Sound recording seperately

Milk

Milk

Now i have a sony hdr sr5e, which i normally use which has excellent on board sound recording (obviously not ideal but for what it is, it has good sound quality) although it does pick up unwanted noise. Now i'm filming on my Canon eos 500d which has awful sound, and there is no external mic input.

i have got another camera a panasonic Nv ds29 which does have an external mic and records onto dv tape. I also bought a cheap shotgun mic of which i have not had chance ot use in conjunction with this camera yet.

I also have an iriver H340 which i can plug the mic into & record in mp3 or WAV.

My question therefore, is what kind of sound recording devices are used in more expensive productions (when recorded seperately) and what comprimises can be made when recording sound?

I have recorded on my iriver before and got amazing results, not sure what would be best to use.

Thanks
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
Milk said:
My question therefore, is what kind of sound recording devices are used in more expensive productions (when recorded seperately)
Click to expand...

Do some searching on our forums for answers to this question, and check out Alcove's blog: http://www.indietalk.com/blog.php?u=9288


Milk said:
and what comprimises can be made when recording sound?
Click to expand...
The answer to this is personal and is directly related to how crummy you want your finished product to be. It's a question every filmmaker on this forum has had to deal with. At the absolute very least, you should probably not use the onboard mic of any camera under any circumstance.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Milk said:
I have recorded on my iriver before and got amazing results, not sure what would be best to use.
Click to expand...
It seems to me if you got amazing results then that's an
excellent choise. Maybe it's not what pros use, but you
already know you got amazing results, so why not use it
again?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Milk said:
My question therefore, is what kind of sound recording devices are used in more expensive productions (when recorded seperately)
Click to expand...
Zaxcom Deva - http://www.zaxcom.com/Deva-16.htm - $15,000

Sound Devices 788T - http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/buy/Digital-Recorders/ci/15273/N/4291081529 - $6,000


Obviously you don't have this kind of money to spend; what's your budget?

Here's a professional sound cart, probably about $50k.

IMG_0881.jpg
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
directorik said:
It seems to me if you got amazing results then that's an
excellent choise. Maybe it's not what pros use, but you
already know you got amazing results, so why not use it
again?
Click to expand...

the mic/mis are on top, it records in 5:1 (still not sure how) but its just difficult getting good results in all situations. it seems to be good at picking up sound around the camera, but not right in front of it. The quality is good. But there are operating sounds, and you can hear disk spin from the hard drive in the camera, operating noise from the lens and handling noise.

I just want better.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Obviously you don't have this kind of money to spend; what's your budget?[/QUOTE said:
i can spend about £500 but not right now, i've got all the time in the world. It's mainly for my own satisfaction, getting used to using different things.

Do they take that rig out to record sound? I had no idea it was so big. what is that kind of set up used for?
Click to expand...
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Milk said:
Do they take that rig out to record sound? I had no idea it was so big. what is that kind of set up used for?
Click to expand...

Feature films and TV. I've seen even bigger ones than that. On The Road the recordist had a cart about twice that wide with two widescreen HD monitors. The director could watch replay from the video feed and hear the production sound immediately after the take, all on the sound cart. Awesome. Dream on. :)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Milk said:
the mic/mis are on top, it records in 5:1 (still not sure how) but its just difficult getting good results in all situations. it seems to be good at picking up sound around the camera, but not right in front of it. The quality is good. But there are operating sounds, and you can hear disk spin from the hard drive in the camera, operating noise from the lens and handling noise.

I just want better.
Click to expand...

Now I understand.

First: you don't need to record 5:1 on set. You want more
control of the audio for the other channels - as you have
discovered. It's picking up sound around the camera for the
side channels.

Second: you need to get your mic close to the actors. That's
why it's essential to use a shotgun mic on a boom pole. The
further away the mic is from the actors, the higher the volume
needs to be. The higher the volume, the more “noise” you get.
Your goal is to have a very high signal to noise ratio - more
signal (the dialogue) less noise (the background). Even a very
good, expensive Sennheiser mounted on the camera will pick
up a lot of background ambiance because it’s far away from the
actors.

Since you're using a camera without a mic input you will need
not only a mic and boom pole but an audio recorder. Making
movies gets expensive, doesn't it?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
ahh thankyou, yeah i've bought a shotgun mic, and i intend to use it with my iriver & preamp? (providing i don't find something better) in wav, then just sync it up in post.
should be alright i hope! i've been doing some tests today andf quickly found out the distance/volume/noise issue. i've never really experienced that before, odd..
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Milk said:
so thats portable?.. don't you need some sort of generator to use that?.. wouldn't you get noise from the beast powering it?
Click to expand...

Naw, they have batteries. Although if for some reason they needed to draw A/C there's almost always a genny running for the HMIs (lights). And no, it's not noisy. It's encased in a soundproof housing behind the cab of a semi. All you hear is a dull hum if you're standing near it.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
At US$499 the Marantz PMD 661 and US$599 the Fostex FR-2LE are very solid choices, although the headphone output of the FR-2 has quite a bit of hiss (the problem is supposed to have been resolved in the newer model; we'll see...). Lot's of folks are hot on the Zoom H4n, but the mic pres are much too noisy for my taste; it is best used strictly as a recorder with the outputs of a quality mixer (the Sound Devices MixPre US$665, for example) plugged into the a XLR/TRS inputs of the H4n set to line level.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Milk, we're more than happy to help, but do some research on your own. Check out the manufacturers websites and do some reading. If you are confused then come back and ask questions.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top