From: "Graham Evans"
> I am sorry this is all theoretical rather than experimental at this
> stage, but I need to really get the scenario though out ahead of
> equipment purchase. So thanks for the tip on wind protection Walter - I=
> had actually looked at the Rycote product and I will look at Dan Dugan's=
> setup too. I am still not sure on whether I will diy the suspension and=
> wind-protection or buy ready-made.
Bought new Rycote or Sennheiser stuff like I use is way way expensive.
Where I'm using that it came off lots of watching ebay. Even if you
don't use that stuff, study how it's designed, you can learn a lot about
practical wind protection and suspension from that.
For the small lavs usually just fairly simple covers are used. Most of
the time you don't use them in strong wind.
There is nothing wrong with doing theory first. I usually won't start
something until I've thought it all the way through. Can save a lot of
hassle and expense to do that. Though if it's something that I can test
with my existing equipment I'll get out and try that.
> Now the following is bearing in mind that I am very interested in
> Walter's idea of the steadicam head - I can see why that might work well=
> in my situation although it will require me to have an assistant as I am=
> intending on doing the interviewing myself. The steadicam head however
> may be the ideal way for me to record the kangaroo hopping noise while I=
> have my friend lure the kangaroo along. And yes I had thought of the
> human footsteps issue in this recording. I thought if maybe we were
> barefoot on soft sand. My friend's property where the human oriented
> kangaroos live has lots of sandy tracks.
If you stick with the lower end mics that several have suggested, you
may just get by on the footstep issue. But, I know that my SASS/MKH20
would not let you off so easy. It can be a problem with it picking up my
quiet breathing when doing ambiance in a quiet site. And so much as
shifting weight on my feet will record. Though if your interview site is
not all that quiet gain could be turned down to help.
Note I used steadicam as I knew folks would know that sort of idea. But
I expect the mic could be held and moved with something much simpler. If
I could somehow levitate to eliminate the footsteps I could just move
along holding the SASS in my hand. Or use traditional boom techniques
but with the wide pickup of a ambiance mic. Adjust the distance from the
interview to balance ambiance with the interview.
When working with stereo and moving the mic use the same sort of rule of
movement as working video. Smooth pans, not swinging rapidly, and so on.
> - bearing in mind that each voice will be loud only on its own recording=
> station and the ambience will be loud only on the ambient station.
I'd not count on that. For instance, in this recording, the coyotes are
over 1/4 mile away and the frogs are up to 100 yards away, and none
closer than 100':
http://naturerecordist.home.mindspring.com/2004D005-003.mp3
Or this one, the frogs are 100+ yards away, the owl 1/4 mile or more:
http://naturerecordist.home.mindspring.com/2004D003-020.mp3
With noisier mics you won't get that kind of reach, but still you'd have
to have the interviews a long way from the ambiance mic to keep it separate=
.
> Allen and Walter I realise why you're naturally thinking to record the
> voices in a studio and thereby have three pure sound sources to mix.
> That would be the precision engineers way an ensure a reliable result. =
> But do you think it will be possible to be a bit more of a chaos
> magician and make the outdoor/simultaneous recording setup work? That
> has a type of purity too - although not of sound sources.
>
> what do you think?
I think it will be a tall order to mix more than one mic that's
recording the same ambiance from different locations and end up with a
good stereo field. Even recording at completely different locations and
mixing is a problem. At minimum it's sure going to blur the quality of
the stereo field. Both time of arrival and phase will be compromised
some. There are reasons why it's usually done with studio voices. Or in
one mic take.
Note that the quality of the ambiance is that it's mostly quiet. The
quiet part is almost more important than the occasional louder call,
etc. Good ambiance recordings have fine details all the way down to
inaudability. That's what makes it tough to record.
Any kind of sync is probably going to have some phase problems. Sound in
the outdoors arrives by many paths, lots of reflection and so on, making
the timing variable. It's a delicate balance and is what defines the
listening space of the stereo field. It defines the listener's location.
By mixing some ambiance from three different locations you will blur
where the listener is located. Simple delay sync is not going to help that.
It is this multipath aspect of outdoor sound that I try to simplify when
I put the mic 17' up on a stand. A lot of the ground effects are
eliminated at that height. It helps to bring out the reflections from a
wider area, not as much emphasis on the things close to the mic.
This aspect is also why a single take record of interviews and ambiance
is going to sound most natural. Even doing the interview in studio won't
sound the same as it won't have the natural reflections of the ambiance
location. Listen to this one and notice how much of the long toad call
is reflections, particularly off the trees of the woods to the right:
http://naturerecordist.home.mindspring.com/2004D005-001.mp3
(Not the best example but all I have online right now)
This may all seem to fly in the face of stereo setups that are spaced
out. But they are carefully spaced out in a specific pattern that
enhances some aspects of the stereo field. A interview format simply
won't maintain that kind of alignment unless done with a single mic
setup, probably a near coincident or coincident one. I can also
visualize something like one of the large arrays Rich plays with being
used and moving the mix as the people walk through the array. But that's
not going to be cheap in mic or recorder costs.
Please note that there is another view. Nearly all of your audience is
not going to know how to judge stereo. After all they think a bunch of
close mic mono recordings panned around is a stereo recording of music.
So you are unlikely to hear much technical complaint. What you may still
hear from some is it does not sound natural though they won't know why.
By making the interviews pretty loud relative to the ambiance it might
work fine even though it's technically way off. Folks will mostly just
listen to the voices and be barely aware of the ambiance.
You need to get out and try recording some ambiance, a lot of this is
much more understandable once you try it. Start with whatever equipment
you can come up with, even if it's not what you will use you will learn
a lot.
Walt
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