Should I be using multiple mics to record dialogue and sound effects?

[David Peterson]

Originally Posted by Bruce Watson

Ah, the temptation to say something nasty about their school(s) and/or the state of their education is strong, but I shall resist. ;-)

ha!

Originally Posted by Bruce Watson

And there, right there, is the problem. Recording bands has an incredibly small overlap with recording dialog. These are nearly completely different tasks. Analogy: just because you know how to play clarinet doesn't mean you know enough to advise someone on how to play a piano.

So say it with us Ryan: record dialog in mono, as close as possible, to avoid recording any room tone or ambiance. Everything else, including reverb on your dialog, is done in post. Once again, everything else is done in post.

You want to know why? Read up. Here's a book.

It is a very good book. So is this one:

https://www.amazon.com/Location-Soun...1201/din02c-20

Originally Posted by Roger Gunkel

I prefer to capture the intimacy of the voice, then you can add ambience to it as required, whereas you can't remove ambience if it is recorded with the voice. Close mics give you maximum control.

Just to illustrate it from a different point of view, you could compare it with producing video. You can show a couple of minutes of a beach scene, with people throwing a beach ball, kids building sand castles, folks swimming and sunbathing etc etc. All of that can be captured just like we would with our eyes, a wide angle and a bit of panning. That is exactly what you see in most boring holiday videos. But The brain doesn't see the scene the same way, it focuses our attention on the beautiful blonde in the green bikini, or the little boy licking his ice cream, or the black cloud starting to gather overhead.. The video producer does the same as the brain, by focusing our attention on the little details that he wants us to see, using different framing etc.

Setting a sound scene uses much of the same idea, to focus the viewer and listener on the details, not just the overall scene.

A very good analogy Roger.

And I've found in general that people tend to "get" an analogy better when using something from the camera dept to compare with what we do in the sound department.

[David Peterson]

Originally Posted by Paul R Johnson

You also need an excellent person doing the booming, with headphone so they can do it properly. If you see anyone booming without headphone, you know the sound will be rubbish. So many just cannot aim properly - the crucial feature. If they missed the essential dialogue, then the director needs to know instantly - you can't fix it in post, only re-record it!

I see college and even graduate sound people with boom poles and they're lazy, holding them like a fishing rod, because both arms up is painful! You watch them randomly point the shotgun vaguely in the direction of the talent's mouth - just. With a shotgun, at a distance - you are ALWAYS fighting signal to noise - the most clean capture from the talent and picking up the least of everything else. Sometimes you just cannot do this!

Yes, most of the time the optimal angle for the boom pole is roughly ish horizontal. Not at 45 degrees!!

Originally Posted by Ryan Wray

Okay thanks. Is there any reason to record ambiance live though, as oppose to just adding in room sound in post though? I am guessing most realistic locations, have poor ambiance you don't want, or would want to cut down on, so would it be ideal not to record ambiance at all and just add it in post? Or unless you want a specific sound like a photocopy machine in the background making noise for example, but you would want to add that separately of course, not during live dialogue recording.

If a noise is off camera then 100% do NOT record during the dialogue!!! No way.

Even if it is on camera, I'd much rather not record it during the scene itself.

Originally Posted by Ryan Wray

Okay thanks, this is the way I prefer to do it too, is record background sound separately, cause then you get the best sounds you want, but some audio people seem to be very insistent to get all the sounds, on the shooting days in that scene, and to limit post work, even if it means the sounds will not be as good as a result.

Are you meaning getting separate room tone on the day? (or foley or wilds on the day???)

If not, then you've clearly got the wrong "audio people". Ignore them, and associate yourself with some professionals instead.

Originally Posted by Ryan Wray

When you say hairy sausages, do you mean wind protection?

He'd mean something like a Rode WS6

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...2855/KBID/3801

Originally Posted by Ryan Wray

Also I was thinking of just using a boom and no lavs, since I never liked the sound of lavs compared to the sound of a boom, but is that a bad idea?

In an ideal dream world then I could only use a boom and never lavs.

Coming back to reality though..... that is not happening.

You'd need a director, and DoP, and the entire film crew, be willing to make sound a priority for them.

That just doesn't happen, you'd have to be kidding yourself to believe it.

