Sound gear - I'm scr@wed...

Jets and motorcycles, with consumer/prosumer equipment, relatively inexperienced location sound personnel and a budget of $500? It depends how close you are to the jets and motorcycles and what kind of final quality you're after but on the face of it you've got a great recipe for an audio disaster! Even with top professional equipment and personnel it would still be a tough ask, so unless you'd be willing to use the live sports broadcaster type handheld mics you should plan on getting a limited amount or no usable location sound.

At least get plenty of footage without your subjects and maybe double up your interviews, do a second one indoors (in a quiet environment!) and get the PSM to use a nice stereo mic to get some nice audio to go with your exterior shots. That way you've at least got options in video edit. Better still, plan your vid editing before you start shooting, around the fact that you won't be able to record usable dialogue at the EXT location.

gorillaonabike said:

What literature would you encourage me to buy?

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AudioPostExpert said:

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*spits tea all over monitor*

If you take a look at live sporting events of all kinds, everything from the NFL to NASCAR, you'll note that the interviewers still use a "stick" mic and shove it in close. It's just about the only way to get usable voices in loud environments.





Oh, you may want to think about some serious isolating headphones, something like the Remote Audio HN-7506. They put the electronics of the Sony MDR-7506 into isolation headphones like those worn by airport workers or on shooting ranges.



Oh, and you should still investigate renting, you never know who may be willing to wheel and deal, or may have some old stock on sale, or....

Nothing like fast jets continually taking off combined with the dulcet tones of helicopters and motorbikes to mess up my sound mix.

On the plus side...

Mmm... trying to think of a plus side...

Nope.


Fortunately, the primary footage and sound will be shot at the tracks and there will be a little lull in the action while we record dialogue. Probably. Maybe. Hopefully.

And helicopters? This just gets better and better! Due to the way a helicopter's rotor blades produce and vector thrust, they often cause strange phase like effects, even when they're not in sight. Maybe you should skip my first book suggestion and go straight to the second

You might get lucky with a "lull in the action" but I would strongly suggest you have a contingency plan or rather a second plan which you enact even if you think you've got usable dialogue at the track/s.

G

You could approach it as they did in the documentary Senna (which I realise is a different kettle of fish entirely) and record clean sound with your subjects in a sound-positive environment and then use that over the visuals of the motorbikes in a way that instructs the viewer, rather than intercutting between talking heads...

NickClapper said:

You could approach it as they did in the documentary Senna (which I realise is a different kettle of fish entirely) and record clean sound with your subjects in a sound-positive environment and then use that over the visuals of the motorbikes in a way that instructs the viewer, rather than intercutting between talking heads...

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That's the way I would do it. Unless you are willing to get a mic within a couple of inches of your subject the odds of getting anything usable are slim.

NickClapper said:

You could approach it as they did in the documentary Senna (which I realise is a different kettle of fish entirely) and record clean sound with your subjects in a sound-positive environment and then use that over the visuals of the motorbikes in a way that instructs the viewer, rather than intercutting between talking heads...

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was also going to suggest this...

Reverb has a used EV RE50B on sale for $75, usually $180 new.

https://reverb.com/item/521646-electro-voice-re50-b-omnidirectional-dynamic-microphone

The RAF base is only a test shoot day (fortunately). It's a sort of 'worst case scenario' and it's more about figuring out how we're going to do the other shoots.

We have a second test day at another motorbike track (no helicopters, bombers, fast jets etc...) and the problems will just be around the motorcycle noise.

The third, fourth and fifth shoots (all at the same track as the second test day) will be the real deal. Essentially, we have two test sessions followed by three 'real deal' sessions' and will need to have sorted out the majority of issues. If it all goes to r@tshit, will have to bring in a pro to swing a boom but that's what the test days are for.

Idea will be to record as much sound as possible in subjects' houses and in a couple of other locations where sound will be good. There will be a couple of elements at the end where we need a little sound at the track itself but these should be 'snippets,' these should be away from the motorcycle noise and no more than a few seconds of the entire production. I hope.

Foley and music will play a big part and might make the music intrusive if we have to in order to cover stuff up. Also want to bring on a UK name - e.g. a known presenter to narrate but only... only if it's good enough as this will cost money.

Thank God it was only a test as we would've been royally scr@wed for sound. On the day we had:

- Helicopters taking off and landing
- Motorcycles doing high speed runs on a closed-off runway
- Generators * SO LOUD IT WAS UNBELIEVABLE * Who buys a generator be louder than a helicopter, seriously?
- A f@cking firing range. Yes, a real godd@m firing range at an airforce base.

