AUDIO APRIL : Low Budget Recorders

Now before we get started let me just say, when it comes recording sound on set, there is absolutely NO SUBSTITUTE FOR A REALLY GREAT PROFESSIONAL SOUND GUY!!.
Someone who really knows what they are doing and can capture professional quality sound is indispensable and if you can afford a professional sound guy then thats exactly, without a doubt, what you should do.

However, if you're making a film on buttons and glue, the chances are you can't afford to hire a really great sound person and so the temptation is is to get your mate 'bob' to do it because he kind of, sort of knows his shit about music or something. This is a big mistake. 

Filmmakers often overlook sound on their films and they really shouldn't, good sound is probably more important than a great picture, as you probably heard a billion times before, but its very true. 

As I discussed last week, I shoot a lot of heavy action stuff, as a result, myself, my camera and my sound gear are often right in there with the action and fairly often a stray sword or stick or machete or puppet will take out my audio rig. My camera is fairly durable from small knocks, but the right angle can dislodge my audio rig and send it to the floor. I've lost many a microphone this way, which is why last week I discussed the inexpensive Takstar Microphone which cheap enough to replace with ease. 

On my most recent feature I've destroyed two recorders with simple little accidents and so it was important to me that I was able to replace them cheaply and quickly without sacrificing quality, but whilst also keeping my camera rig as light as possible. Here are some of the options I've looked at. I shoot both Visual's and Audio myself so I've taken that into account. 

ZOOM H4N (£250)
The largest and most common of my recommended recorders (there are some newer,
better versions, but I haven't used them so I wouldn't feel comfortable recommending them). This is pretty much the standard for low/no budget indies and its a great recorder. Heavy, durable, lots of control over audio input and of course XLR inputs for higher quality audio and making it compatible with much better mics from the off set with the use of adapters. 

Its well suited to a dedicated sound guy and adding this model to a large rig is fairly common, but for lighter rigs it probably adds too much weight. I've aways used one of these with a separate sound person on set, I did use a Tascam equivalent on my latest film in an emergency after we busted the H2N recorder and it knocked the rig off balance a little too much, meaning someone else had to operate it.

If you can shell out a couple of hundred quid for a recorder no bother this is probably your best option and it takes standard SD cards (as well as SD-HC) and can also take large (and small with an adapter) jack microphones. There are newer versions and options from Zoom out there, but this is a good solid standard to have on set and works very well if you have a seperate sound guy and give great quality results.

ADVERTISMENT

ZOOM H2N (£150)
A mid range audio recorder, they retail at around £150-£200 and although the body is a plastic build, it feels fairly solid. It comes with a built in mic that be set to various functions and, most importantly for recording for film, it comes with a Mic input (3.5mm jack) and Headphone input. One of its most useful features is that the gain is controlled by a wheel on the side of the unit rather than button (like the Zoom H1) so theres no handling pick up or clicking if you're having to adjust the input whilst shooting. 

The Zoon H2N takes standard SD cards that load into the bottom where the mount is also situated. This becomes a pain when trying to change cards as the whole thing has to be taken off your rig in order to get to the card or battery hatch. To get around this, I opted to use a larger card so that change overs became less frequent. It is also very bulky, not as much as the larger recorder like the H4N, but the actual shell of the recorder itself is curved and so its tough to mount it to anything aside from the supplied tripod mount on the bottom. 

Still the quality from the recorder is great and it really does an amazing job, especially for a recorder than doesn't have an XLR input, I'm always surprised at the great recording quality that I get from the H2N just using my budget £20 video mic. I used this recorder on a dozen features and shorts and I was very happy with the results. Its perfect for those who want something a little less flimsy than the Zoom H1, without the bulk of something larger. 

ZOOM H1(£100)
A smaller, stripped down version of the H2N, the Zoom H1 is a sleek little recorder than has the same features as its big brother the H2N, but packed into a smaller body. This brings with it some advantages, it can be mounted to rigs easier, having flat sides I often create a velcro mount and attach it to my mic rather than having to add and extra bracket to add the recorder. It also has a standard tripod mount of the bottom and its MicroSD input is on the side which is easily accessible as well as only taking one AA battery, rather than 2 like the H2N, which is also easy to get to, most of the time with out having to remove the recorder, in a lot of ways it improves on physical functionality of the H2N.

