What's a top of the line wind screen for mics?

[Frank Weeks]

[B][COLOR="Black"]Rode Blimp with a Deadcat works great. I took advantage of the $1 Rode blimp special when I bought my Rode NTG-3. I used it on a windy night and it worked really good. B

I used the same setup in a short film a few months ago. Works very well. Indoors and out.

[S_Miille]

Although some will leave the blimp on indoors, its much more common to just use the foam windshield. There shouldn't be that much wind inside, but you can pick up wind noise from moving the mic around.

[Andy Roberts]

Thanks all. Very helpful.

[Marc Wielage]

Boy, speaking from experience here, I will never again use any boom microphone indoors without a zeppelin on it. We ran into way too many times when an unexpected wind current hit it out of nowhere and ruined a take.

Stephen, you shouldn't need a full zeppelin indoors unless there's wind machines or some other significant problem. A zeppelin (with or without a furry windscreen) should only be necessary outdoors, in my experience.

I always use at least a foam cover to guard against rapid changes in direction by the boom op, or maybe a stray air current. It's also a small safety against bashing the actor's head, particularly when they miss a cue and stand up early. Many news crews routinely leave a furry cover on (but no zepplin) 100% of the time, just so they don't have to worry when they go inside and outside during a fast-moving story.

HVAC is your enemy -- kill the air conditioners and fans while sound is rolling, and all you should need indoors is just a foam shield. Having a good, experienced boom op is essential.

[Allan Black]

For wind, IMO in order of succession it goes ..

Foam windsock .. indoors for voice pops and slow boom swings .. useless outdoors in any wind.

Rode WS6 and 7. Indoors or out .. surprisingly good. I've seen their dealer demo with a 12" fan full blast 2 feet in front and you can't hear the wind.
But I have to say outdoors one time we heard strong wind break through when it suddenly changed direction and the hairs were a tad flat.

Blimp. Outdoors only. If you've got to use a Blimp, pull its Wombat (wind screen) over it first to get full protection. If the wind gets stronger it'll be too late otherwise.

With a shotgun outdoors, if you get caught with limited protection .. if at all possible try and aim it at 90degrees to the direction the wind's coming from.

Cheers.

[Jon Carr]

My friend's who's a extremely good sound guy said about blimps/zeppelin, actually just having a blimp/zeppelin changes the mic's pickup pattern slightly and also the tone because it traps a packet of air in it. Which is why he uses them indoors and outdoors.

[Allan Black]

John, anything you put in front of a mic will alter the sound it picks up, but in the case of a Blimp it's much better than wind which can destroy the audio :)

Cheers.