Top products from r/LocationSound

There are a few good tricks you can use to get realistic gunfire recordings like the example you linked to. The first thing to be sure of is that your microphone(s) are capable of handling high sound pressure levels. With your zoom H6, the XY microphones can handle 135 dB, so that should be good for distant coverage and to get stereo perspective following the actual shot. For the closeup dialog and sounds I'd suggest a hypercardioid condenser like the Audio-Technica 4053b because of its 155 dB maximum spl. Most full shotguns like your Rode don't handle high levels impulses like gunfire gracefully (it's rated at 120 dB maximum SPL). A blend of these mics should give good results, but you still want to be sure you don't have any analog overloading happening. That way you can control the way the impulse and recovery are shaped (in post and digitally) to get a natural sound in your final product.

The next thing to do is make full use of the 24-bit recording capability of the H6. If used correctly, you can get a theoretical 144 dB dynamic range, so you can record whatever either of these mics puts out. And do not use compression or limiting during recording. This is NOT what you normally do in recording field sound for video. You want to be sure that when you fire a round the tracks you are recording don't overload--at least not very much. That means if you set recording levels accordingly, your dialog and quiet sounds will barely move the meter. You will need to use a gain plug-in during editing to bring it up to normal levels. Because of this and because of the possibility of noise to be introduced elsewhere, I suggest you use a mic splitter like this which blocks phantom power from one channel to avoid damage to the mic. Then record the mic on two channels, one set for the gunshots and the other set for maybe -20 dBFS on narration and incidental sounds. Be sure you don't limiting or compression on either of the two XLR channels.

In post, you will have two clean channels and a boosted safety channel that you can control.

You should do a lot of testing to get the best sound here. If you're lucky, you can put a fast-decay digital brick wall limiter on the boosted stereo and mono tracks and get very clean, realistic results with no pumping or unnatural sounds of compressors recovering.

Hope this helps. Let me know if any questions.

This is not preplanned or anything, but here are some things off the top of my head.

1. Know your gear inside and out. Knowing how to use your tools is more important than just having the right ones. ReadTheFuckingManual on everything you own, and then read it again. I keep all the manuals for my gear on my phone in PDFs just in case because there is inevitably that feature you haven't used in a while that you feel like a moron for not remembering how to use.
   
   
2. Practice boom and lav technique a fuck ton, as that's a huge percentage of your job. Boom technique is not as simple as it sounds or looks. You have to be ready to cover a scene with a lot of variables. What if an actor doesn't hit their mark, or the cam op/DP ends up shooting that particular take differently? You have to be ready to stay out of frame/watch shadows and reflections while still getting the take. Sometimes actors skip/change/improv lines on takes. How do you handle that? You need to train your arm/shoulder muscles and be very light on your feet. Just Sunday I had my full bag setup while booming an exterior night shot with the camera on a Ronin (gimbal). There was a light the actress walked right under going into the shot that gave terrible shadows, and right after she passed it a second actress came into frame with a line. I had to hustle and drop in a boom 15' to 18' extended to catch her line without getting in the light, making audible noise with my feet, shaking the mic, or getting in frame. This kind of stuff is just what a boom op is supposed to be able to do.
   
   
3. Be professional. Don't get pissed when camera department walks all over sound. It's the job. Figure out the best way to get your sound and make them aware of the compromises they're making. Otherwise, don't get bent out of shape. You also should be extremely well mannered when laving talent. I'm not a formal guy, but when laving people I say please and thank you for everything. You're invading their personal space, it's important to be completely professional at this point.
   
   Laving takes a lot of practice to know what works and what doesn't. When I first started I was pretty terrified of it and had all kinds of trouble with clothing noise. I've gotten enough experience to have a much better grasp of it. I can usually just look at a wardrobe and my first instinct on how to lav it works 90% of the time. You still need to be ready to check and tweak lav setups and be ready to use a lot of different methods.
   
   There is so much more, I would have to write a book on it. In fact, somebody already has.
   
   http://www.amazon.com/The-Location-Sound-Bible-Professional/dp/1615931201
   
   

Not to that exact one, found it in the hunting goods section of WalMart for $8. I can say that my harness belt is 2" as well, and it fits perfectly. This was more or less what it was.

I should also mention that ammo boxes are a great way of storing AA batteries off your person. Most are cheap, waterproof, and hold around 50-100 batteries. This one has been the best $3 I've spent on organization in my life.

I got a call from On-Stage (the mfg of my mic stand) and they gave me a FANTASTIC recommendation: these goose necks are threaded on both sides, and are flexible removing the need for a rotating ball adapter for certain mics/cameras.

I bought two 19" ones, so now my 30" boom pole will be able to reachabout 68", be flexible more than half that length, and cost me a grand total of 16$ for the solution, rather than 30 for a painters pole that i would have had to adapt, or a replace the whole boom pole for god knows how much and adapting it to the tripod mount on the stand somehow.

The smartphone idea is a good one.

If you really don't care about losing the recorder, I would honestly just get something like this and get some really cheap lavs that don't sound totally awful to pair with them.

But really, if it were me, I would try my best to make sure no one walks off with my gear. That seems like such a waste of money, and wouldn't you lose the recordings too, since they are being recorded directly to the recorder?

These Samson mics are surprisingly good. I use them for indoor interviews and am perfectly happy with the quality.

Shooter / Producer, eh? "distance" recording is a misnomer. No mic is good at recording material at a distance. What a shotgun mic is good for is rejecting material on the sides of it. It doesn't zoom, so to speak.