There are some drawbacks however, the unit is made of cheap plastic and so there quickly becomes an issue with handling noise (even with external mic use) unless you have shock mount. The other major issue is that the quality settings aren't controlled by a menu system like H2N, but rather, by series of physical switches on the back of the recorder, its handy and straight forward, but the mount is right next to them and during my first use I mounted my recorder only to find that my rig would knock the switch changing the quality from WAV back to MP3, so this is something to be conscious of. They overall units are also pretty fragile and break very easily if you're not careful.

Overall though, at the price, the quality of the actual recording is the same as the H2N and the ZOOM H1 features the same 3.5mm Mic and Headphone inputs. The input here is controlled by little buttons on the side which cause some issues with handling noise, when filming so its something to keep in mind, but for £100 (or about £70 used) this a good option for no budgeters and a great back up to have in case your larger recorder fails on you.  

8GB eSYNIC STEEL RECORDER (£9)
After smashing two recorders on set, I looked into some potentially cheaper options. Whilst browsing ebay I came across the eSynic Voice Recorder. It cost me about £9 and I took a chance on it just to have a look. The overall build quality of it is really good, it feels very solid and durable and feels like it could take a few knocks without much trouble. Its also the smallest recorder I've ever owned, its about the size of a 10 pack of cigarettes and its very light and flat, meaning that I can make a velcro mount to attach to my mic easily. In fact its so light it just rests against the shock mount fairly well. 

The recorder comes with an 8GB built in memory and fixed internal battery and connects to a computer via usb to run off the files and charge, meaning that it has no external storage, which can be a good thing in terms of not having to change over cards & batteries, but the downside is that if it runs out of space or charge then its a case of waiting for it, however they are so cheap it would be easy to have two. It is a bit temperamental when it comes to saving files though and the instructions it came with a pretty useless. I did discover via a youtube review that the stop button needs to be pressed twice to save the file rather than the pause button or record button like the zoom recorders. 


The monitoring suggests that the audio is peaking or distorting at times but on playback it turns out fine which is odd. Another baffling thing is that the WAV files it records can't play back from the preview (for mac at least), they need to be converted to WAV's again (I use Toast Titanium) in order to hear them back. Its not much work, but an extra pain in the arse. It is not really that reliable as an audio recorder, but if you are using a DSLR without a headphone input this acts as a good preamp to let you monitor what your recording by connecting the mic input to the input on the camera and then headphones to the other input. They aren't labelled though, so you'll have to guess which is which. Still for £9 the quality was surprisingly good from the recordings I got and there is a negligible difference between this and the Zoom H1 and H2N for 10 times less than Zooms cheapest option. 

_____________________________________________________________

Out of all of them, the Zoom H1 is the best quality at the best price. They are cheap enough to be replaced (which happens often here) or have a spare and if you can afford a few its worth hooking up some lav mics and having them attached to your actors. The audio from them is great quality and the H1 is light enough that it doesn't effect rig weight almost at all when attached directly to the camera or microphone. If you have a dedicated sound guy then the Zoom h4n is a better option with more durability but I found it too heavy to attach to my light weight rig and keep the freedom of movement I wanted. 

There is no one purpose tool for audio and of course all these recorders have different strengths and weaknesses, but it is possible to get decent usable audio from even a £9 recorder if you spend the time understanding its limits and how it works. Remember, better gear won't make you a better filmmaker, the same way that cheap gear won't make you a worse one. 

MJ

IF YOU FIND THIS BLOG USEFUL. PLEASE SHARE. You can keep up to date with our filming goings on at our FACEBOOK PAGE :)

ADVERTISMENT

AUDIO APRIL : The £20 Video Mic

Now before we get started let me just say, when it comes recording sound on set, there is absolutely NO SUBSTITUTE FOR A REALLY GREAT PROFESSIONAL SOUND GUY!!.
Someone who really knows what they are doing and can capture professional quality sound is indispensable and if you can afford a professional sound guy then thats exactly, without a doubt, what you should do.