To put it into context, think BOOOOOOM BADDDA BADDDDA BADDDA, KABOOM, CHOBBA CHOBBA CHOBBA, VIMMMMMMM (high pitched), BUZZZZ, BUZZZ, BOOM etc... Imagine landing on Omaha beach during the D-Day landings only a little noisier.

Took me back to my clubbing days when I used to enjoy standing next to the speakers and feeling the vibrations pulse through my body only much, much louder.

I should've known better when I saw all the people wandering around wearing earplugs.

Thank f@ck it was just a test and will cut a couple of 30 second promos with Vivaldi in the background. Not because I like Vivaldi but to soothe my shattered nerves after all the bl@@dy noise.

gorillaonabike said:

Thank God it was only a test as we would've been royally scr@wed for sound. On the day we had:

- Helicopters taking off and landing
- Motorcycles doing high speed runs on a closed-off runway
- Generators * SO LOUD IT WAS UNBELIEVABLE * Who buys a generator be louder than a helicopter, seriously?
- A f@cking firing range. Yes, a real godd@m firing range at an airforce base.

To put it into context, think BOOOOOOM BADDDA BADDDDA BADDDA, KABOOM, CHOBBA CHOBBA CHOBBA, VIMMMMMMM (high pitched), BUZZZZ, BUZZZ, BOOM etc... Imagine landing on Omaha beach during the D-Day landings only a little noisier.

Took me back to my clubbing days when I used to enjoy standing next to the speakers and feeling the vibrations pulse through my body only much, much louder.

I should've known better when I saw all the people wandering around wearing earplugs.

Thank f@ck it was just a test and will cut a couple of 30 second promos with Vivaldi in the background. Not because I like Vivaldi but to soothe my shattered nerves after all the bl@@dy noise.

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My personal opinion is that the gap between pro, prosumer and consumer gear has narrowed to the point that there isn't a difference between the quality of your sound from less expensive equipment. The biggest difference in price you will find between prosumer and pro gear nowadays is utility based. For instance pro gear provides more channels with an onboard mixer, and/or a mixer extension, SMTPE time coding, etc...

Unfortunately, there are alot of old guys who think that cheaper gear is somehow less adequate in the sound arena based on their experiences from 20 years ago, and this just isn't the case. Prosumer capture devices capture in the same bit depth as professional capture devices and typically are equally transparent in their sonic footprint.

So, don't let the inexpensiveness of your gear dissuade you. Be more concerned about the fact that the scenario you are attempting to capture from an audio perspective is nigh impossible. having that low of a Signal to Noise Ratio, with the noise actually being greater in some cases than the source signal, you will probably have nothing usable, no matter what device you use. Be it a 788T or a Tascam HD P2.

Don't let these "money equals quality" guys fool you. It's a smoke screen. I know sound guys who are very well experienced and will tell you the same thing I'm going to tell you. You will not get usable audio at a military airfield, regardless of gear. Heck, one of the guys I know, who's worked on major Hollywood productions, with Schoeps mics, into a 744T, couldn't fix the fact that an airplane was flying overhead in our scene. I had to layer a separate airplane track in post to mask the f'in thing, even after using state of the art noise reduction software.

Your best bet, is to cover the event, to capture your location sound, and get numbers and names of those who are there to meet you later to stage interviews in a hangar at a local airfield, where military jets and shit aren't making the racket they tend to do. There you'll be able to easily control your audio, and still get the interviews you're looking for.

I've talked with many directors who just say "don't worry about it, we'll fix it in post." When they finally come to me I give them the estimate for just the ADR (as an addendum to the rest of the audio post) where I will charge by the hour ("No way it will take that long...") and the response is the inevitable "But we can't afford that!!!" Well, guess what, if you had followed the advice of your PSM you wouldn't have to spend that kind of money.

BTW, I've even been through the scenario myself; on one project the producer, the DP, the PSM and I all told our director that a few of his locations were going to result in the above scenario - unusable production sound and lots of expense in audio post. He ignored us, of course, and, to add insult to injury, attempted to lay the blame on the PSM for not capturing solid production sound and me for being unable to clean it up. The capper of the whole situation was when he said that none of us told him that the location was sonically unusable. However, the PSM had his trusty field recorder with him to record the ambient noise of the locations, and captured our entire argument. When we played it for him he accused the PSM and myself of manufacturing the conversation!!!!

gorillaonabike said:

Thank God it was only a test as we would've been royally scr@wed for sound. On the day we had:

- Helicopters taking off and landing
- Motorcycles doing high speed runs on a closed-off runway
- Generators * SO LOUD IT WAS UNBELIEVABLE * Who buys a generator be louder than a helicopter, seriously?
- A f@cking firing range. Yes, a real godd@m firing range at an airforce base.

