We're not supposed to use shotguns microphones indoors because of the low frequency reflection of sound from the ceiling above the boom microphone and omnidirectional pickup of low frequency reverb, right?

- What if the shotgun microphone is positioned at an angle rather then vertically so it doesn't pick up reflections along its axis from the ceiling?

- What if the low frequencies are selectively removed in post with an equalizer?

I use short 415/416 shotgun mics indoors frequently. Sometimes side rejection is more valuable than consistent frequency response. Depends on the location and mic polar pattern and whether you can afford any low frequency rolloff, and how close you can get the mic to the subject. A great boom-op is a prerequisite else I'll break out the stubby hyper or the cardioid. Lobar still has its place on certain interiors in my opinion.

We're not supposed to use shotguns microphones indoors because of the low frequency reflection of sound from the ceiling above the boom microphone and omnidirectional pickup of low frequency reverb, right?

- What if the shotgun microphone is positioned at an angle rather then vertically so it doesn't pick up reflections along its axis from the ceiling?

- What if the low frequencies are selectively removed in post with an equalizer?

Thre problem with a shotgun indoors is that it's direcdtionality is frequency dependent due to the physics of the interference tube principle. Your idea would work if it was directional at all frequencies but unfortunately at low frequencies they are more like omnis and have poorly defined side lobes so there really aren't any off-axis nulls to put the ceiling reflections into.

Not all shotguns are created equal, pure traditional interference tubes have badly behaved lobes not good for interior, but better new mics like DPA 4017 or multicapsule array short shotguns like Sanken CS-3e are a different breed with consistant pickup patterns at all frequences. Sanken CS-3e can be used more or less anywhere. Of course these cost a bit more also.

I've read Ty's book, which was VERY helpful.

... But all this talk about shotguns has me scratching my head a wee bit.

From what I've seen and read, the MKH-416 is used indoors all the time. The Mayles brothers used it for their documentaries, almost all of which were shot indoors, AFAICR. So there has to be a way to use a short shotgun inside pretty darn effectively. No?

MOST shotguns are useful indoors when used to about 4 feet or so from the subject. Some are better than others and some are worse than others but that's a general rule. After about 4 feet shotguns a generally not the mic of choice.
That's why they have booms and other types of mics.

Don

I've read Ty's book, which was VERY helpful.

... But all this talk about shotguns has me scratching my head a wee bit.

From what I've seen and read, the MKH-416 is used indoors all the time. The Mayles brothers used it for their documentaries, almost all of which were shot indoors, AFAICR. So there has to be a way to use a short shotgun inside pretty darn effectively. No?

It depends on the acoustic qualities one is after. And 'indoors' covers a lot of ground - are we talking about an average living room, a tile bathroom, or an acoustically treated soundstage? Most shotguns sound hollow to my ears when used in a normal residential room, like speech inside a cave. Some people don't care that voices have that unnatural 'ring' to them and for a documentary may actually lead to a 'captured on the spur of the moment' feel to it. But for dramatic content, I want to hear it sounding as if I was physically present during the scene. Reverb that doesn't match the visual environment leads to a breaking of the 'suspension of disbelief' that is vital to effective storytelling, and while we hear reverb when walking in a tunnel we don't hear it sitting in our living rooms. Short guns are used a lot in ENG but a hypercardioid like the Schoeps CMC641 is usually the 'go-to' mic for dramatic interiors.

MOST shotguns are useful indoors when used to about 4 feet or so from the subject. Some are better than others and some are worse than others but that's a general rule. After about 4 feet shotguns a generally not the mic of choice.
That's why they have booms and other types of mics.

Don

4 feet! Inside! Not on my shoots.

There is no mic usable for dialog at 4 feet in a typical interior.

Regards,

Ty Ford

I've read Ty's book, which was VERY helpful.

... But all this talk about shotguns has me scratching my head a wee bit.

From what I've seen and read, the MKH-416 is used indoors all the time. The Mayles brothers used it for their documentaries, almost all of which were shot indoors, AFAICR. So there has to be a way to use a short shotgun inside pretty darn effectively. No?

1. We don't really know how much sound damping material was hung for those shots, now do we?

2. Got examples of that Mayles Bros audio?

Regards,

Ty Ford

I guess I was trying to be overly generous. :-O

I agree except maybe for moving target news stuff-course then the audio isn't that important anyway. GET THE SHOT---GET THE SHOT!!!! We'll do a VO, get the shot, get the shot!!!

Don

4 feet! Inside! Not on my shoots.

There is no mic usable for dialog at 4 feet in a typical interior.

Regards,

Ty Ford


Amen Ty.

The Maysles Bros use the ME66 btw.

