Need some ideas for recording audio in candid situations (Mics etc)

[gibbo]

Hi guys,

We're going to be doing a project where we need to record audio on a second person candidly but as clearly as possible. Think similar situations to those prank videos you see on youtube. (It's nothing dodgy or illegal, we will have release forms for them to sign straight away, we just want authentic real performances first).

I'm hoping someone can recommend some lav mics that would be up to the task, or other small mics/systems, baring in mind they will need to be concealed, or any other creative ideas to get this done.

Thanks!

Edit: At the moment I have tried a few different Lav mics: Aspen Mics HQ-S, Rode Lavalier (not smart lav), Ebay $1 Lav mic, Lav mic that comes with the Olin ovr100 voice recorder, but these don't pick up enough of the 2nd person.

 

[Alcove Audio]

Add a few more details, please. What's your budget? What are you plugging the lavs into? A transmitter? A mixer? A recorder?

Oh, what about the placement of the lavs? Where you put them has a great deal of influence on what they pick up. For "undercover" interviews putting a lav in the bill of a baseball style cap works great; it's closer to the person being interviewed, and if there are several people you choose which one you want to pick up more of by facing them/getting closer.


Here's your lav list:

Sanken COS-11D - $470

CountryMan B6 - $325

Tram TR-50 - $315

These are the professional workhorses. They're very small, come in many tail configurations and, as the Timex commercial used to say, "They take a lickin', and keep on tickin'."

OscarSoundTech has some nice "budget" lavs with a reputation of a solid bang for the buck. (Disclosure - I haven't had the chance to use them, yet.) Around $100 to $200 depending upon model and tail configuration.

 

[gibbo]

Add a few more details, please. What's your budget? What are you plugging the lavs into? A transmitter? A mixer? A recorder?

Thanks for the reply Alcove!

Sorry about that, budget is low as low as possible, around $50 (don't shake your head yet!), my reasoning is that the more expensive Lav mics get, the better than cancel out surrounding noise, but we want the opposite, we want more noise, so I figure that what we want would be cheaper. (OK, you can shake your head now if I'm totally off with my reasoning.) But I mean if there's something that works really well that's more expensive, I'll look at that.

Lavs will be plugged into something pocket sized, some, if not most of the project will be in controlled envrionments with scripts etc, there we can use propper audio, but for these "candid" situations we need something pocket sized. Iphone, ipod, zoom h1, or some other pocket sized recorder.

Oh, what about the placement of the lavs? Where you put them has a great deal of influence on what they pick up. For "undercover" interviews putting a lav in the bill of a baseball style cap works great; it's closer to the person being interviewed, and if there are several people you choose which one you want to pick up more of by facing them/getting closer.

I mean, it doesn't have to be lav mics, there might be a better solution as Lav mics are made not to pick up a lot of ambience right? I was going to even test an iphone or other recorder in a shirt pocket.

I will definitely try a lav under the brim of a hat pointed straight at them, thanks for that tip, although a bit worried they might see the capsule/cable under the brim. Will there be a big difference pointing the lav at someone from a hat, as opposed to just having it taped to my chest and point up towards me?

Just realised something. If I'm Pointing it straight at them I want more rejection, right? Say, a bidirectional or hypercardioid?

Here's your lav list:

Sanken COS-11D - $470

CountryMan B6 - $325

Tram TR-50 - $315

These are the professional workhorses. They're very small, come in many tail configurations and, as the Timex commercial used to say, "They take a lickin', and keep on tickin'."

OscarSoundTech has some nice "budget" lavs with a reputation of a solid bang for the buck. (Disclosure - I haven't had the chance to use them, yet.) Around $100 to $200 depending upon model and tail configuration.

Thanks for that. Are any of those known to be more 'sensitive' than normal? (read: more surrounding noise)

 

[Sweetie]

my reasoning is that the more expensive Lav mics get, the better than cancel out surrounding noise

You'll find it's more the opposite. Lavs are omnidirectional. That means they'll record from all directions. The cheaper lavs (particularly the $1 you mentioned) won't capture the low end and possibly even the high end as well as a better microphone like a COS-11. For you, there will be a point of diminishing returns.

I mean, it doesn't have to be lav mics, there might be a better solution as Lav mics are made not to pick up a lot of ambience right?

This will mostly depend on your signal to noise ratios. All microphones will pick up ambiance.

Just realised something. If I'm Pointing it straight at them I want more rejection, right? Say, a bidirectional or hypercardioid?

This will depend on what you want to achieve. If you only want to capture their voice, you'll likely want to reject as much of everything else as possible.

