Boom, Mic combo - under $1200
 

Ok so I guess I`ve decided to try the boom road since it will be used for many projects in the future as well. I would like a mic that would be good both indoors and outdoors. My budget is $1200 for the mic AND boom pole and any wires etc needed to run it into an XLR jack on my Canon A1. I read something yesterday about mics that can be switched to different coverages for indoor/outdoor use...but lost where I read it. All feedback is helpful. Thanks.

*side question* Would running the boom through a mixer and then into the camera affect the quality at all? Or should I forget the mixer for now?

A good mixer will give you better sound quality because it will have significantly better pre-amps than your camera and it will give you additional control over your audio. The problem is that even a modest unit like a Sound Device MixPre will eat up half of your budget, so I'd be inclined to wait on the mixer. Don't forget a decent shock mount for the end of that boom.

Hi Nathan,

I'm in the process of doing the same thing myself. Since I can't afford to buy a shotgun that will work well both inside and outside ( like the Sanken CS-3E ), I'm going with a good hypercardioid mic that should be great indoors, and good outdoors provided I can get close enough. Here's what I've selected for my shopping list:

Gitzo GB3650 13ft Carbon Fiber Boompole : $270
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...on_Carbon.html

Audio-Technica AT4053a Hypercardioid Mic : $400
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...icrophone.html

Rycote Baby Ball Gag Windshield : $139
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...indshield.html

Rycote Windjammer for Baby Ball Gag Windshield : $70
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...Baby_Ball.html

K-Tek K-SSM - Shock Mount : $120
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...ock_Mount.html

Sound Devices MM-1 Mic Preamp with Headphone Monitor : $350
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...e_Channel.html

TC-Industries TONE-PLUG : $50
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...ion_Audio.html

( About $1400 in total )

I don't think the Sound Devices MM-1 has a tone switch, so I'm going to use the GTC Tone-plug to set my -12 dB sound level on the camera. The MM-1 has a headphone jack, so the boom operator can hear what they're recording. ( I'll have my headphones into the camera, so I can monitor what it's receiving )

...Later on, when I can afford to buy a half-decent shotgun mic, I'll probably buy the AT 4073a and a blimp to go with it. ( $818 just for these two items )

Audio-Technica AT4073A Shotgun Mic : $550
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...icrophone.html

K-Tek Zeppelin with K-GPS Suspension (Medium) : $368
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...sion_Med_.html

I could also go used, but I would feel safer getting everything new for now.


- Guy

Don't know that the tone-plug will do anything for you. Since the MM-1 doesn't have VU meters, you (the camera op) will be riding levels, not the boom op.

The point of sending tone is to provide alignment of the mixer VU with the camera VU, so that the mixer op can mix with his/her meters in confidence that they aren't overmodulating at the camera.

Since your boomer will have no meters to watch on the MM-1, that will leave it to you, on the cam, to adjust recording level.

Yes, you're right. I forgot that the MM-1 doesn't have a level indicators.

...What about using the tone-plug to check the maximum level for the camera?

So the boom op would know not to go beyond the maximum level for the camera ( judging by the MM-1 preamp switch markings, there are 11 mechanical clicks on the MM-1 gain switch ) which would just raise the noise floor, and possibly over modulate the signal.


- Guy

Hi Seth,

I was thinking about the tone-plug thing on the way home tonight, here is my train of thought...

1- The SD MM-1 outputs at line level, so if you set the MM-1 gain to 0 dB, then connect the tone-plug to set the correct pre-amp level on the camera for 0 dB tone.

2- With the camera's pre-amp level unchanged from step 1, you plug in your boom mic and sample the loudest sound you expect to record. You adjust the gain on the MM-1 so that the loudest sound you expect to record is peaking at the right level on the camera.

3- When shooting, the gain on the MM-1 stays the same as established in step 2, and the levels are ridden on the camera.

...Does this make any sense?