The 416 hasn't troubled me yet on interiors. Well, except once but the director wasn't complying with any of my suggestions so I just shrugged it off.

Amen Ty.

The Maysles Bros use the ME66 btw.

The 416 hasn't troubled me yet on interiors. Well, except once but the director wasn't complying with any of my suggestions so I just shrugged it off.

Hello Anna,

An ME66, hmm. The thing about audio (and other things) is that you don't know what "good" is until you hear/see it. The ME66 is significantly less than the 416. If you compare the two (closer than four feet away) the difference is pretty obvious. The ME66 is pretty gritty compared to its more expensive sibling. There are a lot of ME66 shotguns in film & video departments at schools. Students use them and assume that they are OK. They are "OK", but if the 416 didn't sound better, people wouldn't use it.

Similarly, if you compare a 416 with a cmc641 hyper (or super, as Schoeps classifies the mic), you'll hear a BIG difference unless the room is tricked out.

We're shooting a piece of Duff Goldman (CharmCityCakes) this week here in Baltimore. He has a reality show on the Food Channel. We're not shooting that show, we're doing a 1-2 hour "About" piece.

In looking at their office turned set, thay have affixed about a dozen 1" thick 2'X4' Auralex panels to the ceiling to take the sting off the bounce. I was told that they also use rugs during shooting. There's some other rigging. Don't know what that's about yet.

Tricking out the room makes a big difference and a shotgun can then work pretty well. I sometimes fool myself when comparing mics in my studio. "Wow, this shotgun sounds pretty good! Oh, right, I'm listening in a RECORDING STUDIO, not a normal space. Doh!"

The top shelf shotgun mic, if you can find one, is the Schoeps CMIT.

BTW, Anna, Hopefully by this weekend I can get the Lav on the Martin guitar sample that makes it sound like a Taylor.

Regards,

Ty Ford

B and H Photo had a great article a few months back about this very thing. i was trying to locate it but the link is down now. it was talking about using a small diaphragm indoors. if i can get the link to work i will post

I think this is the article Kevin is refering to:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/find/newsLetter/Audio-Microphones-for-Boompoles.jsp

1. We don't really know how much sound damping material was hung for those shots, now do we?

2. Got examples of that Mayles Bros audio?

Regards,

Ty FordActually, my bad. It's Frederick Wiseman who, according to the book "Five Films by Frederick Wiseman" uses an MKH-416.

It had a few interesting tidbits BTW. One was that Wiseman actually does the audio on his shoots and holds the boom himself, letting someone else handle the camera.

Perhaps Wiseman has just grown comfortable with the 416, which has been around for a long time. Also, if he's been operating the boom and levels since the 1960's, he's pretty excellent at it.

The 416 hasn't troubled me yet on interiors. Well, except once but the director wasn't complying with any of my suggestions so I just shrugged it off.

That's curious. I hate the 416 indoors. As well it should; hypercardioid should be the weapon of choice in closed spaces. I got reverb up the wazoo.

I sold my 416, bought a Rode NT3 and I've never looked back.

How exactly does reverb sound? I can't seem to get any reverb in my tests with the rode videomic. Can someone post an indoor audio clip with reverb?

...
...In looking at their office turned set, thay have affixed about a dozen 1" thick 2'X4' Auralex panels to the ceiling to take the sting off the bounce. I was told that they also use rugs during shooting. There's some other rigging. Don't know what that's about yet.

Tricking out the room makes a big difference and a shotgun can then work pretty well. I sometimes fool myself when comparing mics in my studio. "Wow, this shotgun sounds pretty good! Oh, right, I'm listening in a RECORDING STUDIO, not a normal space. Doh!"

The top shelf shotgun mic, if you can find one, is the Schoeps CMIT...


The problem w/ 1" foam is that it only effects the upper mids and high frequencies. That's not an ideal way to treat the room. But, I don't see anyone bringing 2" fiberglass panels into rooms. They typically call for "sound blankets" which is very lacking as a broad band absorber.

Treating the ceilings, corners, and floors gets the reverb time under control and having some absorptive furniture like a couch is always a help.

Staying in the middle of the room and breaking up the parallel surfaces is a must...And the closer I can get that CMIT the better it's going to sound.

Again -- and let there be no doubt about it -- if you have properly tricked out the room, a 416 is no problem. There are many more people in this forum who don 't have the budget or knowledge as to how to trick out a room.

To broadly state that this person or that person uses or used a 416 (or any shotgun) for interiors is very misleading.

