Recording Location Sound
With all of the attention and time that’s spent on shooting great footage, recording quality sound is often overlooked. A questionable visual shot here or there in your finished project will likely be unnoticed and just merge into the flow of the story- IF you have an excellent soundtrack that holds the edit together and makes great shots and average shots all flow together into a flawless final masterpiece. Great location sound is the biggest secret to great looking footage. Here are a few tips on recording location sound.
1. Direct vs. Reflected Sound
Sound that reaches your ears directly from the sound source is called direct sound. Sound that bounces off another surface before it reaches your ears is called reflected sound. We want direct sound to do this get the mic close to your subject. Even more important in rooms with hard surfaces like glass and hardwood floors.
2. Always wear headphones.
Comfortable, closed ear headphones with a decent sound level are an absolute must for evaluating your location audio as you shoot. Background noises that you don’t notice in the room can really jump out on a recorded track. Listen to your audio through headphones, and you’re hearing what the microphone hears. Watch out for rustling lav mics, wind noise, hum or buzz, and distortion. You cannot remove these sounds later.
3. Common production audio problems.
Here are some common location audio problems and some possible solutions:
- Unwanted background sound.
Kill the unwanted sound (unless it’s a dog, then just sedate it). I mean unplug the fridge, air conditioner, etc. or shoot somewhere else.
- Speech unintelligible due to too high a reflected/direct sound ratio.
Get the mic close to the talent.
- Recording too low– bad signal/noise ratio.
Use a higher manual record level or switch to AGC. (Auto Gain Control)
- Recording distorted.
Use a lower manual level or switch to AGC.
- Wind noise.
Use a heavy-duty windscreen.
- Radio mike dropouts.
Use a UHF, true diversity wireless or a hardwired mic.
- Buzz or hum in the signal.
If you’re using a reference monitor, unplug your camcorder from AC and use batteries (could be a ground loop). If that doesn’t fix it unplug the S-Video cable from your monitor, you may need to shoot with your flipout once you’ve got your shot set up. Troubleshoot–it’s a bad cable, bad mic, bad connection, or you’ve run your audio cables alongside AC cables.
Finally
Trust your ears on the set if it sounds good through your headphones, clean and intelligible with low background sound, noise, buzz or hum, it is good!
