Sound recording.

[artie]

I am about to embark on a new mission, recording a short series of tutorial videos for a non wood related club I attend.

I have a canon DSLR which I believe is more than up to handling the video end. Since I discovered that the TV series 24 was shot exclusively with DSLR I am confident it can handle this.

My model does not record sound however, and before you all shout in unison "spend some cash and get a better one" I am informed that even ones that have sound recording capability are pretty pathetic with the on board mic.

So I intend staying with my existing camera with which I am somewhat familiar and purchase a separate sound recording device.

Has anyone any suggestion, google searches only turn up secret recording and spy devices which may not have the acoustic depth I would like.

 

[AndyT]

I don't have detailed knowledge of it as a user but I am reliably informed that a Zoom H6 is the tool of choice for that sort of job. It's a compact little box which comes with two swappable microphone modules and four more inputs so you can record up to six channels. It records in CD quality sound on to SD cards. You can mount it onto a hot shoe fitting on a camera.

 

[Sporky McGuffin]

I've used the Zoom H4 for similar applications and it does a very decent job.

How are you planning on ensuring the sound and video are synchronised?

 

[Eric The Viking]

As an ex-sound engineer I agree with AndyT. It's a good choice.

Make a clapperboard. Use it at the beginning and end of each take without fail, or risk the tedium of trying to do lip-sync by eye. I used to sync-up stuff professionally and it's neither fun nor easy, and it's made worse by modern digital systems, because of time domain compression.

Make sure you have suitable editing software, as you do need to sync up everything afterwards. My weapon of choice is Sony Vegas, but it's not cheap. I'm experimenting with Blender on Linux at the moment as I've ditched Microsoft.

Have some money in the budget for decent mics too. I'd recommend Sony ECM77s or similar if you are happy using personals. They're cabled, but very reliable and run off AA batteries for ages.

It's easier if you can use timecode properly and jam-sync either camera or recorder (clapperboards _should_ become unnecessary over an 8-hour period, but best to sync every four hours or so of rehearse-record). My 6D only has rudimentary timecode support, a 5D may be better -- which SLR is it? Hang on -- you said yours can't do sound at all??? Does it have any timecode capability either? How _are_ you going to sync it up? You WILL need a clapperboard! Hand claps in vision are a substitute, but for emergencies only.

Bear in mind also that, unless you have a VERY expensive lens, you probably can't zoom during a take. This isn't as bad as it sounds, but it's easy to forget, touch the zoom ring and ruin something. It's because stills zooms usually don't 'track' to save cost - the focus physically shifts in and out as you zoom. A stills photographer usually isn't aware of this because the camera's autofocusing in real time, but this involves focus hunting, and fast focusing technology that isn't available when shooting video (on mine because the mirror is up).

It's different for non-SLR cameras, and proper video lenses don't have the problem (and are really expensive as a consequence). Good old 35mm zooms didn't either (and were also expensive if any good). Just be aware of the limitations. It's true that a lot of movies are shot on 5Ds and so on, but with a great deal of ancilliary kit, and NOT (usually) with bog standard stills zoom lenses (primes certainly).

 

[petermillard]

Is this a fun side-project/favour for the club, or a 'for money' job, 'cos you could be getting into a decent chunk of change on these recommendations - a zoom H6 & EMC77 combo will set you back the thick end of £500, and you'll need a mic for each person in shot who's audio you want to record if you're using lavs. No question it would be a very flexible system producing high quality audio, but just the time code/audio synching/ clapperboards etc... that ETV mentions above would be enough to to put me off, personally.

FWIW the less frivolous end of YouTube seems to favour a Canon DSLR of some flavour and an external mic; a basic new Canon D100 body and a Rode VideoMic Pro would set you back ~ £425, which may be a simpler, cheaper alternative, assuming your existing lenses would work OK.

Something to think about, perhaps??

HTH Pete

 

[Eric The Viking]

Pete is right.

If you aren't dead set on using your existing camera, getting something else that can do what you need is a much better choice. It doesn't need to be an SLR either, these days. Daughter #1 has a Canon G12 that has pretty good video performance, although no mic input, but there's a lot of similar stuff out there. For good results you need:

-- manual focus (or at least the ability to set focus and have it stay put)
-- the ability to control the lens aperture and effective shutter speed
-- MANUAL sound level control (volume), and a socket to plug sound sources into.

