Do lavs work at all outside in a city, or not really?

[Ryan Elder]

Oh yes, I know you wouldn't record room tone, while the lav was on a person. But wouldn't you to take the mic and record the room tone with it, off the person and static, so you have room tone for the scene though, for editing and mixing later?

If you are going to use the lavs in post, then you will have to record the room tone with the lav as well to match, since room tone recorded with a lav, sounds different than room tone recorded with a directional boom mic, doesn't it?

[Brian Drysdale]

Usually they use a stereo mic for room tone.

[Greg Miller]

Originally Posted by Ryan Elder

it was said before on here,

This is the hallmark of any of Ryan's threads.

Let the potential participant beware!

[Ryan Elder]

But if you use a different mic for the room tone, than the mic that was used for recording the voices, then the room tone will be picked up with a different pick up pattern than the mics used for dialog. Wouldn't that change the sound of the room tone? Plus, why a stereo mic, as oppose to mono, like the dialog was recorded in?

[Brian Drysdale]

You use a stereo mic because the film is in stereo, it creates the sound space where you can place the mono sound from the other mics using the pan pots during the audio mix.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay, thanks. But just so I understand, in a stereo mic, what are the pick up patterns of each mic in it?

Is this the pick up pattern?

https://www.google.ca/search?q=stere...yFbpDbslUUCLM:

Because if that's the pick up pattern, it is different than the pick up pattern of a shotgun mic for booming, and the room tone will sound different, if the pick up pattern doesn't match. So wouldn't you hear the difference in room tone in the dialog editing, if the room tone track does not much the room tone in the dialogue tracks?

[Brian Drysdale]

They usually use a Mid/Side set up.

No, if you haven't noticed any difference with room tone in any films it's not an issue.

Everything else is usually recorded mono, so that it can be placed anywhere in the stereo image, with the dialogue in the middle.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay, but what do you mean by mid/side in this context?

Well I've never recorded room tone with a mic with a different pic up pattern before, because I always wanted the room tone to match, So I would record room tone with the same boom mic, used for booming on my projects, and I would just put that mono room tone track on all the channels on the mix, in post.

[Josh Bass]

Ryan, come on now. Googling “mid side recording” would have taken less time than waiting for a response here and literally takes the exact same amount of time and effort on your part. Ditto how and why to use it in a film mix.

[Greg Miller]

But Ryan loves to waste time here. He has a bunch of friends to shoot the breeze endlessly.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay thanks, yes, I googled it just after, I asked, sorry.

Well it seems when I look it up and read about it, the stereo mic is acting as a mid/side recording then?

When it comes to recording room tone with a stereo mic, you are saying that if I do that, and then edit in the dialogue taken from a mic with a different pick up pattern, that the room tone is going to match, even though the pick up pattern on both recordings is different?

[Paul R Johnson]

Ryan - you've missed the entire point of the room tone thing. Because your personal lav mics are close to their mouth, they won't record the sound of ambient noises in the space - the gain will be set for close up sensitivity so the aircon noise, the passing cars etc will be below the noise floor on a radio system, for the majority of the time. Brian's mention of a stereo mic - and note, a FIXED one gives you an alternative to silence - that's all. If you DON'T use M/S then there's always the danger of poor mono compatibility, or the dreaded hole in the middle. With M/S, you always have frontal pickup, and then the width if you want it - tweaked in the edit to taste.

There is nothing to match - the wavs will pick up voice when they speak and then nothing when they are silent. That sounds odd, so the continuous room track has the vox on the top. Clearly, you've never spent any time mixing sound. It's subtle and tricky to balance. It needs proper studio monitors and decent acoustics to let the voice tracks sit properly.

I think you've heard the words for these things but never tried to do balancing at all.

You CANNOT record room tone with your boom - because it changes as the boom moves and that is destructive. As you wave a shotgun around, you can hear everything change - that's not suitable for concealment or creating false space - it needs to be consistent. Hence why I think you've got the wrong end of the stick. Of course, so much you hear in the movies was never real in the first place.

The job is to give the editor stuff they can use (or not) Something is always better than nothing. Creating five minutes of room nothingness from the random 30 seconds accidentally recorded is always a challenge.

[Brian Drysdale]

Perhaps Ryan would be better spending his money on a good film sound recording course intended for would be professional sound people, rather than spending it on making a feature film. If not that, at least on some of the books on the subject.

[Ryan Elder]

Originally Posted by Paul R Johnson

Ryan - you've missed the entire point of the room tone thing. Because your personal lav mics are close to their mouth, they won't record the sound of ambient noises in the space - the gain will be set for close up sensitivity so the aircon noise, the passing cars etc will be below the noise floor on a radio system, for the majority of the time. Brian's mention of a stereo mic - and note, a FIXED one gives you an alternative to silence - that's all. If you DON'T use M/S then there's always the danger of poor mono compatibility, or the dreaded hole in the middle. With M/S, you always have frontal pickup, and then the width if you want it - tweaked in the edit to taste.

There is nothing to match - the wavs will pick up voice when they speak and then nothing when they are silent. That sounds odd, so the continuous room track has the vox on the top. Clearly, you've never spent any time mixing sound. It's subtle and tricky to balance. It needs proper studio monitors and decent acoustics to let the voice tracks sit properly.

I think you've heard the words for these things but never tried to do balancing at all.

You CANNOT record room tone with your boom - because it changes as the boom moves and that is destructive. As you wave a shotgun around, you can hear everything change - that's not suitable for concealment or creating false space - it needs to be consistent. Hence why I think you've got the wrong end of the stick. Of course, so much you hear in the movies was never real in the first place.

The job is to give the editor stuff they can use (or not) Something is always better than nothing. Creating five minutes of room nothingness from the random 30 seconds accidentally recorded is always a challenge.

Oh okay thanks. That makes sense with the direction of the boom mic. When you say the dreaded hole in the middle, what do you mean by 'hole'? When you say mono compatibility, what do you mean in that case?

[Brian Drysdale]

I think this was covered in one of your other threads,