However, if you're making a film on buttons and glue, the chances are you can't afford to hire a really great sound person and so the temptation is is to get your mate 'bob' to do it because he kind of, sort of knows his shit about music or something. This is a big mistake. 

Filmmakers often overlook sound on their films and they really shouldn't, good sound is probably more important than a great picture, as you probably heard a billion times before, but its very true. 

Getting good sound works very much the same as as getting a good image. It depends on having the right equipment and having the right person using it. As I discussed in my last blog, I've had people with 1000's of pounds worth of equipment show up on my set and deliver unusable sound and I've had a sound guy use a £30 mic and a cheap digital audio recorder and give me great sound, the difference is that one guy knew what he was doing and the other didn't.

My old Jessops VideoMic. Its seen better days.

After pretty disastrous sound on my first 3 feature films, I decided that I was going to teach myself how to record sound myself. I couldn't afford anyone else to do it and unlike actors/sfx artists/Cinematographers etc its very difficult for sound people to use films as 'exposure' outside of their reel (it shouldn't be this way, but the simple fact s no one notices good sound). The decision to do it myself was based on not having to underpay someone else, who would get very little out of it.

I already had a decent(ish) audio recorder (Zoom H2n) and on my last feature Legacy of Thorn we had borrowed a Rode VideoMic Pro, I really liked the results and so when looking for a mic that was the kind of thing I knew I was after, being that its a fairly common 'go to mic' for low budgeters. They retail at about £150 which is a decent price. I had a really great Jessops Video mic that cost me £30 15 years ago and it worked great, too great for the price, but it had seen better days and was beginning to fall to pieces and so moving over to a Rode seemed the best option. 

ADVERTISMENT

TAKSTAR SGC-598 MICROPHONE

I was about to drop the money on it when I found a video on youtube (this one) that compares the Takstar SGC-598 with the Rode VideoMic Pro and  I found that the difference was negligible at best. The huge difference in the two mics was that one cost (at the time) £160 and one cost £23. That didn't seem right, but the results in the video kind of spoke for themselves.

For £23 I figured 'whats the harm?' and picked one up. Amazingly the results we're exactly as they had been in the video, there was very little difference between the VideoMic Pro and the Takstar SGC-598, In fact once I got a handle on it, I found that I could get a better result out of it than I had ever got from the VideoMic Pro.

The mic also has a 10+ decibel boost which is handy for quieter moments, although I've found that it does add just a little bit too much hiss at times, however this can easily be reduced in post without too much damage to the audio. It also comes with a battery that, no kidding, I haven't changed in nearly 2 years and is still going strong. 

It also comes with a shock mount, which is one of its greatest assets. Most other cheap mics I've tried out, have dreadful handling noise that makes most audio unusable, but the shock mount on the Takstar is fantastic and reduces the noise amazingly well. 

It best feature though is the fact that they currently cost around £20 each. I shoot a lot of action orientated stuff and as a result the amount of times mic get clips, hit or damaged as a result of me being in on the action is fairly frequent. If that was happening to £150 mics, I would be in deep trouble pretty quickly, but as these are so cheap, I pick up a couple at a time so that I always have a spare and so I can have extras on set should I need them. 

I've been through 2 on my latest feature. 
I would suggest getting it as close as possible for the best results, but I'd suggest that with any mic.

________________________________________________________

Don't get me wrong, this is not the best mic in the world, but for £23 its definitely the best value mic out there and it does give great results and I've struggled to find one as good for close to that price. I've use it on 3 of my own features in the last 2 years and dozens of other peoples projects and its never let me down. 

Its damn good and its damn cheap. If you take the time to learn how to record good sound then a low cost mic won't hinder you at all. So if you're on a budget this is great and affordable option that is readily available and won't break the bank no matter how many mics you break. 