All else is frivolity.

I disagree with Pete about clapperboards - it's not hard to do, but you must be disciplined in marking the beginning and/or end of each shot, otherwise syncing-up is a PITA, and it will take a bit longer to edit.

It's the discipline thing that's hard in an amateur environment usually. If you have a keen person willing to act as a production assistant, that's the role to log the shots as you record them, and do the clapperboard ("heresy" in the industry, but it's ideal to have one person doing both).

The better you document what you record as you go along, the easier the editing is and you'll quickly notice if you've forgotten to film something, DAMHIK!

 

[artie]

Thanks guys some very good info there. So rather than do the multiple quote thing, I collectively thank you all and reply that I had figured to use a clapper board of some description, but hadn't thought about using it at the end of a "scene"

The H6 I thought a tad expensive for what I have in mind. It will be just me standing reasonably stationary, waffling on.

Maybe some movement of my limbs as I show something.

Looking at the price of good sound gear last night after I read the first replies, I myself was thinking more towards a low end Cam corder.

I have decided to start the ball rolling using only my mobile phone. To see if in fact if I can coherently express myself in a way which others could bear to watch. If I find I am not up to the task, only my time will be wasted.

Should it turn out bearable I can repeat with better gear.

Bearing in mind that I probably won't be nominated for any awards and the object is to get some basic information across in a clear manner, do any of you have in mind a "budget" machine.

 

[Eric The Viking]

There was another thread involving sound on a mobile 'phone (for video).

Naively, I suggested using a better mic with Bluetooth. It turns out this is harder to make happen than I thought, although it IS possible with some models of Android phone (and is a jolly good approach, as it's effectively a poor man's radio mic).

If you use the mic. on the phone, you may have problems: unless you use a quiet and VERY damped room (heavy curtains, soft furnishings and a thick carpet) and set up so that the camera is off-centre in the room (on any major axis - height, width and length), and get to within about three to five feet of it, expect the sound to be quite boxy and probably unclear. Technology won't fix this problem, it's primarily acoustic. If you can wear a mic somehow, things will be much better. Phone mics aren't directional in any useful way*.

E.

* some are noise cancelling, but that only works when you're holding it to an ear.

 

[Alexam]

In the old days (really old days) we used to film with Super 8 and 16mm using reel to reel tape recorders and rifle mikes. Then we would sync the film with the sound. The fun came when editing as the sound and film frames were several frame apart, so often used cut-away shots. I still have the camera and several tape recorders, but no idea why I am holding on to them. AS an old sound man Eric, you may recall the Farnell-Tandberg system, using the Model 11 Half track portable reel to reel with tone generator. I also have the Sony TC 630 and 377 and the last one bought was the Phillips N4422 fully variable speed reel to reel recorder. Only used that for a few months before our club packed up and the hobby slowed right down. Great fun whilst it lasted.

Must try and get rid of the loft stuff soon.

Alex

 

[artie]

it IS possible with some models of Android phone (and is a jolly good approach, as it's effectively a poor man's radio mic).

Well mine is an android afaik so that might be worth exploring.

Must try and get rid of the loft stuff soon.

We were discussing this at the model car club the other night, how the latest very expensive, cutting edge technology become worthless cobweb hangers all too soon.

 

[Eric The Viking]

In the old days (really old days) we used to film with Super 8 and 16mm using reel to reel tape recorders and rifle mikes. Then we would sync the film with the sound. The fun came when editing as the sound and film frames were several frame apart, so often used cut-away shots. I still have the camera and several tape recorders, but no idea why I am holding on to them. AS an old sound man Eric, you may recall the Farnell-Tandberg system, using the Model 11 Half track portable reel to reel with tone generator. I also have the Sony TC 630 and 377 and the last one bought was the Phillips N4422 fully variable speed reel to reel recorder. Only used that for a few months before our club packed up and the hobby slowed right down. Great fun whilst it lasted.

I used to lug one of these about:

And these:

That IV-S is one of the last ones made, with the timecode module just visible tucked under the front.