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At the beginning of this thread we were dealing with jets and motorcycles and pro quality production sound gear and personnel would have given you a chance of recording usable dialogue. Since then you've added helicopters to the equation and now a firing range and a loud generator. The backup plan I originally mentioned; of capturing footage, audio ambiences, finding a quiet location to record your interviews and editing around the issue, now looks like the only realistic primary plan, rather than just a backup.

jrusso said:

Unfortunately, there are alot of old guys who think that cheaper gear is somehow less adequate in the sound arena based on their experiences from 20 years ago, and this just isn't the case. Prosumer capture devices capture in the same bit depth as professional capture devices and typically are equally transparent in their sonic footprint.

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The bit depth format a unit can write does not define transparency, all it defines is a theoretical dynamic range. I say theoretical dynamic range because in practice no recorder can record 24bits of dynamic range. The most expensive field recorders can use about 19 of the 24 available bits, less expensive pro units use a maximum of 17bits or so and consumer/prosumer units usually 11-15bits. So while consumer/prosumer units maybe able to write a 24bit format file, in practice they're not even using all the bits in a 16bit file format, let alone a 24bit one! Disregarding this dynamic range issue, frequency response, transparency and cleanliness of signal is defined by the mic and mic pre-amp. The mic pre-amps in more expensive field recorders are obviously better quality, more transparent and quieter than the relatively poor pre-amps used in consumer/prosumer gear and additionally the signal processing (limiting for example) on more expensive units is also typically far more transparent. I say "obviously" because many amateur filmmakers have experienced the limitations of noisy pre-amps on consumer/prosumer recorders. So your statement of "equally transparent" does not even ring true for moderately experienced amateur filmmakers, let alone actual audio personnel!

Being condescending and disparaging doesn't get you anywhere. Being condescending and disparaging when you don't even know much about the subject just makes you look foolish/ignorant!!

G

AudioPostExpert said:

Being condescending and disparaging doesn't get you anywhere. Being condescending and disparaging when you don't even know much about the subject just makes you look foolish/ignorant!!

G

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AudioPostExpert said:

The bit depth format a unit can write does not define transparency, all it defines is a theoretical dynamic range. I say theoretical dynamic range because in practice no recorder can record 24bits of dynamic range. The most expensive field recorders can use about 19 of the 24 available bits, less expensive pro units use a maximum of 17bits or so and consumer/prosumer units usually 11-15bits. So while consumer/prosumer units maybe able to write a 24bit format file, in practice they're not even using all the bits in a 16bit file format, let alone a 24bit one! Disregarding this dynamic range issue, frequency response, transparency and cleanliness of signal is defined by the mic and mic pre-amp. The mic pre-amps in more expensive field recorders are obviously better quality, more transparent and quieter than the relatively poor pre-amps used in consumer/prosumer gear and additionally the signal processing (limiting for example) on more expensive units is also typically far more transparent. I say "obviously" because many amateur filmmakers have experienced the limitations of noisy pre-amps on consumer/prosumer recorders. So your statement of "equally transparent" does not even ring true for moderately experienced amateur filmmakers, let alone actual audio personnel!

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I was not saying that the transparency was based on bit depth. When I mentioned, "transparency," I was referring to the entire signal path from the mic input, through the preamp circuits, to the storage medium. Not everyone writes novels like you, and most professionals I know, tend to automatically understand what I'm saying so they don't out themselves as amateurs masquerading around an Indie film forum as "Experts," naysaying everything I say.

Bit Depth does not "define" the dynamic range at all, it merely affects the noise level from quantization error, and thus the SNR and dynamic range. It is "affected" not "defined."

Bits are units of measurement (basic unit of information) for the memory in a computer system, and can have only one of 2 values. "On" or "Off" (1 = "On" and 0 = "Off"). Bits makeup the smallest unit of memory measurement in a computer system, and combine to makeup the larger units of measurements that we are all familiar with. 1024 bits = 1 byte... 1024 bytes = 1 megabyte... 1024 megabytes = 1 gigabyte... 1024 gigabytes = 1 Terabyte... And so on and so forth.

