aristotle_kumpis Posted October 7, 2011 Report Share Posted October 7, 2011 I've seen some news anchor people wearing two lavs next to each other. For example, Piers Morgan wears two lavs. What is the reasoning behind it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael McQueen Posted October 7, 2011 Report Share Posted October 7, 2011 Back up so in case something goes wrong during live broadcast. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marc Wielage Posted October 7, 2011 Report Share Posted October 7, 2011 I believe this practice started in the early-to-mid-1970s, when Walter Cronkite began using a Sony ECM-50 (which at the time was only battery-operated). One failed during the CBS Evening News, and starting with the next show, he wore two lavs, one as a backup. --Marc W. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aristotle_kumpis Posted October 7, 2011 Author Report Share Posted October 7, 2011 So, does this mean they wear two transmitters? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marc Wielage Posted October 7, 2011 Report Share Posted October 7, 2011 Yes -- two transmitters, or two dedicated wired connections (which is relatively easy to do in a studio). Most of the hosts of live American TV shows (like American Idol) also wear two lavs and two wireless transmitters, and sometimes an IFB receiver and earpiece as well. --Marc W. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikewest Posted October 7, 2011 Report Share Posted October 7, 2011 I used to boom operate on live TV shows in England and had 2 mikes rigged on the Fisher boom in case of a failure! You cannot beat the adrenaline of boom operating on a shoe live to the whole of the country!!!!!!!!!!!!! mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
studiomprd Posted October 7, 2011 Report Share Posted October 7, 2011 " Piers Morgan wears two lavs. What is the reasoning behind it? " Mr. Morgan likes it. " 2 mikes rigged on the Fisher boom in case of a failure! " For the famous Nixon-Kennedy debates, there were 2 RCA BK-5 ribbon mic's rigged on the booms over each candidate.. Yes, it started out as backup for live shows, (originally there was a spare mic available in the news set in case the one on the desk failed in any way... (and BTW, mostly those mic's on news sets are hardwired!) now, in some cases it has become a status symbol, more than a needed precaution.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marc Wielage Posted October 8, 2011 Report Share Posted October 8, 2011 When I was working in local news in the 1970s, we started off with using comparatively-large RCA BK-5 dynamic desk microphones, which sounded real "tubby" and dull on the air, plus they weren't exactly cool to look at (visually). Eventually, we started using the telescoping wand Sony ECM-51 microphones (made famous as the "Bob Barker" mike on Price Is Right) in a deskmount stand. Those Sonys also would fail on occasion if the batteries failed, since the original version of these mikes only had an inline AA battery adapter (as I recall). The weatherman used an ancient RCA or EV dynamic lav, which was about the size of a large sausage. When the ECM-50 came out, everybody was really excited and started using these a lot, and the talent loved them because they weighed less than an ounce. I think the frequency response suddenly shot up from about 10K to 15K, and you could really hear the difference in clarity on the air. But the moment the mikes started failing, everybody quickly jumped on the "double-lav" bandwagon. The main mixer I worked with at the time at WTVT sluffed off all the criticisms and just said, "all I do is just replace the battery every 3 days. Never had one fail on the air yet." If its' a 10-cent battery, it wasn't a big deal. Once we could go to a phantom-powered version, it was a lot more reliable. But I think in a wireless situation, going to a double-lav (especially in a double-lav clip mount) is a lot more reliable. Still, in truth, I bet there's only a 2% chance you'll ever need that second lav. But it's nice for the peace of mind in a live, mission-critical situation. Even on a set shooting 1-minute or 2-minute takes, I usually get a little woozy when the battery icon starts flashing on the Venue receiver, signalling that the transmitter battery is on the verge of failure. Somehow, that timer is uncannily right, most of the time. But god knows, it's hard enough to hide one wireless lav as it is... --Marc W. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
studiomprd Posted October 8, 2011 Report Share Posted October 8, 2011 " When the ECM-50 came out, everybody was really excited and started using these a lot, " When the ECM-50 came out, everybody in the USA was really excited and started using these a lot, " an inline AA battery adapter " originally, it was the 1/2 AA called the "N" PITA to find. another issue was that folks would use dual mic's, changing out both batteries at the same time... " only a 2% chance " I'd say .02%, probably less with hardwire+phantom, which is what is typical on most live news situations. That 2% might apply to wireless Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marc Wielage Posted October 9, 2011 Report Share Posted October 9, 2011 Agreed -- I only actually had an ECM-50 fail twice on-air in about four years. In one case, somebody didn't check the mike prior to air and it was unplugged (stupid); in the second, the battery died. When I talk about the mike being used a lot, I'm talking about the relatively fast transition in the U.S. from dynamic lavs to electret condenser lavs, which I swear happened in like 3 months. One minute, everybody had giant dynamics; the next, they had teeny-tiny Sonys. Then within a year, most of the major-market anchors had two of them (getting back to Aristotle's original question). BTW, the sad reality is, local news shows are so heavily automated nowadays, they constantly bring up the wrong mike or no microphone at all. I see this happen all the time on KNBC locally. The guy's wearing a lav... but the partially-automated switching/mixing system brings up a different mike. It usually takes at least 10-20 seconds for them to realize this and fix the problem. Speaking of lavs, I notice that the American version of The X Factor is using AKG desk microphones and wireless lavs as a backup. They're also combining that with live iZotope noise-reduction processing and some anti-feedback notching. Amazing how good it sounds, given the cavernous room, plus the judges sitting right in front of audience monitor speakers. The contestants appear to have wireless lavs and a handheld Sennheiser wireless for performance. Very good live sound under these circumstances. --Marc W. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bondelev Posted October 9, 2011 Report Share Posted October 9, 2011 There was a Carter-Ford debate with numerous audio dropouts. For the next debate they went to two lavs. It seemed to become standard after that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Jones Posted October 9, 2011 Report Share Posted October 9, 2011 Whilst recently honeymooning in France I noticed it's quite the fashion to have two quite big capsuled lav's (wired in studio, wireless out I'd assume), one on each side of a lapel or jacket. Other than fashion the only reason I could work out would be in case the presenter was talking whilst looking a long way left or right. But no, they also used them for straight-down-the-barrel news too. Stereo mic-ing maybe?! un example: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