The Nagra 3 (top) used Pilotone, which for UK TV was a 50Hz, crystal-generated signal, recorded on the tape. The camera had a similar crystal so that its frame rate was accurate and consistent. The audio tapes were transferred to 16mm "sepmag" sprocketed tape, with the recorder locked to the pilotone on the Nagra tapes. So you ended up with a frame of picture matching a "frame" of audio, on the same sized stock. Film editors could run both sound and picture through the same machinery.

Film sound was almost never* on the same physical stock as the pictures, either until the showprints were made for cinema distribution, or it was transferred to videotape, for TV transmission. If TV transmission was straight off film (no videotape) then it was almost always two separate pieces of stock - picture and sound, locked together in sync.

Occasionally you see a BBC film leader on TV, usually when they want to pretend something is film in a comedy. If there's a white St. Andrew's cross visible for a split second at the start, that's the frame we used to use for synching sound and picture together. There was also a blip of 1kHz tone on the soundtrack, as "4" on the leader (the countdown) came up. This allowed the sound supervisor to instantly check sound and pictures were correctly in synch, before fading anything up.

Happy days.

E.

*TV news was the only exception, using "commag" which was reversal stock (Ektachrome 160T usually), with a magnetic stripe. The sound recordist had to stay physically wired to the camera and had a box that was basically a tape recorder with everything except the motors and the tape in it:

The yellow spot meant the meter wasn't considered trustworthy enough by BBC Engineering department !

News footage was usually cut straight from the camera. It was normal for the sound cuts to lead the picture awkwardly, and for there to be large gaps (which we filled live on-air from sound effects discs). I've done a lot of live news transmissions where the editor would come in and say "we need some traffic at the start, and a small crowd at 342ft" You'd cue up the discs and he'd tap you on the shoulder at the right moment... all live, of course.

 

[Alexam]

That's great. We couldnt afford the professional Nagra equipment, but I paid arounf £600 for the Tandberg stuff, which was high for amateurs then. We could drool a little about Nagra.

 

[Eric The Viking]

That's great. We couldn't afford the professional Nagra equipment, but I paid arounf £600 for the Tandberg stuff, which was high for amateurs then. We could drool a little about Nagra.

12 D-size batteries (U2s in old money). Having one over your shoulder for more than 20 minutes at a time was torture. If you see pics of the Hollywood people, they all have little carts to carry the kit round on! It was utterly bomb proof though - I never heard of one going faulty in the field.

E.

PS: forgot to say, if you look closely both those machines have four heads. That's an erase head followed by the pilotone or timecode head, then record then the replay. The old one is mono, full-width with pilotone, the newer one is twin-track (for stereo) with a separate centre track for timecode. Pilotone was recorded under the audio, in the same space (well in the middle actually), not a separate track.

 

[petermillard]

I disagree with Pete about clapperboards - it's not hard to do, but you must be disciplined in marking the beginning and/or end of each shot, otherwise syncing-up is a PITA, and it will take a bit longer to edit. It's the discipline thing that's hard in an amateur environment usually...

It was that level of discipline I was thinking of that would put me off, frankly; on a set where you're responsible for the production, direction, scripting, cameras, and lighting there's enough to have to think about without having to handle a separate sound track for each of the 'talent' - and doubly so when you don't have an engineering department to put yellow stickers on things for you, lol!

It sounds more like a 'talking head across a table' type of production though, so separate audio might be worth considering with something simpler like a mobile phone or a more basic Zoom?? FWIW I fiddled about with some bits of video for YouTube earlier in the year, and ended up shooting on my phone as it was easier; sound quality was an issue, and I tried several cheap external microphones to make things better. Far and away the best in terms of volume was something called an iMicrophone from Edutige - there are a few versions available, but the difference was quite stark. However, it also picked up a lot of room noise (echoey workshop) that proved to be harder to filter out and I ended up just using the built-in mic and applying filters in iMovie to make things more acceptable; as ETV says, it's primarily an acoustic problem that clever tech can't really fix, but I decided that whilst there was certainly room for improvement on the sound, I could live with it for what I was doing - have a listen and decide for yourself:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fn-srPxZzbc

There's a noticeable difference in sound quality between the opening shot and the second (overhead) shot, and that's simply down to being that much closer to the mic in the overhead.

Bearing in mind that I probably won't be nominated for any awards and the object is to get some basic information across in a clear manner, do any of you have in mind a "budget" machine.