Attached you'll see (hopefully) a shot of the ceiling where I've been shooting. They knocked down some of the ceiling bounce by putting up 1" sheets of 2'x4' Auralex. Works pretty nicely, espescially since the ceiling is a lot higher than 8 feet. This is not a fully tricked out space, but it obviously works for their needs. You can do a lot more than this, if needed. If the ceiling were lower, for example, they'd have to work a lot harder.

In answer to Jim's complaint about 1" foam. YOU DON'T COVER THE ENTIRE ROOM WITH IT...and 1" works just fine.

To Ben; An NT3 on a boom? Who's your boom op, Hercules or Popeye? The NT3 is not a boom mic. It's a studio hypercardioid. I'm not trying to be caustic. I'm trying to be humorus. :)

My concern is that someone may read that and think sticking an NT3 on a stand 3-4 feet away from the person speaking is "good audio." It isn't.

Regards,

Ty Ford

Ty, I get what you're saying. Unfortunately I've never had the luxury of "tricking" out a room. It's usually a get in there and get this thing done kinda thing. With that said my 416 is always with me. I'm not saying they're ideal for interiors just saying they do the job. I also make sure I'm as close as possible to the people talking. Not to say I wouldn't choose a hypercardiod for interiors if I had one or if they sprung for one. That's next on my list of goodies.

I keep a rolled up piece of egg crate foam about 4x6 in my kit...it was cheap at the fabric store (we have one with lots of craft stuff too), like $20. This gets dropped under actor's feet to cancel floor reflection, held up behind actors for VO work or around objects for foley. It's not acoustic foam, so I'm sure that highly analytical ears would pick up lots of stuff the foam was missing, but it was $20. I like to keep feather comforters around too to hang off stands as sound blankets...the slight curvature of them makes the surface not bounce evenly and the feathers inside do a pretty good job of screwing up sound.

Keep in mind, that if you have the budget, the pro stuff does a much better job than my solutions, but my solutions are cheap and fit in my passat.

@Ty: Can you really hear the difference those small slabs of foam make to the sound? Or is it just something professionals do cause they're supposed to?

Ty, I get what you're saying. Unfortunately I've never had the luxury of "tricking" out a room. It's usually a get in there and get this thing done kinda thing. With that said my 416 is always with me. I'm not saying they're ideal for interiors just saying they do the job. I also make sure I'm as close as possible to the people talking. Not to say I wouldn't choose a hypercardiod for interiors if I had one or if they sprung for one. That's next on my list of goodies.

Anna,

Good choice. I have a 416 and went without a cmc641 out of ignorance and poverty for a while. They sent me one to demo and after I picked my jaw up off the floor, I found the money and went for it. Also DO get the more expensive b5D pop filter. it's worth every penny.


Regards,

Ty

I keep a rolled up piece of egg crate foam about 4x6 in my kit...it was cheap at the fabric store (we have one with lots of craft stuff too), like $20. This gets dropped under actor's feet to cancel floor reflection, held up behind actors for VO work or around objects for foley. It's not acoustic foam, so I'm sure that highly analytical ears would pick up lots of stuff the foam was missing, but it was $20. I like to keep feather comforters around too to hang off stands as sound blankets...the slight curvature of them makes the surface not bounce evenly and the feathers inside do a pretty good job of screwing up sound.

Keep in mind, that if you have the budget, the pro stuff does a much better job than my solutions, but my solutions are cheap and fit in my passat.

I'm giving myself moving blankets as an Xmas present this year. :)

If I get slack time, I may punch some grommets in them so I can hang them better.

Regards,

Ty Ford

@Ty: Can you really hear the difference those small slabs of foam make to the sound? Or is it just something professionals do cause they're supposed to?

Hello Seun,

Good question. Yes, they help. Reducing reverberant sound and noise is a thankless task that only you may be able to hear.

As with microphone placement, it's a game of inches, sometimes less. Move the mic an inch or two this way and "BING", your ears say, "Yes!"
Only you know what it sounded like just before you moved the mic.

You need really good headphones for that. I like Sony MDR7506, of course, but have moved up to the new Audio Technica ATH-M50. Very impressive.

Add just enough sound absorption to the right areas and the room gets nicer sounding. Louder speaking can push you back over that line again because the louder voices have more energy and will excite the room space more.

Putting something somewhere isn't as effective as putting something in the right place. Read up on acoustics and begin listening to more spaces as you treat them. You'll hear it. That's usually compromised by where they will let you put it because of camera angles.

Regards,

Ty Ford

...In answer to Jim's complaint about 1" foam. YOU DON'T COVER THE ENTIRE ROOM WITH IT...and 1" works just fine...

My specific complaint w/ using any thin absorption material (especially 1" foam) is that it won't effect the problem frequencies that mud up the room. You can knock down a flutter echo...but don't expect miracles. That material doesn't have the ability to change a room mode where it counts.

