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Showing results for tags 'reverberant noise'.
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Good evening everyone, I almost hesitate to add to a topic that has been so roundly discussed, but in this case, my environment is the same, over and over, and the micing happens to be identical.... I would like to determine best micing practices and equipment for the specific and fixed live indoor locations around the House and Senate sides of the US Capitol, including the office buildings that adjoin them. I can pretty safely say that these circumstances never vary : Guest is always looking into the lens - no concerns about head-to-mic relationship varying while on air (ie : a close pickup pattern on chosen mic not likely to be an issue) All shots are live to air - there'll be no post processing - in fact I don't think there's any actual recording of the segments these days The acoustics range all the way up to 'brutally reverberant' - we're talking rotundas that are open to 2 or 3 floors, also looking down block-long empty corridors, and every surface is marble - horizontal and vertical. Echo chamber extremus. The very worst thing that can happen during an on air location segment is a cleaning crew pushing a plastic cart with hard wheels - it would be hard to create a more distracting set of sounds - and it goes on and on, as the video crew frantically waves - invariably, to no avail. No wait, there is a horrible acoustic competitor - a gaggle of sugar-laden school children on tour! I see no reason to lean more towards booming, or to lav micing. Whichever is used, it's essential for the crew to jump in and affix, then dress IFB for the guest. Whether adjusting a boom mic or lav, it will be about the same amount of work. I do note however that a Senator cannot walk off and rip the head off a Sonotrim mic, when the mic is in fact an overhead boom. (I remember each time we pass in the corridor, ahem. She has no idea....). I think that's the entire spec. In terms of optimizing results to a closely repeatable set of acoustic conditions, there's one other thing that I am curious about - if one really wanted to see what is possible, is this a candidate project environment for adding a 2nd mic, off guest, and phase-reversing then mixing it with the talent mic (we'd need to mix down to a single audio channel before delivery down HD-SDI lines)? It would at least be an interesting experiment. If employed, I would have to satisfy myself that it worked simply and reliably - live is live. I have never attempted this technique, but have always been curious about it's power to improve audio.