Quick tip: when you're shooting a 'try out' on your phone, reverse the cameras so the screen is facing you - the quality won't be anything like as good as it's the 'selfie' camera you're using but it's much easier to frame the shot when you can see yourself!

If you decide to get serious about it, then the Canon D700 isn't much more money than the entry-level D100 I mentioned earlier in the thread (£300-ish vs £280) and has the advantage of an articulated screen; and the Rode VideoMic or VideoMic Pro is very popular amongst YouTubers - simple, effective and self-contained. Other than that, there's a ton of good hardware out there that will do the job, it's all down to what you want to produce, and how 'good' you expect it to be.

HTH Pete

 

[Eric The Viking]

On room acoustics, Google "eigentones". Basically it's the resonances between parallel surfaces in a room - fundamental plus harmonics. If you can arrange both the speaker and the mics to not be in resonant places - so make sure both are off-centre and not be on 1/3 or 1/4 of any major axis (length width AND height), you can minimise the 'boxy' sound quite noticeably.

When assessing room acoustics, for outside broadcasts, but more usefully for PA applications, I always used to pace out the obvious dimensions, then pace to the exact centre of whichever axis and make a single, loud handclap. The reverberation and decay tell you a great deal about the nature of the acoustic and any related issues.

We had a studio control room once that 'rang' - something in the middle of the audio spectrum sounded funny and several engineers got annoyed by it. One of my colleagues spotted it - there was a CO2 fire extinguisher hung up on the wall by the door. It rang like a bell. In fact, if you had a good ear, you could stand a few feet away and whistle at it (at the right pitch), and it would ring right back at you (I can't even get our dinner bell to do that - it's from an old inshore patrol craft). Fix: glue a patch of rubber sheet round the outside to damp it down.

 

[MIGNAL]

I have a Zoom H2 which is very decent sound quality for such a portable recorder. Tascam do a similar one that is even cheaper, around half the price at £65. Plenty of options.

 

[artie]

Amazing, the info coming out, very glad I started this thread.

 

[Alexam]

.......... and here we are 16 months later and I still have done nothing with my Braun Nino S800 camera and Farnell Tandberg sound equipment. Two of my other tape recorders found new homes but the big one with the Cresta sync attached controls is still with me. Really must move that on to a good home.

Is there much Super 8 being used these days?

Malcolm

 

[Eric The Viking]

I very much doubt you can still get the stock.

One of our clients is a TV and features production company. They edited their last production on a Steenbeck sometime around 1994, and shot their last production on super 16 in 1998. Everything since has been digitally shot and edited.

I've been told there has been a "retro" following for 9.5mm (in France, where else?), and occasionally you see "art house" stuff done on a 16mm format, but even Hollywood rarely if ever uses 35mm nowadays (yes, there are a few directors, but it's very unusual). There can hardly be enough volume to keep a manufacturing plant going for 35mm, let alone the amateur formats.

I regret the passing of Kodachrome, but otherwise, it's now reasonable to say that digits surpass anything we did on ordinary film formats. Good quality lenses intended for film still have a life, but otherwise I think it's dead.

I use 3rd party video-tuned firmware in my Canon SLR ("Magic Lantern"), and the results it's capable of are quite astounding. Mine is constrained by some parts of the hardware, but the more professional bodies, such as the 5D III, can really create stunning imagery, including high dynamic range recordings (using pairs of frames).

In the early 1980s, BBC Bristol had at least twenty cutting rooms going full time. We used to run our dubbing theatre seven days a week, for twelve hour days, and the transfer suite (taped sound to sepmag) kept even longer hours. The BBC then owned Ealing studios (the hub of BBC film operations), and it had so many flim crews based there that if they all came home at once there was nowhere to put the vehicles!

All gone now, although Ealing, as a studio and production centre, prospers in private ownership. Sadly my favourite site, Lime Grove is now a housing estate.

 

[petermillard]

I very much doubt you can still get the stock...

There's been a quite a resurgence of Super 8 amongst the arty / indie crowd; Kodak introduced a new Super 8 camera at CES last year, and committed to re-introducing Super 8 film stock, which is pretty widely available - a quick google search shows Amazon carries it, amongst others.

Bit pricey, mind.

HTH, Pete