of mine after only a couple uses. So far I have noticed any jarring issues with performance.

I'd recommend getting something like this charger that can test capacity - I didn't find much difference between EBL / Eneloop out of the package. I imagine that higher end batteries will hold up better over time in terms maintaining capacity and low self discharge, but I haven't come up with any empirical data to support that yet haha.

La Crosse Technology BC700-CBP Alpha Power Battery Charger https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000RSOV50/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_0ViXBb72GYW44

A colleague of mine uses this one,
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0002ZO5WM/ref=mp_s_a_1_9?qid=1450988012&sr=8-9&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=On+stage+stand+boom
He loves it. Looks like it can fold up fairly small.
Good luck.

Get four Sennheiser G3 units, save up until you can get at least those. If you simply can't wait, you can get G2 units used on eBay or something, but there are a couple downsides of course with using an older model.

Here's the G3 systems that you would buy, just to clarify:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/618739-REG/Sennheiser_EW_112P_G3_A_EW112_p_G3_Camera_Mount.html

For your podcast stuff I would just recommend the now common Blue Yeti:

http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Microphones-Yeti-USB-Microphone/dp/B002VA464S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417117083&sr=8-1&keywords=blue+yeti

Blue is a very established microphone company that makes high end professional studio microphones, and a few years back they started making consumer grade microphones. End result are affordable mics that sound better than the competition at that price range, and are designed for the sole purpose of computer audio, hence why it has a USB cable instead of an XLR cable that would need to be plugged into a mixer or audio interface. Anyway, long story short most youtubers, podcasters, etc use that mic. For recording a table you can set the polar pattern to omni mode which picks up sound in a 360 radius.

The Behringer C2 are $60 for a pair on Amazon. Condenser mics like these will need a mixer with phantom power, an audio interface, cables, and stands. You should be able put together very functional good sounding recording setup at around $200 if you shop around and are willing to not buy into the hype of the gear ads and product bias.

As a side note, a band mate of mine put the C2s into a dummy head for a nice sounding homemade binaural recording setup.

Spend some money on a decent harness. Portabrace makes a cheap one. It will save your back. And it will make you feel like John McClane

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0010BZKFI?pc_redir=1408585832&robot_redir=1

you can buy them and since it's sounds like its created from the power go with a power ground lift not an xlr one. Here is an example of what it looks like from amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/CableWholesale-Wholesale-Grounding-Converter-30W1-32200/dp/B000I96AUM/ref=pd_sxp_grid_pt_0_0

But they are good for identifying the problem you can also try plugging it in someplace other than where you have tried I've used ground lifts before when having problems with ground noise.

I would still work on an angle to turn off the fridge. That would be my top priority. The frozen bottle trick works for a very long time and you can always swap out the bottles as needed to maintain temp. Also fill the crisper trays with bags of ice as well.

That being said a http://amzn.com/B002CWQTXG or similar pack would be more than professional enough for you. try to find it used on ebay. http://r.ebay.com/VM9dx4

Have you done a room tone check with your nt3? If the hum of the fridge is consistent enough you can usually do a little noise reduction and eliminate it fairly easily so that its not an issue at all.

Is this considered true shotgun mic? http://www.amazon.com/Sony-Monoaural-Microphone-Connection-Camcorder/dp/B001DHB6WU I have this one as well.

One (maybe two or four) of these guys has done well for me.

Omnidirectional.

I don't operate a boom hand held too often, but when I do I wear a pair of the cheap jersey black cotton gloves. Those gloves are soft and smooth against the pole and make no sound, also they don't hold heat so they are fine in warm conditions.

https://www.amazon.com/Heavy-Weight-Jersey-Gloves-12-Pairs/dp/B000FJTWXW/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1485874991&sr=8-3&keywords=black+cotton+gloves+work

Probably not in that price range.

But really, the adapters are trivial

That's correct, and one of the reasons I hate the Zoom H4n. You need a line -> mic pad, like this.

Or get a DR-40, which has line-level inputs.

Oh right. The Videomic uses an internal battery for phantom power. Having to go through a 3.5mm plug does make things a little more difficult for you, but if you have a quality connector you should be okay going through an XLR. Actually, I see Rode even makes a connector for this kind of mic (Link on Amazon). But you're right, XLRs are balanced cables, so it will be less susceptible to outside interference than say a 1/4inch TS phone cable.

Regarding the traffic noise, I haven't found many quick solutions to combat that. Usually I will try swapping mics or stuffing the windows if the DP/shot allows it. For you, I would say keep the mic away from the windows and try using its polar pattern to reject noise from that direction. The Videomic Pro is a supercardioid mic. This means it is most sensitive in the front but also has a small lobe in the rear. The area of strongest rejection is the side (actually at around 120 degrees). So if you imagine you are looking at a top view of the mic in that picture, 0 degrees is the front and 180 degrees is the back. Where that pattern dips into the center is where the mic is least sensitive. You won't notice a huge difference, but just try pointing the mic at the window and then twirling it away. You should be able to find where the noise is lowest. I know it's a lot to think about, so don't worry if you forget. It's just one more small trick you can use if you aren't already overwhelmed. Good luck!