Audio Blankets | Help.

[Erik Bac]

So until now, a lot of my work was outside work or very run-and-gun events with little to no audio. Now, I cannot stand bad audio, especially in my projects. One main issue is I often find myself in small tight office spaces with an unreasonable amount of echo. At this point, I've cried more in editing trying to fix it than ever. I started researching and watched a lot of videos, and often, they talk about blankets and how to use them.

But I still don't get this. How many do you need for most sit-down interviews? Do you do 3 sides? Do you have one side? Some say it's best practice to cover all areas, one guy said to put them in corners of the room. For a starting kit of blankets, how many do you guys find yourself actually needing? Does anyone have a good solution to set these up in a fast-paced environment that doesn't require a lot of grip work, and are audio blankets worth it, or would moving blankets have nearly the same effect?

I am okay with a little echo, but in some situations, it is just too much to bear.

Thank you so much for reading this and offering some insight; as you can see, I am starting to get to the edge of my rope.

 

[Phil Holland]

It will always depend on the location. 3-5X is good to carry with you, but I often have about 8 or 9X on me for complicated rooms. It's more about "seeing" where sound issues will cause a problem.

 

[Erik Bac]

It will always depend on the location. 3-5X is good to carry with you, but I often have about 8 or 9X on me for complicated rooms. It's more about "seeing" where sound issues will cause a problem.

Hi Phil,
Thanks for breaking it down. May I ask how you rig your blankets when you aren't allowed to put them on walls or ceilings? My main approach would be treating it like a flag and using a C-stand.

 

[Marc Wielage]

This is an occasional conversation that comes up on the JWSoundGroup.net forum. No amount of processing can make a horrible room sound good. A few (I'm thinking 5-6) sound blankets CAN make a remarkable change. I've had rooms so echoey, we've had to almost box-in the interview subject so they sounded reasonable. Once you get their voice to that point, a little processing can help a lot.

Type of microphone also helps. In really bad, noisy, or reverberant rooms, it's possible a wireless lav may eliminate some of the "room sound" from the equation. It arguably doesn't sound as "real" as a boom, but if it gets usable sound from an interview, I think it's worth it. I'd always go for a boom as an additional mic, particularly for cases where the lav is unusable, but it's situational.