Thus, the resolution of audio or "bit depth" refers to the amount of data which represents the analogue sound in digital space. The more bits, the more 1s and 0s represent the resolution of the sound. So, for 16bit audio, there are only 16 1s and 0s to represent the sound digitally per sample, and for 24bits, there are 24 1s and 0s, per sample. Similar to pixel counts in digital images. Consumer/prosumer/professional gear that advertise 24bit audo bit depth, all capture at the same depth, else there would be sparked a mass tort lawsuit across America by audio engineers everywhere for false advertising. Unless you can provide a link to your opinion (cite sources,) then it remains just that... An unfortunate and uninformed opinion.

http://recordinghacks.com/microphones/tag/24-bit#ixzz3YJzoiv4D said:

Definition of "24-bit":
24 bit is a measure of the “bit depth” of a digital audio signal. The bit depth is simply the count of “bits” (binary digits) that are used to represent each sample of music. Each bit can store a 0 or a 1; the combination of these 24 on/off flags can represent numbers from 0 to 16,777,216. Note that this is 256 times more resolution than provided by 16-bit devices.

Professional and even “prosumer” recording gear commonly operates at 24 bit; the higher resolution allows greater dynamic range and greater signal-to-noise ratios.
Read more about 16-bit vs. 24-bit audio. See also this extensive discussion of proper gain levels for 24-bit recording.


Read more: http://recordinghacks.com/microphones/tag/24-bit#ixzz3YJzoiv4D

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Here we go again! Same pattern as other threads you contribute to, you start off being disparaging and giving false information and then you continue futilely to argue your point from a position of ignorance.

jrusso said:

Bit Depth does not "define" the dynamic range at all, it merely affects the noise level from quantization error, and thus the SNR and dynamic range.

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Did you even read this before you posted it? In actual fact bit depth ONLY defines dynamic range and nothing else!!

Thanks for the basic lesson in digital theory, all you need to do now is learn how that applies to audio and you'll start to have at least a basic grasp of digital audio theory! Here's a starter for you: Each "bit" of data doubles the number of data values available which halves the amount of statistical quantisation error. As quantisation error is converted into uncorrelated noise, each additional bit a data represents roughly 6dB of additional dynamic range. Therefore 16 x 6 = 96, 96dB is the maximum dynamic range of a 16bit system. 24 x 6 = 144dB, the maximum dynamic range of a 24bit system. However, in practice one would have to break the laws of physics to actually record a dynamic range of 144dB. I doesn't take a genius to go and look up the dynamic range specs of various recorders. For a recorder which quotes a dynamic range of say 114dB, divide that by 6 and the result is 19, the number of bits being utilised. The other 5 bits in the 24bit file would just be the relatively random noise generated by the internal circuitry of the recorder itself. Just because it can write a 24bit file does not mean it can actually resolve 24bits of audio data. Go and look up the dynamic range of recorder specs and work out for yourself how many bits of data they're actually utilising. So while a 24bit recorder theoretically provides a greater dynamic range than a 16bit recorder, that's only true in practice if the recorder's circuitry is actually capable of a dynamic range of greater than 96dB, which most consumer/prosumer recorders are not!

jrusso said:

Consumer/prosumer/professional gear that advertise 24bit audo bit depth, all capture at the same depth, else there would be sparked a mass tort lawsuit across America by audio engineers everywhere for false advertising.

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Welcome to the world of audio equipment marketing. All recorders marketed as 24bit write 24bit files, none of them actually operates at 24bit resolution though. Show me the specs of any recorder made by anyone which has a dynamic range of 144dB.

jrusso said:

Unless you can provide a link to your opinion (cite sources,)

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How digital audio works is not an opinion, it's fact.

Look, if you want to learn about the basics of digital audio theory (and operation) then I'm happy to oblige but if you just want to argue with me then show a modicum of respect and go away and learn at least the very basics rather than arguing from a position of complete ignorance!! If you want to avoid remaining completely ignorant then either ask me nicely or if you don't want to take my word for it, try reading Digital Audio Explained: For The Audio Engineer , a most respected standard text book on the subject.

G

AudioPostExpert said:

Did you even read this before you posted it? In actual fact bit depth ONLY defines dynamic range and nothing else!!

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So we disagree. That's the "spice of life." Get used to it if you're going to work in this industry.

You presented me a book about digital audio, so let me present you with a book you apparently need...

https://play.google.com/store/books...nV8FKIx_FVjTfRBOEIDCYxoCQHHw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

jrusso said:

So we disagree. That's the "spice of life."

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Digital audio is based on proven and undisputed mathematics (The Nyquist/Shannon Sampling Theorem). Only an insane, irrational or severely ignorant person would disagree with it! One can rationally disagree with opinion but not with fact.

Instead of being condescending, spouting BS and then using ignorance and insults to defend your BS, why don't you actually try contributing something constructive. Who knows, you might find it a pleasurable experience!

G