Originally Posted by Paul R Johnson (Post 1959352)

For many years, I put wavs on female actors, singers, dancers and presenters. If you behave professionally, and put them at their ease, you do the job effectively - usually talking about absolutely nothing while you do it. They respond equally inanely, and after a few months they will have wiped it from memory. In fact, for me, the mic has never been the issue, it's the pack that takes effort to hide in many costumes, and feeding the cable, and securing a pack is the hard part. very often, small of the back, or sitting on their bum cheeks is something you have to get used to doing - and even with all the Harvey Weinstein stuff, it can be done professionally and trouble free - IF - you have the people skills. I've had one sound guy bottle out - totally freeze. I sent him to a group of dancers with 2 minutes to get four mics on, and they were doing a quick change - at the appropriate moment when they are er, unencumbered by clothing, you attach the pack, clothes get added and you feed the wire up, then grab from the top and attach to their face. This is why I find A2 roles difficult to cover. A female is best, but failing that a non-problematic male can be fine. First rehearsal, this guy proved to be hopeless because HE couldn't cope, not the girls. In all my years doing radio mics myself - probably 20+ I've never had one issue of awkwardness. It's a bit like being a doctor. Act professionally, do the right things and all is well.

One thing you can do is buy a couple of the really, really dirt cheap Chinese lav mics on Ali express or ebay. You can pick them up for less than $10. They are surprisingly useful things. Audio quality with a little EQ is fine for many uses, and if you drop one in the mud, throw it away.

You mention that omni pick up everything, don't they? This means you read up on omni and jumped to the wrong conclusion. They do indeed pick up all around, but they are CLOSEST to the wanted sound source, and it's their method of operation that is important - they are pressure operated, not pressure gradient, like cardioids. The opening does NOT need to be aimed, so can be dressed to be away from prevailing wind direction. You can shield them in other words. You've mentioned noise before from clothing. Most of what appears to be clothing noise comes up the cable. It's thin, but tough, so tapping the cable a foot away from the mic can transfer noise, if the cable is taut. You build in loops, or sags. You thread the cable through the clips, or you pop through button holes and then bend back. All these things reduce cable noise.

Buy the cheap ones and experiment - you will find the audio surprisingly good, and you can use yourself as the test subject and learn good and bad fitting practice.

With my store full, my space at home has filled up badly. So you can laugh and joke about the obvious care I take with looking after kit, I just took some pictures. I work from home in a space at the rear and the edit suite has become a store room, and editing moved in with the audio stuff. I cannot of course find anything. The corridor leading to the edit suite is also full of flight cases, and my wife is getting justifiably annoyed with me. My green screen space now has a PA system living in it, so it's getting tight!

Originally Posted by Ryan Elder (Post 1959363)

I was told that on other projects involving lavs, that the background sound is loud compared to the boom

Originally Posted by Ryan Elder (Post 1959365)

Okay sure. It's hard to test them without purchasing them first because of covid and all the rental houses here are closed, so I thought I would have to purchase them first.

Originally Posted by Rick Reineke (Post 1959367)

It depends.. Most pros use both (on separate ISO tracks of coarse). It is usually one or the other on a mix track.