Microphones to suit a SD 702

[Jarvis Alston]

Hello All,

I have just purchased a Scarlet and am planning to be involved with a variety of film productions, horror, suspense, experimental etc. and am putting together my kit. I have my lighting and lens decisions mostly made and I'm just needing some advice now on what is considered essential and also what is versatile for a sound kit.

I wish to purchase the Sound Devices 702 as I have heard nothing but great reviews for this piece of equipment and it is within my budget. I am going to go without a mixer for now as I plan to set the levels in rehearsal and don't plan on doing much spur of the moment type shooting where a field mixer will be to my advantage. But once I begin who knows??

I would like to get a couple of wireless lavs and a boom mic to record conversations and to maintain cinematic sound. I have been shopping at http://www.bhphotovideo.com I am just wondering what the bare minimum quality mics to put into a 702 would be. I will also be recording all my own sound effects etc so if the boom mic could be doubled and used for that too that would be great. Please let me know what you consider to be essential mics. Thanks very much for your help.

Cheers.

Jarvis

 

[David W. Jones]

The first thing you need to do is involve a qualified sound tech!
The second thing is to set a budget!

I could make all kinds of recommendations, but since you have already made the choice to go without a mixer, set levels in rehearsal, and come what may, what's the point.

All the Best!

Dave

 

[Marc Wielage]

What David said!

Be warned that levels go all over the place, just because of actors' position, microphone type, set acoustics, people turning their heads, low-talkers, loud-talkers, yelling, whispers, etc. If it were only as easy as "place the mike and hit record." Sadly, it isn't -- you have to actively ride the level while people speak.

There have been several past discussions on microphone selection. Do you plan on booming all of it? What's your budget? This is literally a price range that could go from $50 to $5000.

I would not plan to record sound effects during the shoot. I would do that separately, or at least immediately after the scenes. At the least, you'll need to get room tone just to help massage editing together different takes of dialog. Sound effects can take hours and hours to gather, and I think this is best done when you're not tying up a camera crew, lighting people, actors, and/or a stage. A good post sound mixer will have an available sound effects library, but you'll no doubt need to augment this with custom effects; high-end projects often start from scratch, and record all-new effects for weeks and weeks after the shoot.

This is a very, very complex area. The bare minimum to me would be something like the venerable Sennheiser 416 shotgun, and at least one wireless lav, maybe a Tram TR50 or a Countryman B6, with a Sennheiser or Lectro transmitter/receiver setup. Note also that an SD 702 is not a timecode recorder; for that, you need the more-costly 702T. Non-timecode recorders can work for a minute or two, but will eventually drift out of sync.

I have a list of applicable books on location sound recording at this link on JWSoundGroup.net. Lots of good texts there, some indispensable to understanding the process. At the least, they can warn you of potential ways to avoid going wrong. Just getting a good, quiet location is 50% of the problem.

 

[Brian Ferguson]

What Marc Said!

Yup, if going for a 702 go all the way to a 702T.
Better yet get a good sound man (woman) and watch them and learn from them and go to school and it will save you money in the long run.
I didn't do my own sound for the first 15 years of my career until I was forced into it by a TV Station I was a staff DP at. At least I got to watch a lot of really talented location sound recordist before that, still was a steep learning curve after that.

 

[Jarvis Alston]

Thanks very much for the input guys. I will look into the mics that Marc mentioned. One quick question though, why spend the extra money on a time-code recorder? I don't have a time-code generator, or a time-code slate, so how could getting a 702T benefit me without having to purchase a bunch of other accessories? Or can the scarlet be hooked directly up to the recorder and then the 702T will match the scarlets timecode? I'm probably way off but my understanding of the technology was that the time-code recorders don't do much extra besides generate the time-code numbers as they record. Or do they record at a more constant rate? I'm not sure. I am just assuming that because they have been synching film with plain slates for years that I should be able to get by with a decent recorder (and mixer by the sounds of it) and some good mics. Please correct me if I am wrong. You all have a great deal more experience than me.

Thanks again tremendously for your help. I'm very excited to start working hard towards my goals and ambitions. Cheers.

Jarvis

 

[Steve Johnson]

With Scarlet and Epic, if you sync the sound recorder up to the camera via the time code connector, Thrn you can sync sound with picture in REDcine-X Pro quite quickly and save some time. That's what I would do. It's worth the extra.

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[Evin Grant]

For feature dialog you can't beat a Sennheiser MKH-50, my favorite.

 

[David W. Jones]

For feature dialog you can't beat a Sennheiser MKH-50, my favorite.

Add an MKH60 and you have your bread and butter mics.

 

[Arnold F.]

I have owned the the 702t (and still own a 744t and 788t). You can use virtually any mic with it. It would be difficult to say what mic to use and even tougher to answer a question as subjective as yours. It's like asking what the minimum quality lens you can use is.

I would recommend not a sound "tech" (not sure what that is) but a Production Mixer or Sound Mixer. This is the guy or gal responsible for the sound half of the project and it's a full-time, inter-disciplinary craft as absolutely complex as cinematography. If a production mixer attempted to do his job and DP we would recommend he get a DP, wouldn't we?

As a former mixer myself I always appreciate others' interest in that craft, but the "how do I DP and Production Mix at the same time" questions are like asking how to take out your own appendix.

That said, if youre still determined to shoot and mix PM me with your questions and I'll try to help.

The first thing you need to do is involve a qualified sound tech!
The second thing is to set a budget!

I could make all kinds of recommendations, but since you have already made the choice to go without a mixer, set levels in rehearsal, and come what may, what's the point.

All the Best!

Dave

 

[Arnold F.]

This is like saying for feature images nothing beats the Scarlet and I don't think that's your intention. There are many high quality shotgun mics available and I doubt most mixers would say the MKH-50 was the best. I would let The production mixer the producer of your project hired make these decisions. If, as a production mixer, I had brought my own movie camera to a feature shoot i was on and tried to start shooting with it I wouldn't have lasted the day. It's nutty to think the opposite is somehow okay.

For feature dialog you can't beat a Sennheiser MKH-50, my favorite.