Screaming talent
 

I've just started shooting commercials for this car salesman and his delivery (that he's well known for) is of the screaming variety. I noticed a little distortion from this last shoot and was wondering if anyone has suggestions for talent that insisits on screaming. He's not the kind of guy you can ask to bring it down a notch! I'm using a wireless lav Senheisser G2 series. I attached the mic to his tie about 8 inches away from his mouth and kept the levels pretty low so he wouldn't clip. Would bringing it closer to his mouth reduce distortion?

You can either lower the average level, or use a compressor. You'll need dynamic compression at some stage if his dynamics are broad; this is usually done in post but can be done at production, too.
We have a similar thing (Tony Little-type guy) that does exercise classes that we've shot commercials for. We use a comp in production.

If you have some footage which is bad due to clipping (due to volume levels set to high), there is a fix.

Sony's Noise Reduction 2.0b has a feature that reshapes the audio, removing all clipping. I used it on some audio (of very loud cannons, with the levels set too high during the taping) over the weekend and it worked very well. The original audio was not usable, and the corrected audio was very impressive. I would have not believed that this was possible.

Restoring your bad audio is just a click away, after you purchase this software. Other noise reduction software may also have this "clipped audio restoration feature", but I am not an expert on all of the noise reduction products out there.

Kind of funny you mention this. I was doing a shoot yesterday on how to use the Sennheiser G2 wireless. During the shoot I wanted to demonstrate "AF Peak" or clipping. I was running a Countryman B3 lav into a BeachTek DXA-8 Ultimate adapter, which has limiters. Watch and listen to this movie, you'll see and hear where this thing can really work some magic. http://www.dvcreators.net/products/s...movieframe.htm

Guy,
That was a great tutorial! Thanks for the link. I added a compressor filter in FCP to the audio and it really made a nice difference. Since my budget it spent as is, I guess I'll just have to rely on fixing it in post from now on. Thanks everyone.

We have just completed filming a movie with lots of cannon and weapons firing. Before we purchased the DXA-8 we had hiss (using XL1s's), afterwards, no hiss.

The limiters work very well. It is very nice to be able to capture the normal sounds at a reasonable level and not have to worry about a cannon going off and causing distortion. I highly recommend the DXA-8 Ultimate Adapter. The extra price over their other adapters is money well spent.

guy,

thank you very much for posting that link.

I agree with Dan. A lot of the prosumer cameras have noisy preamps and the BeachTek DXA-8 is very clean because it is the only BeachTek with a pre-amp. Thus it is able to provide a hotter signal so you can turn down the camera's hissy levels. All the other BeachTeks are passive devices. They do not provide amplification to the signal.

After yelling into the mic in the example above and not being able to cause distortion, I'm a true believer in those DXA-8 limiters. Stay tuned here for a upcoming QuickTime movie on the BeachTek.
http://www.dvcreators.net/products/beachtek.html

I have a thread that is recent in this section using a DXA-8. I have MP3s at my link now too. Mine uses attenuators, but that is because my mic gets too hot from the audio. The audio peaks somewhere around 110-120dB from my guess.

Guy,
After watching your video on the G2 series, I tweaked some settings for a shoot I just did. The sound came out georgeous! My problem the first time was the RF clipping. I dropped the levels this time and it was perfect. Just wanted to say thanks again for that tutorial!!
C.

I used to do this trick when I was recording rock singers and sometimes..my self. I used to have a porper stand with SM-58 and the singer used to grab the stand while he was singing and let out his "rock" feel. Along with the SM-58 i used to have my main mic about 10 inches away from the singer - used to say that this one was my "back up". But this was the mic that realy
recorder!

So why don't you play this "talent" a similar trick by using tow mic?
You see, some singers/speakers have the belief that (no mater what the sound man says) they have to "scream" to the mic.

Only if you record with both of the mics( ondif channels) be careful for phase.

Anthony