Hi. I'm making a low budget film later this summer and i need to know what kind of microphone would work best with a DV camera. I've used a cheapo omni-directional thing in the past and the sound wasn't too great. Unfortunately, i know nothing at all about mics so any help would be greatly appreciated.
― Dom, Sunday, 18 July 2004 23:04 (twenty-one years ago)
Yeah, you'll want a cardioid or hyper-cardioid mic. All that means is that your pickup pattern (the response of the mic relative to sound source) will be highly biased towards only what the mic is directly pointed at.
Depending on your model of camera, you may need various converters, since most nice mics tend to have XLR connectors on the end. Unless you're using a higher-end DV camera, chances are that your mic in on the camera is an 1/8" input, so that means you need something to go from XLR to 1/8".
Some advice as far as what to do with the mic - get a nice lacrosse stick - the longest you can find. Preferrably titanium or something equivalently strong and light. Use that as your boom. You'll need to either really tape the mic to the boom well enough not to get any handling noise, or have it in an elastic mount (you can make one yourself with a frame and some rubber bands). Make certain to give a few inches of slack between the mic cable connector and then tape down most of the cable down the length of the boom - this will minimize any possibility of cable shuffling noises being transmitted back to the tape.
Make certain to watch your levels and don't let them overload, cause if they do, there's not much you can do about it. Don't record too low, either - rehearse your lines beforehand so that you know where to put the mic and get the sound peaking as comfortably close as you're willing to go to the top w/o hitting it. Your camera might have an on-board mic attenuator, which comes in handy if things are really loud.
Record a buzz track - it'll make life much easier in editing.
And for godsakes, make certain someone is monitoring the sound with headphones. If you're directing and there's no one else to do it, okay. But it's better if someone can just pay attention to the sound quality and nothing else.
Anything else?
― Girolamo Savonarola, Monday, 19 July 2004 01:38 (twenty-one years ago)
Re: the lacrosse stick, it may be obvious, but make certain to take the head off of it first.
― Girolamo Savonarola, Monday, 19 July 2004 01:39 (twenty-one years ago)
Sennheiser offers a number of cheapo mics that're of half-decent quality. Spend money on a shock mount (it's worth it; there's an awful lot of camera noise produced by most DV cammys, and if you're /really/ looking for a pro sound, I'd rent an 8x2 mixer and DAT or CD-R, and mix-back the sound later. Nix on the lax stick, nix on the fishing pole mounts: if anything just hide the mic out of camera range.`
― j e r e m y (x Jeremy), Monday, 19 July 2004 11:33 (twenty-one years ago)
you must keep the microphone away from thee camera; your camera is not designed to run silent with a shotgun hard mounted to the camera; the difference between horseshit low-b films and not horseshit low-b films is always audio. get someone who knows what they're doing
― TheRealJMod (TheRealJMod), Monday, 19 July 2004 14:28 (twenty-one years ago)