“Sound is half of video”. A common saying, but inaccurate in a way.
“Video with poor sound is rubbish, poor video with good sound is acceptable, both done well is ideal”.
There you go, that’s closer.
My gear…….well no, not even close. Only some of the gear used by VJAM, a local event hosting business. If they “lose” a couple of Oktava 012’s one day, “I know nothing” :).
Talk to any movie maker and they will tell you, sound is the linchpin their vision hangs on. Get any part of the whole process wrong and all of it suffers, but start with sound or suffer the most later. There is a reason sound hangs on longer than vision when there is a signal problem with a broadcast. It is designed to.
My Zoom H5 with X/Y and Shotgun with mid/side stereo capsules provide a good base, along with the H1n (X/Y) as support, but for full problem solving capabilities, other mics are needed.
I have several (different) small shotgun mics for booming (Neewer, Boya, Rode), but what about large groups or paired interviews?
Small diaphragm condensers are a good choice here and can employed in a variety of patterns. The junior section of the school I work for use Rode M5’s as standard tools for choirs and Oktava 012’s are used by our major event partner.
The M5’s would have likely done the job for me also, but for only a little more the excellent Lewitt 040 Match, in a perfectly matched pair are available. These consistently review well (with plenty of samples), having more brilliance, smoothness and punch than mics twice as expensive. They are tiny and well made, at 44g and roughly the same size as my basic shotguns, but sound much bigger than they look.
I have no idea how these will mesh, but needing to start somewhere, I think they will give me several options to handle the most likely situations..
Scenario 1: Choir.
The H5 with SSH-6 in front with stereo imaging as suits, then the two pencils high left and right, set as A/B or X/Y. My hope is the H5 will get the “body” of the performance, the pencils adding detail.
Scenario 2: School rock band.
The same as above, shotgun aimed at the lead singer with stereo mid-side for guitars, one Lewitt over the drums and one over the keyboards. Further tracks can be recorded by the H1n. Again my hope is the H5 will get the “body” of the performance, the pencils adding detail.
Scenario 3: Single musician (piano, drums etc).
Lewitts in close, X/Y or A/B config. These are the better instrument mics and have the lowest noise floor, so I will set these up if possible, or use the capable XYH-5 or SSH-6 capsule if not.
Scenario 4: Small group interview.
Mic each speaker with a cardioid if only two or in two pairs with X/Y. If time or space are an issue, the XYH-5 can do. LAV’s are also good here, but I prefer regular mics and they are more versatile.
Scenario 5: The most common scenario I will likely face is the one person interview in a variety of locations. The best way of handling this is either the schools LAV (through my Zoom) or a boomed shogun.