I know that a proper mixer would be a much better setup, but the MM-1 fits my current budget.


- Guy

Guy, this isn't quite right. 0db gain on the preamp does not equal 0db on a vu meter in the slightest. Assuming some normally sensitive mic, you'll have your preamp gain set somewhere between 30 and 50db, to bring the mic level up to line level. Again, "0db tone" would refer to 0db on a vu meter, which is referenced to a specific voltage level. 0db gain is quite a different thing, if you set it on the preamp you'd expect the preamp to pass mic level along to the camera with no gain.

I think you'd want to start with a modified step 2.

2- turn on the preamp limiter, plug in the boom mic and sample the loudest sound you expect to record. Adjust preamp gain to where the limiter LED is blinking on the loud peaks (performance is almost always louder than rehearsal).

2a- Adjust the (manual) camera input level to where the VU meter is peaking at perhaps -12db on the loud peaks.

3- Same as what you wrote above.

I've not used the MM-1, but, with Sound Devices rep for quality I'd expect what you've speced to be a reasonable approach to quality sound from a boom. Your boom op gets a good headphone amp, your camera gets a good line-level signal, with some limiting. And, you'll have a piece of gear that will still be useful (with a larger crew) when you finally do buy a mixer.

It's not conventional, but, if you're good with monitoring levels at the camera it should work just fine.

But, don't let me talk you out of buying a tone plug. I have one and I use it, it's a handy little tool to have. It just won't help you much with level setting out of the MM-1. It could help you establish how the limiter behaves.

Hi Nathan,

Your $1200 won't really get you what you want. I don't know where you read about indoor/outdoor switches. It's an intersting idea, but I haven't heard of one yet....and I do a lot of listening. :)

What you need is, maybe, a Sanken CS-3e, Sound Devices 302 mixer cables and K-tek boom and a good mixer/camer cable...suspension gear for the mic to be mounted on the boom and probably wind protection for outside work....Oh, and headphones. I only spec Sony MDR7506 for headphones.

I think the CS-3e can work indoors and out, but has a very tight pattern. That's good, but you need to have a really god boom op to stay on target. This is Pro gear and will provide you with very good sound when operated correctly.

You could try and replace the Sanken CS-3e with an Audix SCX-1, but it won't have the reach of the CS-3e.

Unlike most video gear, good pro audio gear can last a career.

Regards,

Ty Ford

I fear the Audio_Technica mic.
 

I can tell you from years of experience that mics are very important, and I am terribly sure that I have never seen a pro audio man ever work with Audio-Technica mics. Ever. Be very, very shure about that mic. Ask around some more before purchasing.

Think Sennheiser, Shure, and Sony. I know there is a lot of talk about other mics, but I like Sony and I LOOOOVE Sennheisers. They're hard to beat.

Thanks for setting me straight Seth. I didn't realize that the limiter could be used to set the proper gain level on the MM-1 unit.



Hi Alex,

Lots of smaller budget and indie films use both Audio-Technica ( AT 4053a hypercardioid and AT 4073a shotgun ) and AKG blue-line ( SE300B power module and CK93 hypercardioid capsule ) mics, because they don't have the budget for Schoeps or Sanken mics. I'm pretty sure Nathan doesn't have the budget either...

Here's a review from Electronic Musician comparing the sound quality of seven high end condenser mics. ( AKG, Audio-Technica, Josephson Engineering, Neumann, Pearl, Schoeps, Taylor Hohendahl Engineering )

Smokin' Condensers
http://emusician.com/mics/emusic_smokin_condensers/

A quote from the review about the AT 4051 ( cardioid version of the mic I mentioned above ):

"The AT4051a really impressed me when used as a close-mic on acoustic guitar. It seemed to have all the body of the warmer Neumann and Schoeps models, with the added benefit of a perfectly defined high-end sparkle. At a distance, it took on a smoother and more neutral character not unlike the Schoeps, but retained its characteristic warmth and presence."