Thus lavs are necessary.

And I recommend running both a boom and lavs at once at all times.

Originally Posted by Ryan Wray

When you say your audio equipment for shooting on location never finds it's way into your studio, does your studio have different mics? Personally I like using the same mics for post as well, cause then it sounds more the same, as when you recorded on location, cause you are using the same mics, but you don't think this is as good of an idea, are you saying?

For ADR then it could be useful to use the same mics, but otherwise no.

[Richard Crowley]

There are seven basic kinds of sound recordings that are used for serious cine/video production editing. They each have specific purposes for sound editing during the production, and it is unrealistic to attempt to record more than one at a time and achieve a proper final sound editorial mix.

(1) DIALOG which is picked up during principal shooting with actors. The goal is to get the actors' speech as ISOLATED and CLEAN as possible so that extraneous noises, music, etc. don't interfere with editing.

(2) ADR or "Dialog Replacement or "Looping" where the actors are called into a sound-isolated studio and re-speak their scripted lines of dialog while watching the recorded picture. This is typically time-consuming and expensive for the obvious reasons, so every attempt is made to pick up good "clean" dialog during primary shooting.

(3) ROOM TONE is BY DEFINITION recorded in exactly the same place, within seconds immediately before or after shooting the take. Its purpose is to fill in gaps between sentences, words, phrases so that you don't have dead silence which sounds very unnatural. It is recorded with the SAME microphone in the SAME position as was used for recording the dialog. You need perhaps no more than 30 seconds of Room Tone for dialog editing purposes. It requires the director to instruct the cast and crew to "freeze" in place for 30 seconds while the Room Tone is recorded.

(4) AMBIENCE is recorded INDEPENDENTLY. Typically well apart (in time and space) from recording the production dialog. This is typically general location sounds like surf breaking on the shore or indistinct chatter in a restaurant or highway traffic, etc. etc. Its purpose is to provide a long-form (several minutes) of stable and consistent "background" to cover edits, shot angles, etc. It is typically recorded by the sound designer or editor perhaps days or weeks apart from principal action shooting.

(5) SFX (sound effects) are isolated recordings of specific things. There are libraries of literally millions of SFX clips available. When shooting many situations where sounds occur between/during phrases of dialog, the microphone is positioned for optimal pickup of the actors voices. So, typically sounds like a door opening, etc are not picked-up optimally by the dialog microphone. So we edit in the SFX into the mix at exactly the right place and at a level and position consistent with the scene in the video.

(6) FOLEY And then sometimes, it takes sounds that are synchronized with what is seen in the picture. A very common example is footsteps. And these are produced by "Foley" where someone reproduces the footsteps while watching the scene to synchronize the sounds.

(7) REVERB In many cases, because the dialog (and other sound elements) were recorded "clean", after everything is edited (for position) and located (by panning) and balanced (by audio level) you need a consistent location feel. An obvious example is a scene in a cave where we expect there to be heavy reverb and echo, etc. If you try to use "natural" reverb, you will end up with a horrible, jumbled mess when you finish editing the dialog. In some cases real "echo chambers" are used where the mix is sent into the (isolated and typically remote) room with a speaker, and then picked up at the other end of the space with a microphone which is brought back into the mix. It is more common in modern times to use digitally-generated echo/reverb.

It only takes the experience of editing sound for a production once to understand the difference (and importance and usefulness) of these kinds of audio recordings. NONE of these sounds can be properly captured by scattering microphones around the set and attempting to record them during principal shooting actors actions. Anyone recommending such methods has clearly never actually done it, and furthermore has not even thought through the consequences of attempting such a method.

[Ryan Elder]

Okay thanks, the types sound you describe are the methods I have been using before. However, when it comes to reverb, normally I find that the reverb going into the mic is enough reverb and I don't need to add any more in post. The mic seems to pick up enough to my liking sometimes even a little more in which case, I don't want anymore.

Does this mean I have been doing something wrong when getting reverb in my recordings, even if it all matches up in editing?

[Richard Crowley]

It sounds like you are doing simple productions where you don't need to create very realistic or complex sound mixes. But when you start doing more serious jobs, you will find that "wet" source stems will cause you headaches when you have to combine many different kinds of sounds together and make a convincing mix out of them.

