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External audio recordings sound very echoey?

ajedproduction

ajedproduction

We finished filming my short film recently. We filmed with a Canon 550d and recorded audio with a Marantz pmd 660 and a Senheisser mic. I don't know the exact model but it should be a very good mic, it looks like this:
416-boom-mic-kit.jpg


I had 3 different sound people for each shoot day(time issues). On the first shoot day we filmed a scene which is very dialogue heavy. For some reason the sound from the Marantz sounds really echoey. It sounds like they are in a bath tub! It's usable but it sounds really amateur. On another shoot day we recorded some dialogue in the same room and it doesn't sound anywhere near as bad(still a tiny bit of echo) so it must be something wrong with the way it was recorded? Anyone know what it is so I can avoid this happening again?

Luckily I also had a Rode Videomic attached on top of the camera just incase something like this happened so right now for this specific scene I've had to just use the sound from the Rode videomic which sounds much better than the sound from the Marantz, although it's still not fantastic as it was just on top of the camera. Luckily we got a lot of close ups so the mic was able to get close to the person speaking.

Now though I have the problem of the sound from the Rode videomic being a little bit low...I've raised the volume on Adobe Premiere to the max but it sounds like it could benefit from being a tiny bit louder...Anything else I can do?

Can anyone help me out?
 
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A shotgun mic is not usually a good choice for confined spaces indoors. It exaggerates the "echoey" ambient nature of the space if it is not very precisely aimed. Set prep - sound blankets, carpeting and the like - should be used to mitigate the effect, and keeping the talent further from the walls helps a bit as well.

When you say the sound from the RVM is low I'm assuming that you mean the volume levels. How low is low? If it is between -12dB and -18dB it is right where it should be. You can use "Normalize" or "Gain" to increase the volume level of the audio clips, although this will increase the background noise levels as well.
 
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I had no idea that was the case, what sort of mic works best for small indoor locations then?

I'll try and find out the exact model of the senheisser mic and post it here later. It was on a boom pole and usually held above the actors. Maybe it was probably not close enough to them?

Yeah the Rvm levels are in between -12db and -18db so I guess I'll leave it as it is. Unlike the Sennheiser the Rode video mic sound doesn't sound echoey at all. It doesn't sound as "rich" as the Sennheisser but there's no echo or reverb whatsoever which is what I wanted.

Thanks
 
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The choice for indoors is a hypercardioid mic.

Unlike the Sennheiser the Rode video mic sound doesn't sound echoey at all
Click to expand...

There shouldn't be that much difference between sound of the the shotgun and the RVM. Unless, of course, if the RVM was much closer and more accurately aimed than the shotgun. Or your boom-op was really bad and aimed the wrong end of the mic at the actors; don't laugh, it's happened!!! Or the shotgun was not engaged and the internal mics of the -660 were being used? That's happened too! Are you sure that there aren't any out-of-alignment tracks? No effects are being used? The sample rate conversion was done properly?

What is needed most is knowledge, experience and skill. How much of each did your boom-ops have? Were they paid or just whomever was available?
 
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Ugh now that you mention it, I don't think for that scene the sound was even coming through the Sennheiser, it must have been recording through the internal mic on the Marantz! Even for the close up shots where she could have had the mic very close to the actor it sounds like the mic is far away as if it was a wide shot. Really poor quality sound as well with lots of background noise. It sounds like the internal mic on a dslr. Definitely not from the Sennheiser!

All the sound people I used had some(not a lot) experience using that equipment before, they weren't payed just people on my course. Two of them did a good job and the sound is good, it's just one of them who seems to have really screwed it up. Fortunately that person only did sound for one scene, however it just so happens to be the most dialogue heavy scene in the film...thankfully I had the Rode video mic as backup or it would be a disaster.
 
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