I definitely didn't recommend covering an entire room w/ that or any material. I just felt it is important to point out that you may hear a difference with the thin material...But, it's really not effecting the reflections that mud up the tonal quality of the sound. The ceiling to floor flutter echo can be easily delt w/ carpet on the floor.

If you are going to take time to mount an acoustic treatment on the ceiling, make sure it will do the job at the lower mids... A 1" fiberglass panel with an airspace or vertical baffles for a high ceiling invironment.

And please don't use foam around hot lights. It's a serious smoke & fire hazard.

To Ben; An NT3 on a boom? Who's your boom op, Hercules or Popeye? The NT3 is not a boom mic. It's a studio hypercardioid. I'm not trying to be caustic. I'm trying to be humorus. :)

My concern is that someone may read that and think sticking an NT3 on a stand 3-4 feet away from the person speaking is "good audio." It isn't.


In smallbudget speak, the NT3 is a fantastic boom mic. But that's also because it's a great VO mic, and a great studio mic. For the recording professional it obviously won't do, you guys have as many mics as I have pencils.

Not sure what "good audio" is anymore, but for a while I thought it meant "audio that sounds good." :) Watch "I'm With Cupid" or "The Dorm" on my website, all done with an NT3 on a boom...you might be surprised.

For the recording professional it obviously won't do, you guys have as many mics as I have pencils.

There is a reason for this. Simply put, a single microphone doesn't work in every situation. That's what Ty and others have been trying to point out in this thread. The key is to learn your microphone. Once you do that, you can decide when that mic is the wrong mic for the job. There is no magic to it, you simply have to try them out and learn from your mistakes, or take the advice of seasoned mixers who have been there and done it already.

Ty's point was not that the NT3 wouldn't work, but it's a very heavy microphone and booming with it means you better have strong arms. Recently I helped a mixer on a TV project where he had a Sennheiser 816 long shotgun. The 816 is a beast! We had several wide scenes where I had to boom using it, and let me tell you it was no easy chore because it is so heavy, but it was the only way to get decent audio from the boom.

Wayne

Good question. Yes, they help. Reducing reverberant sound and noise is a thankless task that only you may be able to hear.
But ... some would say that a noise that people can't hear is not noise.

With all due respect, that's a slackard's response.

If you can't hear it then it's not a problem for you. If I can, or think I can do it better some other way. I have to try it and see.

Regards,

Ty Ford

I always think of it as "Anything you can hear, I can hear better".

Ty, I had a nightmare of a shoot yesterday. Remember the 416 comment I made, well scratch that. They hired a camera guy who rented the audio package, I wasn't using my own and I wasn't consulted, and we shot in a very live apartment with a 416.

I was really upset and had nothing to help with the echo. It wasn't super horrible, it was just there. Y'all know what I'm saying.

Why would a camera guy rent sound gear when they're hiring a sound person?

Oh and forget treating the walls, I would've been shot or drawn and quartered.

Sound blankets? No way

Anna,

I feel your pain. :)

Last week teh shooter kept going out for Broll with the camera mic and not switching back (and not telling me), so I had to do the "Huh? Wait a minute!" thing with him saying, "It's probably your cable, man."

As I flipped the monitor switch around on the 442 I heard this far away sound...oh, hey, it was you switching to camer mic. Wann'a switch back to line inputs, MAN?" :)

To any shooters reading this. Work is NOT a one way street. They didn't hire a PA, so I'm being a nice guy and helping him load in, set up and load out all of his camera and lighting gear.

What do I get? Barely an "uh, thanks" and he goes deaf on me while I'm three feet away from him asking him a question, pretending doesn't hear me. And then flat out not telling me when he messes with the audio inputs on his camera.

Thanks for letting me vent.

BTW, he probably used his sound gear cause he could charge them for it and make a few more bucks for himself, or because he got it really cheap and marked it up.

Ty Ford

Ah Ty, been there. Worked with this one camera dude who ended up being a great guy, love him to pieces, but completely left me hanging in one shoot. He didn't give me a second to calibrate and just ran with the project. This was during a live event so it was a you get what you get type thing. Took me 20 minutes to figure out what happened instead of the initial 5 just 'cause I had to troubleshoot WHILE he was shooting.

The rental house recommended the audio setup. ha ha. Nuff said. Capturing-wise I had to deal with the full spectrum, from whispers to screams all in one shot. It was challenging working with that mic. The screams were bouncing off the walls.

All that on an FP-33 mixer with those annoyingly delayed analog meters (I'm spoiled with the SD) into an HVX. I was crying by mid-shoot. It's been a long time since I used an FP-33.