MJ

IF YOU FIND THIS BLOG USEFUL. PLEASE SHARE. You can keep up to date with our filming goings on at our FACEBOOK PAGE :)

ADVERTISMENT

AUDIO APRIL : DIY Audio (Getting Audio Without A Sound Guy)

Slasher House (2010)

Now before we get started let me just say, when it comes recording sound on set, there is absolutely NO SUBSTITUTE FOR A REALLY GREAT PROFESSIONAL SOUND GUY!!.
Someone who really knows what they are doing and can capture professional quality sound is indispensable and if you can afford a professional sound guy then thats exactly, without a doubt, what you should do.

However, if you're making a film on buttons and glue, the chances are you can't afford to hire a really great sound person and so the temptation is is to get your mate 'bob' to do it because he kind of, sort of knows his shit about music or something. This is a big mistake. 

Filmmakers often overlook sound on their films and they really shouldn't, good sound is probably more important than a great picture, as you probably heard a billion times before, but its very true. 

My first couple of films, I had dedicated sound guys, I couldn't afford 'professionals', but these guys had just come out of college/university studying music or sound production and claimed they could do the job and when you're working with nothing and people are offering their 'expertise' for free the temptation is strong to take them up on that. The sound I got from these guys was bad, for different reasons each time, by the end of the 3rd feature I literally thought "Fuck, I could do this better myself". So that's what I decided to do.

Legacy of Thorn (2013)

A quick note : On Slasher House we sent our sound guy home about half way through and we're lucky enough to get the friend a cast member, who was working for the BBC as a sound recordist, to kindly donate his time to help us finish up. The second half of the film had much, MUCH better sound, which goes to prove my original point, there really is NO SUBSTITUTE for an professional sound guy. 



THINKING ABOUT AUDIO EQUALLY

The Mycho SuperBeast MK1 : With Audio set up

Remembering that audio is half your picture is a good start and if, like me, you can't afford a professional sound recordist then you need to start thinking about how you're going to get you're audio on set whilst you're filming. This comes down to a bit of practice and a fair amount of planning.

When I'm planning my shot lists, I now plan, from scene to scene where I'm going to get my audio from too. For me, making narrative film, the important stuff becomes dialogue. Almost everything else is going to be done again in sound design (or at least can be if its not right), but dialogue is something you're going to have a tougher time covering if you fuck it up.

So when shooting any scenes with dialogue my intention is to get my mic as close to the source as possible. My mic is mounted to my rig along with my external recorder, along with headphones for monitoring and at first I would run a cable for long shots and mid shot and have someone hold boom for me. This however started slowing me down a little with having to change out connections and reposition mics every time and was only remounting the mic to my rig for close ups. Then I noticed something in my edit. 

ADVERTISMENT

When I was matching audio, the wide shots, the mid shot and close up dialogue almost always matched up, or at least close enough, with the other shots. Of course the close up audio was always the best and clearest and so I was adding that every time and just adjusting levels for distance in post. So then I stopped getting my audio at the wide shot, but instead starting getting it on the mid shots and close ups. I even set up my rig so that the mic was closer to the actors (Using a magic arm) for better quality sound.

Hollower (2015) : MonoPod Boom-Pole

If you're doing a shot with just one or two lines, just make sure you jump in after an just grab a couple of clean decent takes of those lines too. The more you have to work with in the edit the better you're final piece will be and more importantly the easier it will be. On top if that, grab some general room tone, about 30 seconds will do it, just to fill in the gaps. I quiet often find that if I forget I can snatch it from pauses in the dialogue, but its not a great habit to get into.  

Its important to note, that after shooting a scene I also get 3 takes of just the audio from the actors standing them much closer to the mic, I find myself using this audio as much as possible as its obviously the best quality of the lot. I'll also have actors give me any noises that they'll make through out the scene. Fight noises, grunts, gasps and anything else we can think of, very similar to the way Robert Rodriguez recorded dialogue for El Mariachi.

MychoBeast MK2 : Added magic arm and iPhone Monitor

After that I'll often wander round set just recording sounds that will be useful in my sound design, some of these sounds you pick up fine whilst recording visuals, but its often a good idea just to wander around getting sounds that keep the sense of the space, like bangs, doors, interesting background and other things that would be hard to find in stock afterward. 