 

[gibbo]

You'll find it's more the opposite. Lavs are omnidirectional. That means they'll record from all directions. The cheaper lavs (particularly the $1 you mentioned) won't capture the low end and possibly even the high end as well as a better microphone like a COS-11. For you, there will be a point of diminishing returns.

Oh crap. Well is there a way to tell just from specifications online which might be better than others for my purpose?

This will mostly depend on your signal to noise ratios. All microphones will pick up ambiance.

I'll research more on signal to noise ratios. Thanks!

This will depend on what you want to achieve. If you only want to capture their voice, you'll likely want to reject as much of everything else as possible.

Ideally, more voice less ambient sounds, that way we can add the other sounds in post. The shots will be one long shot anyway, or if we need to cut we don't mind it to be a bit "harsh", it's documentary style so smooth audio across cuts isn't something we are really concerned about for these particular sequences.

I mean worst case scenario is we subtitle those parts but we really want to get decent audio.

 

[Sweetie]

is there a way to tell just from specifications online which might be better than others for my purpose?

Sure. Look up every microphone and check out their polarity pattern within each frequency range and use that information to determine what you're recording to see if it'll accomplish your needs. The hard thing. Cheap microphones often don't have that information available, so you'll just have to resort to buying a bunch of them and testing them out. You'll likely find out that none of them will achieve what you're after so it may be wasted money.

The biggest problem that I see you're going to have is how stealth you need versus your budget, added on top of that, your lack of experience and understanding of sound. If you have a budget of $50, you're unlikely to get access to any of the tools you require.

I'd look at a combination of plant mics, wireless lav mics on controlled talent in combination with the right location choice. Even then you're probably going to be unhappy with what you capture.

If I were you, I'd find an audio guy in your area, work out what you are after (quality and content wise), talk to them about your budget is and go from there. There's a lot of audio guys in your area that can do it, though, none that will be able to achieve a decent result without a budget well in excess of $50.

 

[Alcove Audio]

Thanks for the reply Alcove!

Sorry about that, budget is low as low as possible, around $50 (don't shake your head yet!),

my reasoning is that the more expensive Lav mics get, the better than cancel out surrounding noise, but we want the opposite,

No, you want LESS ambient sound

Ideally, more voice less ambient sounds,

That's a little better.......

we want... cheaper. (OK, you can shake your head now if I'm totally off with my reasoning.) But I mean if there's something that works really well that's more expensive, I'll look at that.

I will definitely try a lav under the brim of a hat pointed straight at them, thanks for that tip, although a bit worried they might see the capsule/cable under the brim. Will there be a big difference pointing the lav at someone from a hat, as opposed to just having it taped to my chest and point up towards me?.

When you boom, you boom from above. Same principle. Using an omni lav like the B6 pin-mic I doubt that, unless you did a really crappy concealment job, anyone would notice a black mic under the brim of a black baseball cap. And there are other colors available.

Hey, try it with what you have (Rode & recorder?); you may be surprised.


Look, capturing even decent quality sound out in the field is a tough gig. Doing it undercover/circumspectly is even harder. Trying to do it on a budget increases the difficulty exponentially. I don't really know what to tell you other than:

 

[gibbo]

http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view6/3335326/lurch-head-shake-o.gif[/IG]

No, you want LESS ambient sound

That's a little better.......

[IMG]http://www.reactiongifs.us/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/shaking_head_breaking_bad.gif[/IG]

When you boom, you boom from above. Same principle. Using an omni lav like the B6 pin-mic I doubt that, unless you did a really crappy concealment job, anyone would notice a black mic under the brim of a black baseball cap. And there are other colors available.

Hey, try it with what you have (Rode & recorder?); you may be surprised.

Look, capturing even decent quality sound out in the field is a tough gig. Doing it undercover/circumspectly is even harder. Trying to do it on a budget increases the difficulty exponentially. I don't really know what to tell you other than:

[IMG]http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/files/2011/08/good-luck.jpg

Thanks Alcove, you've pretty much answered my main concern about the cheap vs. more expensive mics.

We are going to test test test. What I think I'm going to do is mount it under the brim of a cap like you said, into it's own recorder (so two lavs/recorders on me, one for me one for subject) and go to town on the audio in RX4 to isolate and boost/EQ that track as much as possible. Should be able to get usable audio that way.

Note: it's a "real life" mockumentary type project (think in the style of the Aussie movie "Kenny", or Shane Meadow's "le donk and scor-zay-zee" if you've seen them) so if the audio isn't as consistent for those sequences it will be forgiven more than say, a standard narrative (that's my experience anyway), and then you've got subtitles (ugh).

The oscarsoundtech ones look like they will be the first I'll try if the lav mics we already have fail, thanks for that recommendation.