Indoor Use Of Shotgun Microphones

[Ben Winter]

Originally Posted by Anna Harmon

The 416 hasn't troubled me yet on interiors. Well, except once but the director wasn't complying with any of my suggestions so I just shrugged it off.

That's curious. I hate the 416 indoors. As well it should; hypercardioid should be the weapon of choice in closed spaces. I got reverb up the wazoo.

I sold my 416, bought a Rode NT3 and I've never looked back.

[Seun Osewa]

How exactly does reverb sound? I can't seem to get any reverb in my tests with the rode videomic. Can someone post an indoor audio clip with reverb?

[Jim Boda]

Originally Posted by Ty Ford

...
...In looking at their office turned set, thay have affixed about a dozen 1" thick 2'X4' Auralex panels to the ceiling to take the sting off the bounce. I was told that they also use rugs during shooting. There's some other rigging. Don't know what that's about yet.

Tricking out the room makes a big difference and a shotgun can then work pretty well. I sometimes fool myself when comparing mics in my studio. "Wow, this shotgun sounds pretty good! Oh, right, I'm listening in a RECORDING STUDIO, not a normal space. Doh!"

The top shelf shotgun mic, if you can find one, is the Schoeps CMIT...

The problem w/ 1" foam is that it only effects the upper mids and high frequencies. That's not an ideal way to treat the room. But, I don't see anyone bringing 2" fiberglass panels into rooms. They typically call for "sound blankets" which is very lacking as a broad band absorber.

Treating the ceilings, corners, and floors gets the reverb time under control and having some absorptive furniture like a couch is always a help.

Staying in the middle of the room and breaking up the parallel surfaces is a must...And the closer I can get that CMIT the better it's going to sound.

[Ty Ford]

Again -- and let there be no doubt about it -- if you have properly tricked out the room, a 416 is no problem. There are many more people in this forum who don 't have the budget or knowledge as to how to trick out a room.

To broadly state that this person or that person uses or used a 416 (or any shotgun) for interiors is very misleading.

Attached you'll see (hopefully) a shot of the ceiling where I've been shooting. They knocked down some of the ceiling bounce by putting up 1" sheets of 2'x4' Auralex. Works pretty nicely, espescially since the ceiling is a lot higher than 8 feet. This is not a fully tricked out space, but it obviously works for their needs. You can do a lot more than this, if needed. If the ceiling were lower, for example, they'd have to work a lot harder.

In answer to Jim's complaint about 1" foam. YOU DON'T COVER THE ENTIRE ROOM WITH IT...and 1" works just fine.

To Ben; An NT3 on a boom? Who's your boom op, Hercules or Popeye? The NT3 is not a boom mic. It's a studio hypercardioid. I'm not trying to be caustic. I'm trying to be humorus. :)

My concern is that someone may read that and think sticking an NT3 on a stand 3-4 feet away from the person speaking is "good audio." It isn't.

Regards,

Ty Ford

[Anna Harmon]

Ty, I get what you're saying. Unfortunately I've never had the luxury of "tricking" out a room. It's usually a get in there and get this thing done kinda thing. With that said my 416 is always with me. I'm not saying they're ideal for interiors just saying they do the job. I also make sure I'm as close as possible to the people talking. Not to say I wouldn't choose a hypercardiod for interiors if I had one or if they sprung for one. That's next on my list of goodies.

[Cole McDonald]

I keep a rolled up piece of egg crate foam about 4x6 in my kit...it was cheap at the fabric store (we have one with lots of craft stuff too), like $20. This gets dropped under actor's feet to cancel floor reflection, held up behind actors for VO work or around objects for foley. It's not acoustic foam, so I'm sure that highly analytical ears would pick up lots of stuff the foam was missing, but it was $20. I like to keep feather comforters around too to hang off stands as sound blankets...the slight curvature of them makes the surface not bounce evenly and the feathers inside do a pretty good job of screwing up sound.

Keep in mind, that if you have the budget, the pro stuff does a much better job than my solutions, but my solutions are cheap and fit in my passat.

[Seun Osewa]

@Ty: Can you really hear the difference those small slabs of foam make to the sound? Or is it just something professionals do cause they're supposed to?

[Ty Ford]

Originally Posted by Anna Harmon

Ty, I get what you're saying. Unfortunately I've never had the luxury of "tricking" out a room. It's usually a get in there and get this thing done kinda thing. With that said my 416 is always with me. I'm not saying they're ideal for interiors just saying they do the job. I also make sure I'm as close as possible to the people talking. Not to say I wouldn't choose a hypercardiod for interiors if I had one or if they sprung for one. That's next on my list of goodies.

Anna,

Good choice. I have a 416 and went without a cmc641 out of ignorance and poverty for a while. They sent me one to demo and after I picked my jaw up off the floor, I found the money and went for it. Also DO get the more expensive b5D pop filter. it's worth every penny.