Parabolic mics, like what is used on sports events, do this, but suffer from frequency response issues and are not suitable for production audio.

You really need a boom op. Even if you are going directly in to camera, you need someone who can follow talent around with the shotgun and point it properly.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Location-Sound-Bible-Professional/dp/1615931201/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1397602866&sr=8-1&keywords=Location+Sound

You might give this book a read. Great, and very informative.

A colleague of mine uses this one,
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0002ZO5WM/ref=mp_s_a_1_9?qid=1450988012&sr=8-9&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=On+stage+stand+boom
He loves it. Looks like it can fold up fairly small.
Good luck.

The Behringer C2 are $60 for a pair on Amazon. Condenser mics like these will need a mixer with phantom power, an audio interface, cables, and stands. You should be able put together very functional good sounding recording setup at around $200 if you shop around and are willing to not buy into the hype of the gear ads and product bias.

As a side note, a band mate of mine put the C2s into a dummy head for a nice sounding homemade binaural recording setup.

"There isn't suddenly a gap in the center because ambience is still being provided be L/R."

Actually there is a gap when you only fill LR and not in C. This might not be heard in a small editing room, but as soon as you are watching it in cinema, you can't rely on that. Those speakers are several meters apart, so depending on where you sit, you'll hear those gaps.
I recently watched a movie who had exactly that issue (not paying attention to filling the center channel between dialogue) and it sounded awful and just wrong.


"Sure I could fill those gaps in the center channel, but why cover with a L/R ambience again later, too? It's a double ambience with the same purpose."
Filling gaps is a technical thing/requirement. Creating ambiences is a creative decision: most of the time you want to create something different than what you heard on set.
And if you are ever asked to deliver a M&E mix, you'll have to fill the center channel anyway (though this is more part of creating ambiences).


Don't want to offend you, but you might want to read John Purcell's book:
https://www.amazon.com/Dialogue-Editing-Motion-Pictures-Invisible/dp/0415828171

They’re not standard connections so make sure you get the right one. I think there’s two different types for aircraft, one for military and one for civilian. There’s some posts on JWSound about it, that’s where I’ve read up on it.
There’s this adapter on amazon that may work, looks like it converts the aircraft comms to two 3.5mm connectors:

https://www.amazon.com/FARO-Aircraft-Helicopter-Converts-Compatible/dp/B006PK3L9G

The remote audio stuff might be the best bet though

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B004W2KRTG/ref=mp_s_a_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1481483197&sr=1-7&refinements=p_n_feature_keywords_browse-bin%3A2763711011&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&dpPl=1&dpID=51zIE-BU-JL&ref=plSrch

This one should work for you. They're also super easy to make out of a strip of elastic

The easiest way to do this is to convert from the helicopter plug (U-174/U or U-93A/U) to fixed-wing (PJ-068 & PJ-055.) Fixed wing aircraft use two plugs, one for headset and one for mic. Luckily the PJ-055 plug used for the headset is literally just a TRS plug.

Here's an adapter that will do that for you. The level is line-ish level. I'd bring some adjustable pads or a DI box in case the level is too hot.

The Location Sound Bible.

I think you're good on equipment. Now you just need a few accessories. Pick up a shockmount or two (Rycote). Handling noise can kill an otherwise perfectly usable recording. Boom pole, mic stand, blimp. Rycote blimps are good, but expensive. The new Rode blimp comes with Rycote suspension units, and it's much cheaper.

you can buy them and since it's sounds like its created from the power go with a power ground lift not an xlr one. Here is an example of what it looks like from amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/CableWholesale-Wholesale-Grounding-Converter-30W1-32200/dp/B000I96AUM/ref=pd_sxp_grid_pt_0_0

But they are good for identifying the problem you can also try plugging it in someplace other than where you have tried I've used ground lifts before when having problems with ground noise.

It depends on the DJ mixer, but it'll probably be dual RCA outputs (two mono channels (Left and Right) to make Stereo). So you'll probably need a dual RCA to dual 1/4" to record the two channels, like this.

One (maybe two or four) of these guys has done well for me.

Omnidirectional.

I don't operate a boom hand held too often, but when I do I wear a pair of the cheap jersey black cotton gloves. Those gloves are soft and smooth against the pole and make no sound, also they don't hold heat so they are fine in warm conditions.

https://www.amazon.com/Heavy-Weight-Jersey-Gloves-12-Pairs/dp/B000FJTWXW/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1485874991&sr=8-3&keywords=black+cotton+gloves+work

He wrote a book in 2014, "Location audio simplified". Decent book. Guess he just realized the time and effort put in making videos is less worth it than putting out a book and actually doing location sound.

https://www.amazon.com/Location-Sound-Bible-Record-Professional/dp/1615931201

C-Stand and one of these is what I see used most often when the boom doesn't have to be operated.

Start here:

https://www.amazon.com/Location-Sound-Bible-Record-Professional/dp/1615931201

As for budget, for gear? Sky is the limit.

Links for the lazy;

• The Location Sound Bible: How to Record Professional Dialog for Film and TV
  
• The Sound Effects Bible: How to Create and Record Hollywood Style Sound Effects

I'm no soundy, but I know a few guys who swear by these:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mdr-V6-Lightweight-Stereo-Headphones-Sony/dp/B00001WRSJ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1414027377&sr=8-1&keywords=sony+v6+headphones

I use this...

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00YEEDJF6/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_8zOKBbDVBVC8Y

And this...

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071R2S6SB/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_QAOKBbTXRCVJM

With a C-Stand. No problems whatsoever.