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Suggestions for a microphone.
- Thread starter grandpaw
- Start date
What kind of mic? Lavalier? Shotgun? Handheld?
Ii guess a shotgun. I want one for on top of my camera so when I record I can eliminate the wind noise and the sound of the auto focus. I don't know anything about microphones so give me some suggestions for models and brands to check out and what to look for in a mic.
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Nikon makes both a lav and a shotgun. But like anything else Nikon offers as an accessory, they're way overpriced. I'd check out what Shure and Rode have to offer first.
To get rid of the AF noise, you're going to have to remove the mic from the camera.
Personally, I use a Sony ECM-CS3 plugged into a SONY 1CD-UX522F (now out-of-production) and record the audio separately. I then marry the audio & video up in post. However, this mic does not offer any sort of foam or dead cat cover, so I had to make my own.
To get rid of the AF noise, you're going to have to remove the mic from the camera.
Personally, I use a Sony ECM-CS3 plugged into a SONY 1CD-UX522F (now out-of-production) and record the audio separately. I then marry the audio & video up in post. However, this mic does not offer any sort of foam or dead cat cover, so I had to make my own.
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No Shotgun mics. SuperCardiod are not effective unless you have a boom operator.
Micing from a distance just does not work in nonaccoustically controlled space. The answer to getting good sound is making the sound source the most direct and dominate one. Wind, even still air has noise, high gain to capture the very weak desired audio, is hard enough but gets even worse is there are any reflective surfaces. All the sound waves spread out and bounce off everything and recombine at the distant mic and each version has a different time delay and and different audio spectrum since every surface absorbs some frequencies more than others, so you end up unintelligible sound ever with a $10,000 mic. Ever record with a little omni directional built in mic with a 70s or 80s cassette recorder, say at a party. Everyone complains on playback how tinny or how echoey it is the sound is? That is not the "cheap mic or lousy recorder" responsive but it the actual sound waves impinging on the microphone diaphragm. But we don't here it very bad at all with listening to the original waves hitting the eardrums. We do not heear the echo or reverberation that is filling the room because the brain works overtime to judge whether each wave hitting the eardrum is the first or a reverb reflect sound and just makes us not perceive the millions of reverberation waves filling the room. The tinny sounding recorder is actually capturing just as much wave form data but with minor distortion of phase shifts the brain thinks that some of of the reflections are not direct artifacts but new sounds and lets them pass to our consciousness.
How get great sound.....simple, get close with the mic, on their face or just to the side or have a boom operator holding a shotgun mic just out of view of the camera overhead. If you ever say the old Tonight Show, during breaks a wide angle view was transmitted to the whole stage. The boom operator kept the mic about 1 foot over the talents head. A shotgun mic is one that is highly directional and is used to suppress audience and other sounds. Laymen think the shot gun mic means a long distance mic.
If you are doing lots of video, buy a cheap wireless mic and receiver. A cheap $0.50 electret condensor mic element is used in the camera and a low cost(under $300) mics. The element is just a little larger than the same type in your cell phone, and $5 mics and many $300 mics. Electret element have very flat frequency response which is good but the diaphram is small so fewer soundwaves hit it so the detected sound is weaker. They have small amplifiers inside the mic that is integrated with the element. Low signal just means average voice level will be closer to that of the in normal amplifier noise. Get the cheap mic within 6 inches of the talent, buried in their hair or on their jacket collar and that $5 might will outperform the $10,000 mic.
One added reason for getting the mic on the speaker it that it stay near his mouth so he can turn away and not drop into the noise.
The 3rd reason that matters a lot for close or mid distance shot, sound and image sync problems. Light is fast....we all know from 8th science but sound is slow. Very slow, and is delayed direct proportionally to the distance the wave traveled. A rule of thumb, delays of 10 milliseconds or less does not get notices much by viewers but by 30 ms delay and it is confusing and seem irritating, less intelligible even with identical sound quality. Over 30 ms and some people will be bothered enough to stop watching lips that clearly move before the sound. Plus the brain filter sounds that seem to be artifacts of the original sound, will suddenly sound noisy and echoy because it can't sync the new sounds with the visuals. So the fix? Easy, ditch the camera mounted mic and use the mic on the person. The rule of thumb, a standard altitude and temperature, sound waves are delayed about millisecond per foot. Back 10 feet and you run into problems with a camera mounted mic. If sound sources are from different distances in the scene mic each person but use a multitract digital recorder, a 4-8 channel pocket recorder has performance that was unheard of back when I started recording professionally. That multitrack recording can then be mixed to the correct levels as needed for the scene. Micing with one mic with different distances means you can't slip the timing of the audio track i post without a major hassle. Every case where you can avoid problems in mixing by shooting it right in the first place makes your life much easier and your video seem much more professional.
People who sitting at a table talking to another person, ,you can use a bi-directional mic called a figure-8 pattern mic. Set a central mic in the flower vase or hidden somewhere equal distance from the speakers and adjust placement when listening with headphone from the camera to get equal level. Don't put a mic on a short stand on a wooden or hard reflective surface.
