Did You Hear That?

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	Lavalier mics, also called ‘lapel mics’ are the small mics seen on newscasters shirt fronts, and are perhaps the most common of on-camera interview mics. These mics range in size from slightly larger than the head of a pin to as big around as a twenty five cent piece.> Lavaliers, or "lavs" as most pro’s call them, may be either condenser or dynamic, and may be either omnidirectional or unidirectional. The Audio Technica AT 831 is an excellent example of the unidirectional mic, and is used in most of our video and live recording work. Often times, lavs will have a fairly long cable from the mic to a body/belt pack that holds transformers and electronics for the mic, as well as a battery housing, which the mic cable plugs into. Lavs come in a variety of colors as well. Black or crème are the most common colors, and windscreens may be purchased for these at most pro audio shops in a variety of colors. Lav placement is always a point of contention with various users of them. A good rule of thumb is to place the fist with extended thumb beneath the chin of the person to be mic’d and wherever the bottom of the fist lies, is where the lav should go. This is not a hard-fast rule of the business, but one that is comfortable and usually fail-safe. These tiny mics may also be hidden in a groom’s boutonnière, in a bouquet of flowers, or even in the hollowed out top of a pen in a corporate executive’s pocket. Once, I was called on to record a group of opera singers. The singers could not have any microphones visible on stage, as that would go against the rules of opera. So, we ended up placing the small Sony mics inside of the bodies of nice, executive-type pens, with the insides of the pens removed. Small holes for the cable to body pack were punched in the suit pocket of each singer, and the live video shoot went flawlessly with the audience being none the wiser that the singers each had a microphone in their pocket! Lav’s also are very common with wireless body packs, allowing the interviewee or other talent to move about as much as necessary. Many home improvement productions for instance, use a set of wireless lav’s to mic their talent. These are good for backups even when using shotgun mics or other mic types in a live shooting environment. Small, adaptive, and usable in nearly situation, a good set of lavs is practically indispensable for the videographer.[an error occurred while processing this directive] Stick mics are the type of mic typically seen in the hands of field journalists, often with a station ID cage on the lower portion of the mic. Great for situations where a mic being in the shot isn’t an issue, these are life savers, and often the least expensive of good alternatives. Stick mics are typically dynamic mics, yet there are several condenser stick mics available too. These mics look great in the hands of an interviewer on the street, in a field situation where bypassers are being stopped and placing a lav is simply out of the question due to time, opportunity, or simplicity. Stick mics are also nearly the only type of mic found on a rock stage, with exceptions being made for performers that use headset mics. Wireless transmitters may be attached to nearly every type of stick mic available, making these mic’s even more usable in certain situations and shooting opportunities. Shure SM 58’s, AKG 330BT’s, Audio Technica AT### are all fairly common stick mic’s. Boundary mics are often part of a permanent installation, and are rarely part of the production videographer’s bag of tricks. These mics are usually affixed to a surface, where the surface becomes a part of the sound-generating field. Sometimes podiums or choir lofts contain boundary mics, as do many court houses, etc. However, they are excellent for recording the sound of tap shoes, dancers feet, or working in rooms with medium to extreme ambience and the room sound is the desired sound. Boundary mics are not good for point-source recording. There are several types of boundary mics, some working on pressure, such as the PZM or Pressure Zone Microphone, and others that are standard dynamic or condenser style mics, that are strategically engineered so that the mic element is positioned to pick up sound from a surface, rather than a direct pick up of sound. Often times, choirs and large orchestras are mic’d for television broadcast by using boundary mics mounted to a sheet of clear Plexiglas, allowing the camera or audience to see through the transparent plastic, or have a mic in a space where anything not transparent would mar the appearance of the room. Boundary mics are often used in dance productions where the sound of feet or shoes must be heard, or where body mics aren’t a possibility. These mics have limited use in a live environment, but are often very valuable in a recording or video environment. As mentioned before, the mic on a camera is all but useless for most video or recording environments. Using a hardwired or wireless mic in proximity to the subject is always preferable. The closer a mic is to the sound source, the better the sound source will be recorded. For this reason, a boom or body mic is nearly always the first preference in a live shooting situation. If you are planning to use a wireless setup, be sure of 3 things at the outset: That the system is free and clear of any frequency interference from any outside source. When using a wireless, it’s incumbent upon the user to be sure that they are not interfering with someone else’ television, radio, computer, or other equipment. That the wireless system has enough power to transmit/receive over the distances required. Most UHF systems are good for at least a half mile, far enough for nearly any video instance. Proper mic placement on the talent. Without this seemingly insignificant step, every other aspect of audio preparation is essentially for naught. While not a rule, try to use a diversity UHF rig with matched antenna. This ‘usually’ will assure good, clean audio. But not always. VHF systems, diversity or not, are usually not good for any but the most close-in work, less than 15 feet or so, and even higher bandwidth VHF systems in the 125-200 mhz range still are often interfered with by radio waves bouncing around. Whether using a boom with a wireless rig or a lavalier with a wireless rig, a misplaced mic, or mis pointed mic, may be worse than using a camera mic. For instance, placing a mic behind a tie, or beneath a collar will rarely work. Wear headphones, and monitor the mic during the shoot. Better still, carry a small production mixer such as the small Mackie, M-Audio, or Samson. These are all battery powered. Mix mics on the fly with the mixer, monitoring all audio going into the master camera audio feed. Most of these mixers will allow audio to be fed simultaneously to multiple sources as well. Having an assistant monitor audio is a good thing as well. Monitoring through headphones is critical, and having good, isolated headphones even moreso. If the shoot allows for it, carry a hardware compressor for the master outputs of the audio. Patched in between the mixer and the camera, across a bus so that headphones are monitoring the post-compressor sound, is invaluable. On a recent shoot in Monterrey, Mexico, I used my laptop, an Echo Mona, and headphones to monitor audio on the input of the DAW that I was recording the multi-tracks with. WAVES C1 software compressors were inserted to the audio at the time of recording, and used throughout the live mix process, and used to create the master audio track for the final video feed. Using 4 inputs from the mixer to the Mona, the remaining 2 outputs were used to feed audio for sync reference to a 2 of the 5 cameras. To add more mess to the mix, the master camera was roving, as was one other cam back stage, so wireless transmitters were used on the 2 outputs from the Mona to 2 of the cameras so that there was a clean audio feed at all times to the camera to aid in sync for post. It actually took less time to sync up the 5 captures of video than turning on, loading up, and testing 5 tape machines would have, had this been done in a non-linear environment. Source: © 2003 Sundance Media Group Prev 1 2 3 4 Next