I'd prefer an ENG/EFP related review of this mic, but I haven't found one yet.

I can't afford a Schoeps, but I think I will be happy with the AT 4053a for this year.

Yea this is all funded from my week to week paycheck, so I really need to stay under the $1,200 mark on this. The Sanken CS-3e is $1,350 itself. So I am looking for the best i can get on my budget. There are hundreds of people out there using cheaper equipment, and there must be a middle ground of sorts. I could always go with a B and H boom / mic package, but I want the best I can get for the money.

Most of the boom/mic kits in your price range incorporate shotgun mics that are not well suited for indoor use, and they don't include a blimp to deal with wind outdoors.

This is why I am looking at hypercardioid mics ( and a Baby Ball Gag, which appears to function like a micro blimp ) that should give good sound indoors and out, as long as you can get close enough.

Eventually I'll buy a good shotgun and blimp for outdoor recording.

Ok so what is best for outdoor use?
Indoor use?
Is there a happy medium?

The more important films I am doing right now are outdoor. So i`d prefer a better outdoor 'rig' for the time being. Just thought I might be able to kill 2 birds with one stone.

I saw the Sennheiser ME 66/67...lowest of the line for Sennheiser...are they any good?

Depends on what you are micing, but the consensus seems to be:

A high quality shotgun mic mounted in a blimp windshield with a faux-fur wind cover, mounted on a good quality boom pole, and an experienced boom op.

The DVeStore has a video demo showing how a mic blimp fits together, with a tiny sample of it in use at the end. ( it's near the bottom of this page ) http://dvcreators.net/sennheiser-mics

Depends on what you are micing, but again the consensus seems to be:

A high quality hypercardioid mic mounted on a good quality boom pole, with an experienced boom op.

Some of the high-end shotgun mics ( like the Sanken CS-3e or the Schoeps CMIT 5U ) will work quite well inside too.

The DVeStore has studio comparison of the low to mid priced shotguns, including the Sennheiser ME 66. Put on a good pair of headphones and judge for yourself. http://dvestore.com/theatre/mics_guide.html

Keep in mind that this shotgun mic shootout was done in a sound studio, so this demo won't give you any idea about how good these mics would be in a normal room.

Also, don't overlook lavaliere mics, which are a different solution to consider.

Well with the price of everything it is looking ilke I have to choose either a shotgun OR lav mics....can`t do both. I figure the dialogues will be fairly close, so the boom should be able to stay close to them. Just need to decide what to get and pray for the best

Whats the difference between the ME 66 and ME 67? One is long, one is short...but I`m not sure what that does?

A long shotgun has an even tighter pattern and a bit longer working distance. But it can often be too much of a good thing, requiring much closer attention to aiming on the part of the operator while the size makes it more difficult to keep out of the shot.

Well tighter pattern among shotguns anyway.

The pattern of high frequency directivity is usually a bit better, but longer shotguns also suffer from the same lack of directionality at middle and low frequencies.

When camera mounted, the can also be unweildy and sometimes be seen in the shot when the lens is pulled bacl to a wide angle.

Regards,

Ty Ford

Why not hire a sound guy and use some of the money to pay him/her? That way, you'll get a good sound person who has the gear, can run the mixer and maybe have a little money that can be put back into production. If you're a shooter, you may not want to have all this sound gear that you'll have to run, while running the camera too.

I have a basic sound kit, but I don't have a mixer, or any really high end gear. It's easier to get someone else to run the Sound Department. That way, you make a new friend and then maybe they'll help you out on the no budget gigs and you can bring him/her in for the paying gigs as a thank you.

Operating the camera, zooming and pulling focus, I've run out of hands with which to twiddle tiny knobs and both eyes are watching what's in front of the camera, let alone what the sound levels are doing.

I'm not trying to poo-poo getting your own gear, but thought I would throw out an obvious alternative.

Good shooting!

