Wind Protection for Boom Mounted Shotgun

[Colton Davie]

I've looked over the forums and it seems that there is lots of stuff concerning documentary work with stand mounted mics and such, but I have not found a whole lot concerning boom mounted mics for narrative work. That said, my aim is narrative work.

I have an Azden SGM-1X and a boom pole. However, I am looking for some sort of wind protection. Is this sufficient? http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...ughType=search
Or do I need something else? I've got alot to learn about all these various mic accesories, so any help would be appreciated.

It is very unlikely that I will ever be using this setup out in a storm, but I have encountered situations where the wind was too much for the stock foam windscreen that came with the mic. If I had to err on the side of audio fidelity or high wind protection, I would go for fidelity. However, I do want some wind protection.

As a side note, what difference is there between a long hair and short hair softie in terms of sound quality?

Thanks for your help.

[David Tamés]

I own a Rycote Softie Windshield along with a Rycote Softie Mount and I'm very happy with the combination. While I'm not really a sound person, I find myself doing a lot of sound recording in all sorts of situations, narrative, documentary, podcasting, whatever, so I decided to put together a sound kit to go along with my camera kit. The softies are an effective all around solution and comes in several lengths and in three hole sizes depending on the mic you plan to use with it. This is a good investment you'll get a lot out of for many years to come.

You'll notice that some professional sound recordists prefer to go the route of a more elaborate Full Windshield System (a.k.a. Zeppelin) which has a better suspension system and ability to tailor for a range of microphones. For light wind sitations you can add a wind sock, and for higher winds you can add a Windjammer (a.k.a. Wookie). This kit is more expensive than the softie approach and some would say overkill for casual and/or low-budget applications. A complete windshield system provides better performance in windy situations, but again, the trade-off is it's more expensive than the softie approach.

The Rycote brand has a lot of cachet around sound folks. I've been renting their stuff for years and eventually bought the softies for myself. There are other good brands too. K-Tek has some new offerings, and Lightwave Audio, Sennheiser, and PSC have products in this category too.

[Colton Davie]

Thanks for the info. It is quite helpful.