A pad under a table cloth works great to suppress near reflections. If you need hard surface sound, Radio Shack used to make a low cost PZM mic, designed to suppress reflections using a technique called Pressure Zone Mic, a copy of a much more expensive PZM mic from Crown. Finding one used is a good thing to have in your audio bag. There are other knockoffs but I have not looked in 15 years, and I made my own. Very good for micing a conference around a table, minimum echo. I even used my Crown versions to record piano by taping the flat mic to the inner lid of a grand piano for a major artist doing his biggest album, a well respected household name.
If you have any questions about recording sound, let me know.
Micing from a distance just does not work in nonaccoustically controlled space. The answer to getting good sound is making the sound source the most direct and dominate one. Wind, even still air has noise, high gain to capture the very weak desired audio, is hard enough but gets even worse is there are any reflective surfaces. All the sound waves spread out and bounce off everything and recombine at the distant mic and each version has a different time delay and and different audio spectrum since every surface absorbs some frequencies more than others, so you end up unintelligible sound ever with a $10,000 mic. Ever record with a little omni directional built in mic with a 70s or 80s cassette recorder, say at a party. Everyone complains on playback how tinny or how echoey it is the sound is? That is not the "cheap mic or lousy recorder" responsive but it the actual sound waves impinging on the microphone diaphragm. But we don't here it very bad at all with listening to the original waves hitting the eardrums. We do not heear the echo or reverberation that is filling the room because the brain works overtime to judge whether each wave hitting the eardrum is the first or a reverb reflect sound and just makes us not perceive the millions of reverberation waves filling the room. The tinny sounding recorder is actually capturing just as much wave form data but with minor distortion of phase shifts the brain thinks that some of of the reflections are not direct artifacts but new sounds and lets them pass to our consciousness.
How get great sound.....simple, get close with the mic, on their face or just to the side or have a boom operator holding a shotgun mic just out of view of the camera overhead. If you ever say the old Tonight Show, during breaks a wide angle view was transmitted to the whole stage. The boom operator kept the mic about 1 foot over the talents head. A shotgun mic is one that is highly directional and is used to suppress audience and other sounds. Laymen think the shot gun mic means a long distance mic.
If you are doing lots of video, buy a cheap wireless mic and receiver. A cheap $0.50 electret condensor mic element is used in the camera and a low cost(under $300) mics. The element is just a little larger than the same type in your cell phone, and $5 mics and many $300 mics. Electret element have very flat frequency response which is good but the diaphram is small so fewer soundwaves hit it so the detected sound is weaker. They have small amplifiers inside the mic that is integrated with the element. Low signal just means average voice level will be closer to that of the in normal amplifier noise. Get the cheap mic within 6 inches of the talent, buried in their hair or on their jacket collar and that $5 might will outperform the $10,000 mic.
One added reason for getting the mic on the speaker it that it stay near his mouth so he can turn away and not drop into the noise.
The 3rd reason that matters a lot for close or mid distance shot, sound and image sync problems. Light is fast....we all know from 8th science but sound is slow. Very slow, and is delayed direct proportionally to the distance the wave traveled. A rule of thumb, delays of 10 milliseconds or less does not get notices much by viewers but by 30 ms delay and it is confusing and seem irritating, less intelligible even with identical sound quality. Over 30 ms and some people will be bothered enough to stop watching lips that clearly move before the sound. Plus the brain filter sounds that seem to be artifacts of the original sound, will suddenly sound noisy and echoy because it can't sync the new sounds with the visuals. So the fix? Easy, ditch the camera mounted mic and use the mic on the person. The rule of thumb, a standard altitude and temperature, sound waves are delayed about millisecond per foot. Back 10 feet and you run into problems with a camera mounted mic. If sound sources are from different distances in the scene mic each person but use a multitract digital recorder, a 4-8 channel pocket recorder has performance that was unheard of back when I started recording professionally. That multitrack recording can then be mixed to the correct levels as needed for the scene. Micing with one mic with different distances means you can't slip the timing of the audio track i post without a major hassle. Every case where you can avoid problems in mixing by shooting it right in the first place makes your life much easier and your video seem much more professional.
People who sitting at a table talking to another person, ,you can use a bi-directional mic called a figure-8 pattern mic. Set a central mic in the flower vase or hidden somewhere equal distance from the speakers and adjust placement when listening with headphone from the camera to get equal level. Don't put a mic on a short stand on a wooden or hard reflective surface.
A pad under a table cloth works great to suppress near reflections. If you need hard surface sound, Radio Shack used to make a low cost PZM mic, designed to suppress reflections using a technique called Pressure Zone Mic, a copy of a much more expensive PZM mic from Crown. Finding one used is a good thing to have in your audio bag. There are other knockoffs but I have not looked in 15 years, and I made my own. Very good for micing a conference around a table, minimum echo. I even used my Crown versions to record piano by taping the flat mic to the inner lid of a grand piano for a major artist doing his biggest album, a well respected household name.
If you have any questions about recording sound, let me know.