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...icrophone.html

I`m thinking to get this package. I do actually have 2 sound people available, neither has equipment which tends to be the case around here. I won`t be doing the sound (though I should learn the basics of it, i`m a believer in understand all aspects of film making) but its good to have the equipment so I`m not scrounging now and in the future, and if i`m lucky I can rent it out to make some money back since no one around here ever has decent audio equipment of any kind.

I`m also picking up a Sennheiser G2 100 series wireless lav. Going about $150 over audio budget...hope it pays off in the end.

Every journey starts with a single footstep....some steps are just larger than others heh

Hello Nathan,

Sound people with no gear? Location sound people?

If someone tells you they are a location sound person but have no gear, RUN!

Regards,

Ty Ford

Nope, just an area where everyone wants to get into film but no one has the equipment to do so. 1 works for a freelance multimedia company, but the companies equipment is tied up months in advance so he can`t take it out. The other just graduated college for sound stuff and again has no gear of his own.

Does that boom package come with everything I need? I don`t need extra wires or anything do I? I need it to plug in to the back of a Canon A1.

Hello Nathan,

Someone trying to get into film production with no sound gear is, repeat, NOT a location sound person.

Be very, very afraid.


Regards,

Ty Ford

You'd probably want to get some additional XLR cables but that's no big expense. That kit would be the bare bones minimum but it does have everything you need to get a mic off the camera and onto a boom, recording through it. Whether it's enough to cover all the conditions you'll be encountering is anyone's guess - a pro field production kit would add a number of other elements and there are number of pieces to the puzzle still needed for BEST sound. But in answer to the question, does it have all I need to record some sound (in addition to the camera, of course), yes, it does.

Ok thanks guys. I know there will always be something bigger, better, more out there but for no I just need to be able to get better sound than the on camera mic. Hoping this all works out ok. For now i`ll just be recording in a field, and in the woods, some dialogue (with the lav) as well as fight scenes with the boom. Again I`m just looking for better audio than the on camera mic for now. Its all funded from my $9.50 an hour job, and by how many months of debt I can deal with.

Ty, I`m a little confused. I am just getting my filming equipment, so should everyone working with me be very afraid that I will produce trash because previously I had no equipment? I want to get into film and this is my first project to head up, its no reason for people to run screaming. everyone starts somewhere. I`d rather have help from someone with experience and no personal equipment than someone with no experience saying "I held a boom once" and no equipment.

The additional tools you might find useful that are not included in that kit woukld include such things as improved wind protection, a headphone amplifier/ mic preamp for the boom operator and a mixer to interpose between the mic(s) and the camera, and a breakaway cable to connect mixer to camera.

As for equipment ownership, it depends on the craft and the area of speciality. Most feature directors and directors of photography don't own the cameras but some documentary and indie DPs do - for instance, I believe the videographer on the PBS series "R. Steve's Europe" owns his own FW900, I think it is, because at one point in their "...making of" program Steves refers to him as "protecting his $80,000 baby like a mother hen with her chicks." Professional location sound mixers typically own their own kit of mixers, recorders, microphones, booms, etc (but boom operators usually do not) and when you hire one of them for a gig you also rent the kit as well as cover their salary. OTOH, someone on a network crew, say CBS Sports or some such, may be an employee using company owned equipment. You could say as a rule, freelancers own their own gear while regular employees don't.

Thanks for the clarity. I`d really like to get a mixer but can`t afford the extra $500. I am hoping the wind will be minimal and the softie will be good enough for now since they don`t allow substitutions. I will however probably pick up a nice set of headphones tonight as well.

Phones absolutely! Didn't mention them cause I just assumed you would already have them. The industry standard is Sony MDR7506, not cheap, not the most expensive either, but lesser cans really won't cut it.

B and H has a $100 set of that, and $285...i`d assume you meant the higher price? Aslo what do they plug into if there is no mixer...the camera i`d assume?

I wonder if you're in the same situation I am - I don't have sound people, I have people who are willing to do sound. Using my equipment.

