Sound setup - Mikes and Levels
 

Hi everyone,

I have a shoot coming up soon with an EX1. We're shooting outdoors on a desert with sennheiser MKH-416 as our boom mike. We've been trying to figure out the best settings for the recording setup.

Should we go with the combination of both the onboard mike and the 416 with the levels adjusted in the camera? Would that give us greater range and depth? If so, what kind of levels should we be looking at. Like I said, we're shooting outdoors and inside a car with a little dialogue. Obviously the levels change with each scene but a rough guide would be great!

Or is it just better to plug in the 416 by its own?

Hopefully the wind isn't strong on the day!

The best procedure is to set up one mike to both channels. Set one channel low and the other channel hi. That way, you've got both ends covered in case some audio is too low or too hi. The EX1 has a fairly well designed ALC, but, I much prefer manual levels set up as I described above.

Alex,
I've been recording audio for film and video for about the past 40 years, and I definitely DO NOT recommend ALC (automatic level control) recording. I always record manually. Auto recording will only bring up the background noise, which you do not want.

You have an excellent mic in the Sein 416. Hollywood sound recordists have used this mic for decades. I owned one myself once before purchasing my Schoeps CM4. Hopefully you have a fishpole to mount the 416 on. And, hopefully, you have an effective windscreen for the mic.

Windscreens . . 416 windscreen | B&H Photo Video

Thank you Brian. Thank you Bill.

We've got a pretty effective wind sock and boom pole kit as well.

Bill just to clarify what you meant. Did you mean connecting the mike to both Audio In channel 1 and 2? That would require a split XLR plug or did you just mean to plug it into one and set up the settings in camera for both hi and low channels?

I'm going through the manual now and I remember seeing the section where it tells you how to setup what you've mentioned but can't find it now.

A bit more detail on that would be great :)

Thanks,
Alex

I'm not Bill (but I did play Bill on TV once;-) but plug the mic into the XLR on the camera and set the channel setting to Channel 1/2-that way the audio goes to both channels. Go into your audio menu screen and seperate the channels-then set one channel to a level of say -6db and the other channel to say -18db. That way you get the best of both worlds to work with.
HTHs

Don's on top of things, as usual

Thanks guys.