studiomprd Posted October 10, 2011 Report Share Posted October 10, 2011 " transition in the U.S. from dynamic lavs to electret condenser lavs, " My recollection is that while the weather person wore a (big) dynamic lav, the folks at desks were either boomed, or, more often, had desk mic's (frequently RCA 77, or BK-5's) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay Rose Posted October 10, 2011 Report Share Posted October 10, 2011 I love this board: not one person has said "it's to phase out room noise; one of them is flipped". You'll see that answer on a lot of the digital video forums. I got tired of posting corrections every time I saw it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
studiomprd Posted October 10, 2011 Report Share Posted October 10, 2011 " "it's to phase out room noise; one of them is (phase) flipped". " well it would also have to be inverted (upside down) to do that! otherwise it will phase out the newsreader instead. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geoff Tirrell Posted October 11, 2011 Report Share Posted October 11, 2011 Still doing some news camera work from time to time I can tell you that even with the more reliable gear we have these days it is still pretty standard to be required to double mike most anything important. Usually it is a boom and lav combo if I have a choice but for some sit down situations it is still the double lave. It always amazes me when I see the random ECM 55 kicking around in the bottom of a satellite truck equipment drawr or behind set. Instead of the much more common ecm 44 or 77 mics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marc Wielage Posted October 11, 2011 Report Share Posted October 11, 2011 I love this board: not one person has said "it's to phase out room noise; one of them is flipped". You'll see that answer on a lot of the digital video forums. I got tired of posting corrections every time I saw it. Right -- that typically doesn't work well, for reasons stated by the Senator. Sanken does make a dual-capsule version of the COS-11 called the COS-22 (figures), and I bet that might allow flipping the phase, extracting the L-R and throwing that away, and keeping the L+R in the mix. The problem with this trick is that any heavy background noise will tend to modulate up and down with the speech. What I see happening more frequently to get rid of room noise in loud ambient live situations is that the mixers use noise-reduction hardware (like the iZotope RX boxes) as filters & gates. They've been doing this for the past couple of years on American Idol, and it's gotten rid of at least 50% of the air conditioning and audience noise from the judge's microphones. No fancy double-mike tricks. --Marc W. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
staudio Posted October 15, 2011 Report Share Posted October 15, 2011 When I'm working live shots for morning new shows (GMA, Today Show...) I always try to hardwire. If its a live shot outside I will put a Lav on the subject and have a boom set up as well for a back up, or incase the wind picks up all of a sudden. I've never had a Lav die on me. But a friend of mine was doing a live shot last year and a hard-wired Lav died on him...he had no backup...bummer. Inside I will hard wire and double lav the subject. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geoff Tirrell Posted October 15, 2011 Report Share Posted October 15, 2011 When I'm working live shots for morning new shows (GMA, Today Show...) I always try to hardwire. If its a live shot outside I will put a Lav on the subject and have a boom set up as well for a back up, or incase the wind picks up all of a sudden. I've never had a Lav die on me. But a friend of mine was doing a live shot last year and a hard-wired Lav died on him...he had no backup...bummer. Inside I will hard wire and double lav the subject. Same here only difference is that I will use a wireless with hardwired secondary backup nearby. Only reason is that I have found that the newer generation of reporters thinks that hardwired is inferior. Even had one try to dress me down and refuse to use a hardwired mic because it was "bush league". Unless we are doing a walker I will usually boom a backup from a c-stand inside as well but that has more to do with clothing noise or the potential for hidden jewelry underneath clothing which has caught me off guard on live job before. ooh its nice when your talent arives more than 5 minutes ahead of time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
staudio Posted October 15, 2011 Report Share Posted October 15, 2011 I have found that the newer generation of reporters thinks that hardwired is inferior. Even had one try to dress me down and refuse to use a hardwired mic because it was "bush league". yes I sure many of us have had to bite our tongue, so to speak, when dealing with 20-year producers and/or talent who already "know everything there is to know" about production quality... reminds me of the time trying to explain to a young AP why my scheops is not "cheap little mic"... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProSound Posted October 15, 2011 Report Share Posted October 15, 2011 I had someone ask me while I still had to use a screwdriver to "fix my wireless" and why I didn't have the remote. They wanted to know if I was using a older model or inferior wireless product. I told them no I am using a waterproof transmitter because we are on a boat. They always think the CMIT in blue is cool though Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soundslikejustin Posted October 15, 2011 Report Share Posted October 15, 2011 The MKH8000 series are 'little toy mics' every time I use them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tommyvee Posted March 21, 2017 Report Share Posted March 21, 2017 Would two transmitters cause interference? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidtirolo Posted March 21, 2017 Report Share Posted March 21, 2017 sometimes two transmitters will interfere with each other if they are close to each other, especially if they are on 250. taking them down to a lower power setting helps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VASI Posted March 21, 2017 Report Share Posted March 21, 2017 Most of studios use hardwired lavaliers, not wireless for live news. 50mW inside is enough. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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