S o u n d

[redlum]

I dont know how long I've spent searching for audio solutions, which mic, XLR adapters, condensor, directional, gun mic. And every time I come to the conclusion: **** , yeah that might be good, but its a lot of money to spend on **** or limited improvement.

So can anyone just tell what is the best thing to do, cause I'm filming a short soon, and all I want is nice clear dialogue.

I have a Canon XM2, and a minidisc recorder, and around ?100 that I'd LIKE to spend. Everyone says Sennheiser but that sounds pretty complicated given the XLR adaptors and seperate power sources that are most likely needed. I just want a true budget solution, that's gonna give me some recognisable improvements. Or does anyone have any experience with Canon's accessory shoe mic, the DM-50. What do the rest of you do?

Hope this thread helps some other people out too.

[rumaDAje]

Hi,
Sennheiser are IMHO good microphones, and AFAIK not for all of them are extra powersupplies needed. I think most shops that sell those microphones will also sell pieces with jackplugs on one side and XLR on the other, so I actually don't see the problem with Sennheisers(exept maybe their price, but they're worth it)

[GREATwarEAGLE]

Lavaliers?

[MattEBoy]

It's not considered a 'film' microphone, but the AKG C1000 is a great mic for dialogue. Stick it on a fishpole and you're sorted. Powered by a 9v battery, XLR straight to the cam/minidisc. Under ?100 too. Worth checking out.

[redlum]

That mic looks pretty cool. What do I need to get to hook it upto the XM2 minijack, or a minidisc?

thanks for your help.

[noddy754]

I'm not an expert but I've researched this quite a lot, I hope I can give you some good advice and learn something in the process.

If you have only ?100 to spend I would definitely recommend renting equipment rather than buying. Otherwise your sound will leave a lot to be desired and you'll wish you'd hired some decent equipment. If you really want to spend ?100 on buying sound recording equipment, spend it on a decent pair of headphones. A basic sound kit consists of:

Sennheiser MKH 416 short shotgun microphone - this is an industry standard microphone, although that doesn't mean it's the best microphone to use in all situations... but it's a good all-rounder.
Boom pole - cheap ones creak and give the operator armache because they're made of heavy aluminium rather than lightweight carbon fibre.
Rycote Softie windhshield & shock mount - without a windshield, a slight breeze will render sound recording impossible. Without the shock mount, boom handling noise will be audible.
Mixer - one with a good microphone preamp. Apparently the preamps on camcorders, MD recorders and even professional DAT recorders aren't up to much. Also important is a clear and accurate meter. The SQN 4S is an industry standard portable mixer often used in TV, but has more channels than you need (4) and has OK preamps rather than excellent ones. I've read good things about the Sound Devices MixPre, which is much cheaper and has excellent preamps. It might be harder to find than the SQN though. Alternatively you could use a console-style mixer, unless you only have 1 person to operate the boom and the mixer. And consoles are, of course, less portable than portable mixers. The mixer also provides phantom power to the microphone, and a headphone output for monitoring the sound.
Decent headphones (Beyer DT100, Beyer DT250, Sennheiser HD25, Sennheiser HD280, Sony MDR-7506 etc).
Interconnecting cables.

I haven't included lav mics because these don't sound as good as a boom mic and should not be used unless there's no way a boom or plant mic can be used.

The line level output from the mixer could go into the camcorder or the MD - I doubt the MD would offer any improvement in sound quality though (it might even be worse due to the compression), so the camcorder would be preferable for convenience. I don't know if the line inputs on the XM2 are any good, but if they're not, you might want to record the sound onto a DAT such as a Tascam DA-P1 or HHB Portadat. Alternatively you could hire a Nagra which is an analog tape recorder which even has decent mic preamps built in, so you could do without a mixer.

Don't bother buying camera-mount mics unless you're shooting a fly on the wall documentary single-handed. The Sennheiser ME66/K6 is a good mic for camera mount use.

I hope that helps. I'd like to hear any constructive criticism of what I've written and if you have any more questions, I'll gladly attempt to answer them.

[Alex]

I disagree about your assesment of lav mikes.

But the bigger issue is that XLR rules. No ifs and or buts. It's the only audio cabling system that doesn't care whether you are running 10 feet of cable or 300 feet of cable.