Now obviously this works well for narrative filmmaking, where your actors are reading and performing the same lines over and over, if they're good actors then they're timing and beats should be pretty close, if not exact, every time. I know one actor who is so good at this that they take any decision making out of my hands as every take is exactly the same, including timing and tone.

If you're shooting a more run and gun style, or shooting doc stuff, then you'll probably have to reconsider your set up. But for me this works great and is actually easier for me than spending hours syncing files up in post afterwards.

BUILDING MY AUDIO RIG

I originally built this rig for use with a Canon T3i and eventually my Panasonic G7, it works fine with both. In building an audio rig, you need FOUR hugely important components that will help you capture your sound on set. 

EXTERNAL RECORDER

If you're shooting on a DSLR or Mirrorless camera then the sound directly from your camera isn't going to be that good, this due to the poor pre amps that a featured in most models. If this is the case then you're going to want an external recorder to record your audio, like in the good old days of shooting on film. I use Zoom recorders as I find them the best value for money in terms of quality, but there are plenty of other options out there.

There are literally dozens of affordable recorders available for this type of things and they range from about £100 - £1000+ depending on the level of professionalism you're after. They offer solid digitally recorded sound and are a clear upgrade from using the sound that your camera records. You might be lucky enough to shoot on a camera that has a decent sound input and also allows you monitor your sound which is the is the most important aspect when recording. Most decent recorders also allow you to monitor levels via the LCD screen on the front, they'll help you know pif your sound is too quiet, too loud or when it peaks. 

I'll be looking at recorder options in another blog over the next few weeks.

MICROPHONE

To record decent sound you're going to need a decent microphone, something that records good quality audio. There literally hundreds of options out there and the prices can get pretty serious, pretty quickly, but for the low budget beginner there are still some great options out there. Most notably the Rideo VideoMic and the Rode VideoMic Pro, which are cheap, solid solutions to good on set audio. 

Its important that you make sure the microphone you get suits your needs and does what you need it to do. For me, I needed a boost to the sound input for quiet scenes and so I made sure the microphone that I chose allowed for that, but really the sound you get and how good it is comes down to how close you can get that microphone.

I'll be looking at Microphone options over the next few weeks.

HEADPHONES

After you have your recorder and microphone set up, you'll need to be able to monitor what it is you're recording. This is incredibly important if you're recording your own audio, because this is where you'll know if you need to do retake, or if your audio peaks and generally just getting what you need. 

I would suggest in purchasing a pair of large 'can' style headphones, they block out outside noise to give you a better overview of exactly what you are recording and the levels and quality of that recording. I've had to use in ear headphones in a pinch before and they are no where near as good. You can some usable headphones these days for as little £10-£15, although the more you spend the more durable they'll be and the longer they'll last, just don't forget to be monitoring your audio at all times. 

MOUNT

You'll need something to mount your microphone and recorder to, most cameras have a hot shoe adapter for mounting a microphone, but if you also have a recorder to mount then you'll need something to extend the amount of space you have to mount things to or you'll need to add a separate mount for your recorder. I found that for my eternal recorder a GoPro bike mount works great. 

If you want to get your microphone closer, you'll need  an extension cable for your microphone and something to mount it to. I found that I could get extra use out of my old MonoPod (which I picked up for £15 over 10 years ago) by adding a hot-shoe and mounting my mic to that for wide shots using it as an extendable Boom-pole. If you don't have a monopod, I've got away with using a £1 selfie stick before. 

I'll look at low budget mount options over the next few weeks. 

______________________________________________________________________

Like I said before, the best way to get great sound is 'hire' a really great sound guy, but I promise that doing it yourself is much better than relying on someone who doesn't know what they are doing. It will save you time, effort and major headaches when it comes to post for one and it will help you under stand the importance of audio when you can afford to hire someone. 

This is the first in my Audio April series, over the next month I'll be looking at how I record sound on set, what I use to do so and how I mix it afterward.

MJ

IF YOU FIND THIS BLOG USEFUL. PLEASE SHARE. You can keep up to date with our filming goings on at our FACEBOOK PAGE :)

ADVERTISMENT