Help human rights group trying to decide on field recording setup

P

pinktank

Hello All,
I know there are a million messages on recording interviews, and I'm parsing through them, but I wanted to enlist your help as we are slightly limited on time.

We are a group that is creating an archive of interviews with witnesses/relatives/victims of human rights abuse, we have a team of non-AV professionals that conduct these, and capture video as well.

The interviews are usually 1-2 hours long, and are between the interviewer and the interviewee, though we sometimes get an extra person chiming in in the middle

We would like the interviews audio to be good enough to splice into future documentaries and research projects.

Our current setup of zoom h2s facing the person contribute too much noise, and render it pretty useless for splicing.

I do not know if it's possible to get decent audio running a lav mic to the h2's mio-in, especially since it would need a Y-adapter to get two omni mics, one going in the left, and the other going in the right channel.

My suggestion was going to be a recorder such as the dr-40, h4n, or the dr-100 along with two phantom powered wired lav mics. It is not crucial for us to not have it visible in the shot, and we cannot afford a boom operator (too much travel to sometimes dangerous areas)

Our budget is a little flexible, but I wanted to keep it under $120 per mic, though ideally, they would be around the $60 mark. Vampire clips would be a plus.

ps. Is there a way to have it so that there is an extra mic recording the room for unexpected people chiming in, or in cases where are two interviewees and we want to interviewer for information purpose? I know some recorders will multitrack internal and external mics, but I also heard that causes a lot of noise. Another thing I thought that might work was to use to on-cam mic, or put another mic on camera for splicing if that emergency arises.

Thanks a lot for the suggestions!
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
Documentary work requires three things - quality sound, absolute reliability and quick set-up/break-down. As audio neophytes you also want ease of use. The biggest problem is that all of the$e thing$ have a co$t.

The Countryman EMW series lavs ($180 each) sound nice and can take abuse. I personally wouldn't trust anything less, except perhaps the Shure SM11-CN ($100).

You can use a mixer to supply phantom power and it will give you a lot more control than using just a recorder; that way you can still use the H2 as your recorder. The reason I suggest this is that supplying phantom power drains the batteries of low budget recorders (DR-100, etc.) at a ferocious rate (60 - 90 minutes) so you would need to buy additional battery packs. You can consider the Rolls MX410 ($275), however pre-amp noise is a concern. The PSC DV PROMIX 3 ($470) is a very nice mixer and the Sound Devices MixPre-D ($750) is a terrific entry level mixer.

You'll also need cables to extend the lav wires to the mixer and recorder, and cases to keep it organized and protected.

You may also want to ask advice from the people at Jeff Wexlers forum; they are all professional production sound folks and may know of more low budget options than I do - although most of them would consider under $5k as micro-budget :D:D

I'm not trying to be discouraging with the budget, but pointing out that quality and reliability - which is what you really need - are going to cost you.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
The ECM55 kit ($350 each) will supply phantom power; you'll need one for the interviewee and one for the interviewer. I would definitely suggest at least the Tascam DR-100 so you have individual volume control for each channel or a mixer if you want to use the H2.

Remember to turn off the phantom power on the recorder/mixer.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top