This is why I find myself turning into a location recording person - I find I do enjoy it, but it's also out of a desire to get good sound.

Sorry, didn't mean to hijack the thread!

Actually I meant the lower priced pair - not everything in a pro's kit costs top dollar, just most of it <grin>. The $285 ones are a customized unit, excellent product but perhaps overkill for general use = OTOH, if you're taping at a rock concert or on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier they may be just the ticket. The $100 pair is the standard Sony product and you'll find 'em in use on locations everywhere. I've got a pair sitting on my desk about 6 inches from the keyboard even as I type. As for where they plug in, they would go into the headphone jack on the mixer if you have one or the headphone output on the camera if you're going direct. For that matter, if you have a mixer to feed the camera and you've set up the cabling properly, there'll be a headphone return from the camera headphone out back to the mixer so the sound recordist can monitor either the feed he's sending to the camera or the return so he can hear how it sounded after passing through the camera's circuitry.

I don't think that Ty's wrong to say that you should be skeptical of someone who says they want to get into location sound and has no gear. Still, if you've at least got someone with a genuine interest in sound it's better than drafting a hapless P.A. or something. I don't know by how much, but it's something. It can be difficult to get good results with gear you aren't intimately familiar with, and that's not going to be the case here.

I went with the B and H ME 66 boom combo and the Sennheiser G2 100 series ME2 (omni) wireless lav. I was very pleased at the sound through headphones while there (my computer right now can`t handle HDV so I can`t hear it there). I would say, it kind of hurt the shoot to have nicer equipment since there was an airport nearby, it was picking up everything! Then weed wackers off in the distance were like they were next to the camera...man...catch 22. I think it should be usable though.

The sound guys were great. One was more or less learning and did fairly well with the boom, the other was very experienced and very attentive to detail. Scared I was not and it did me well to not worry about 1 aspect. Now I just need to learn how to set it all up myself incase i ever need to do sound work ;)

Nat,

1. Using good gear never decreases the quality of your audio. Bad gear just makes the bad sound worse.

In the case of distant weed wackers, well lets just say, the me66 may have been better than what you were using, but it's still a half-mast shotgun compared to the good stuff.

AND, if you had off-axis weed wackers, it was your "bad" to use a shotgun. Should have tried a hyper like the Audix SCX-1 or, better yet, Schoeps cmc641.

SHOTGUNS (EXCEPT MAYBE THE SANKEN CS-3E) ARE MORE OMNI DIRECTIONAL AT MIDDLE AND LOW FREQUENCIES THAN AT HIGH FREQUENCIES. That's why they do so poorly indoors too. I know you were hot to try your new mic, but it was the wrong one for the job.

2. When you try to be a one man band, something always suffers. Learn to work with people you like and trust. You'll get ahead more quickly.

Regsards,

Ty Ford

Between the boom and lav I should have plenty of good audio. I will head back on a weekday at sunrise before people are out and about to record the room tone and go from there. There is always something bigger and better out there and I was already over budget. I am happy with what I have and will learn to get the most out of it. If i concentrated on what I could have bought for a little more money, well i could do that all the way up to $100k for a mic....maybe just a little more. It is still only my first self produced and funded short film, it won`t be Hollywood no matter what and I`m cool with that. Just thought I`d share my results for others in the same situation.

Interesting Ty, I would never have thought to use a hypercardiod in that situation.

I've "turned off" distracting noises more than once by going hyper and getting a position where its back is to the noise, or at least as far off axis as possible.

I ended up on Capitol Hill's SE steps one day a few weeks back. No one said we'd be outside! We were and with a 0-8 knot breeze. I only had my Schoeps with tear drop pop filter. I stood the mic on the boom about chest high and got upwind of it. Holding it close to my body to keep the wind off of it.

I pointed it at the congressman's mouth, about 4 feet away and cranked up the Sound Devices 442. Got him!

Regards,

Ty