Regards,

Ty

[Ty Ford]

Originally Posted by Cole McDonald

I keep a rolled up piece of egg crate foam about 4x6 in my kit...it was cheap at the fabric store (we have one with lots of craft stuff too), like $20. This gets dropped under actor's feet to cancel floor reflection, held up behind actors for VO work or around objects for foley. It's not acoustic foam, so I'm sure that highly analytical ears would pick up lots of stuff the foam was missing, but it was $20. I like to keep feather comforters around too to hang off stands as sound blankets...the slight curvature of them makes the surface not bounce evenly and the feathers inside do a pretty good job of screwing up sound.

Keep in mind, that if you have the budget, the pro stuff does a much better job than my solutions, but my solutions are cheap and fit in my passat.

I'm giving myself moving blankets as an Xmas present this year. :)

If I get slack time, I may punch some grommets in them so I can hang them better.

Regards,

Ty Ford

[Ty Ford]

Originally Posted by Seun Osewa

@Ty: Can you really hear the difference those small slabs of foam make to the sound? Or is it just something professionals do cause they're supposed to?

Hello Seun,

Good question. Yes, they help. Reducing reverberant sound and noise is a thankless task that only you may be able to hear.

As with microphone placement, it's a game of inches, sometimes less. Move the mic an inch or two this way and "BING", your ears say, "Yes!"
Only you know what it sounded like just before you moved the mic.

You need really good headphones for that. I like Sony MDR7506, of course, but have moved up to the new Audio Technica ATH-M50. Very impressive.

Add just enough sound absorption to the right areas and the room gets nicer sounding. Louder speaking can push you back over that line again because the louder voices have more energy and will excite the room space more.

Putting something somewhere isn't as effective as putting something in the right place. Read up on acoustics and begin listening to more spaces as you treat them. You'll hear it. That's usually compromised by where they will let you put it because of camera angles.

Regards,

Ty Ford

[Jim Boda]

Originally Posted by Ty Ford

...In answer to Jim's complaint about 1" foam. YOU DON'T COVER THE ENTIRE ROOM WITH IT...and 1" works just fine...

My specific complaint w/ using any thin absorption material (especially 1" foam) is that it won't effect the problem frequencies that mud up the room. You can knock down a flutter echo...but don't expect miracles. That material doesn't have the ability to change a room mode where it counts.

I definitely didn't recommend covering an entire room w/ that or any material. I just felt it is important to point out that you may hear a difference with the thin material...But, it's really not effecting the reflections that mud up the tonal quality of the sound. The ceiling to floor flutter echo can be easily delt w/ carpet on the floor.

If you are going to take time to mount an acoustic treatment on the ceiling, make sure it will do the job at the lower mids... A 1" fiberglass panel with an airspace or vertical baffles for a high ceiling invironment.

And please don't use foam around hot lights. It's a serious smoke & fire hazard.

[Ben Winter]

Originally Posted by Ty Ford

To Ben; An NT3 on a boom? Who's your boom op, Hercules or Popeye? The NT3 is not a boom mic. It's a studio hypercardioid. I'm not trying to be caustic. I'm trying to be humorus. :)

My concern is that someone may read that and think sticking an NT3 on a stand 3-4 feet away from the person speaking is "good audio." It isn't.

In smallbudget speak, the NT3 is a fantastic boom mic. But that's also because it's a great VO mic, and a great studio mic. For the recording professional it obviously won't do, you guys have as many mics as I have pencils.

Not sure what "good audio" is anymore, but for a while I thought it meant "audio that sounds good." :) Watch "I'm With Cupid" or "The Dorm" on my website, all done with an NT3 on a boom...you might be surprised.

[Wayne Brissette]

Originally Posted by Ben Winter

For the recording professional it obviously won't do, you guys have as many mics as I have pencils.

There is a reason for this. Simply put, a single microphone doesn't work in every situation. That's what Ty and others have been trying to point out in this thread. The key is to learn your microphone. Once you do that, you can decide when that mic is the wrong mic for the job. There is no magic to it, you simply have to try them out and learn from your mistakes, or take the advice of seasoned mixers who have been there and done it already.

Ty's point was not that the NT3 wouldn't work, but it's a very heavy microphone and booming with it means you better have strong arms. Recently I helped a mixer on a TV project where he had a Sennheiser 816 long shotgun. The 816 is a beast! We had several wide scenes where I had to boom using it, and let me tell you it was no easy chore because it is so heavy, but it was the only way to get decent audio from the boom.

Wayne

[Seun Osewa]

Good question. Yes, they help. Reducing reverberant sound and noise is a thankless task that only you may be able to hear.

But ... some would say that a noise that people can't hear is not noise.

[Ty Ford]

With all due respect, that's a slackard's response.

If you can't hear it then it's not a problem for you. If I can, or think I can do it better some other way. I have to try it and see.

Regards,

Ty Ford