If whatever you are doing is working for you, then you can't argue with that. But developing bad habits like that will not be very helpful for your career in the future.

[Ryan Elder]

Originally Posted by Richard Crowley

It sounds like you are doing simple productions where you don't need to create very realistic or complex sound mixes. But when you start doing more serious jobs, you will find that "wet" source stems will cause you headaches when you have to combine many different kinds of sounds together and make a convincing mix out of them.

If whatever you are doing is working for you, then you can't argue with that. But developing bad habits like that will not be very helpful for your career in the future.

Oh well in my experience so far, if I want sound effects, I will try to create reverb, that will match that of the reverb that was already recorded with the voices in production. I would just play around with it till I get a match, but is this not a good way of doing it?

[Ryan Elder]

Originally Posted by Richard Crowley

It sounds like you are doing simple productions where you don't need to create very realistic or complex sound mixes. But when you start doing more serious jobs, you will find that "wet" source stems will cause you headaches when you have to combine many different kinds of sounds together and make a convincing mix out of them.

If whatever you are doing is working for you, then you can't argue with that. But developing bad habits like that will not be very helpful for your career in the future.

Oh well in my experience so far, if I want sound effects, I will try to create reverb, that will match that of the reverb that was already recorded with the voices in production. I would just play around with it till I get a match, but is this not a good way of doing it?

I would also try to record the sound effects in the same location, or one with similar acoustics, to see if that would work as well, and a lot of times it has and audiences said they could not tell the difference, that the sound FX were recorded somewhere else, other than the voices.

Is that what you mean? Am I not doing it a good way, by recording the voices with reverb already in them? I've tried putting up sound blankets in the past to get rid of reverb while recording actors in locations, but I found that the blankets haven't really made much of a difference. So I just accepted the reverb that was already in the room, even with the blankets. Is that true that the blankets do not make a huge difference in lots of cases?

[Richard Crowley]

If you are happy with what you are doing, then just do it.

[Roger Gunkel]

After five pages in this thread and responses from some of the best in the business, you are still asking basically the same questions that you started with. As Richard said, just do what you are comfortable with.

It sounds to me that you are aiming at a highly professional polished finished product, with virtually zero starting knowledge and experience. At some point you need to just do it, alternatively shelve the project until you have been on a film makers course to get some hands on experience.

Roger

[Josh Bass]

I would say forget a filmmaker’s course; get on a/some real set(s) as a production assistant (on LEGITIMATE/funded projects) with real professional crew folks and see how all these things are done. Watch like a hawk, absorb, ask questions during downtime and lunch.

[Pete Cofrancesco]

Originally Posted by Roger Gunkel

After five pages in this thread and responses from some of the best in the business, you are still asking basically the same questions that you started with. As Richard said, just do what you are comfortable with.

It sounds to me that you are aiming at a highly professional polished finished product, with virtually zero starting knowledge and experience. At some point you need to just do it, alternatively shelve the project until you have been on a film makers course to get some hands on experience.

Roger

I wanted to say something to the effect but I couldn’t think of a polite way to phrase it.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh I sorry I didn't mean to keep repeating myself. I've been on other people's shoots before and so far everyone is doing the boom mic as close as possible and no one is even bothering with planting mics around the room. So I can do it like that then.

[Josh Bass]

Yes but were those “real” shoots? Often helping our friends with projects doesnt teach us anything because they are also doing everything wrong and simply dont know it. If you get on a legit project as PA, say a low budget indie feature that has funding/a budget and real industry pros working, you would most likely learn a ton about the way all the things youre asking about are properly done.

[Ryan Elder]

They were feature film shoots done by others I went to film school with, and I did the production audio and other things for them.

Not sure if those count as REAL shoots but they were features if that makes any difference? :). I also recorded sound for a trailer that was bigger budget.

[Richard Crowley]

Originally Posted by Ryan Wray

They were feature film shoots done by others I went to film school with, and I did the production audio and other things for them. Not sure if those count as REAL shoots but they were features if that makes any difference?

Did they use those goofy multi-microphone schemes?
Did you talk to the audio editor?
Did you hear the resulting sound track?
Did it sound "professional grade"?

I also recorded sound for a trailer that was bigger budget.

Same questions.