Sound Recording

[The Lone Ranger]

I think I've mentioned before that I bought a high-def video camera not all that long ago. It doesn't produce video that's quite as sharp as what you'd get from a professional set-up costing thousands of dollars, but I'm really impressed with the results.

I can shoot high-def video, import it into my computer, edit it with iMovie, add titles and whatnot, and get something that looks like it was done by a professional. Nice!

The tricky part is sound. Even in a national park, it's all but impossible to get more than a few seconds' worth of sound recording that doesn't include some sort of engine noise (a distant automobile, a distant aircraft, whatever), somebody talking, or wind. For that matter, the sound of the camera's motor as it turns the tape is recorded onto every tape; it's not overwhelming, but it's always noticeable during quieter parts of the video.

I've got a pretty decent microphone on my camera, and it's wind-screened, but even so, if there's anything more than a gentle breeze blowing, the soundtrack is dominated by the sound of the wind. Not the gentle, lyrical sigh of the wind in the trees -- the loud rumble of an overloaded microphone.


Dealing with the problem is a bit complicated. If it's important that I match the sound to the action onscreen, I open the video clip in a second video-editing program and isolate the audio track. (As far as I can tell, iMovie won't do this -- maybe iMovie '11 will? If so, it's time to upgrade!) Anyway, I save the audio track as a .wav file and then open that in Audacity. With Audacity, I can perform all sorts of filtering tricks to remove most of the noise generated by the camera itself, much of the wind noise, and sometimes even noise from engines and whatnot.

Once I've cleaned up the audio as much as possible, I can re-import it into iMovie, carefully match it to the appropriate video track, and ultimately produce a high-def movie with pretty good sound.



But I'll bet that I could do a lot better.

I'm thinking that it would be really nice if I could get some good sound-recording equipment for recording ambient sounds. Birdsong, the sound of wind in the trees -- without the loud rumbling that comes from overloaded microphones -- that sort of thing. A set up that would allow really good stereophonic recording would be nice. Maybe a dish for recording birdsong or the like without contamination from extraneous sources of noise.

I think it'd be nice if, the next time I go on vacation and shoot hours of lovely video of waterfalls and babbling brooks and mountain landscapes and forested wilderness and the like, I could also get lots of really nice audio to go with it.


I don't suppose that anyone could offer suggestions regarding what sorts of equipment to look at / where to look?


Cheers,

Michael

[fragment]

I've only done enough field recordings to know that wind and distant unwanted noises are the bane of field recording, and damn hard to do anything much about. You'll want to know something about microphone directionality (intro link (http://www.mediacollege.com/audio/microphones/directional-characteristics.html)). You can get stereo mics, not sure how well they work. Consider getting a couple of different mics for different purposes. Having the mic away from the camera should help a lot in getting rid of camera noise. Get a good pair of headphones so you can listen to what the mics are picking up, which can be surprisingly different from what you hear through your ears.

Can't suggest any particular gear or stores. As always, often best to go with established brands.

And have fun!

[JoeP]

For reducing wind noise caused by wind on the microphone, you need fluff.

http://thewindcutter.com/windcutter/images/soundmaster_xl.jpg

Or fur or foam. There's a variety of types, which may or may not be good for various wind strengths.

But it sounds like you make have this kind of wind-screen already?

I've toyed with getting a directional mike for recording bird calls, but never actually tried one.

Afaik you go with something mounted on the camera, with windscreens and laborious post-processing to cut the camera motor noise etc ... or you get a separate mike system and a separate person to carry it.

[fragment]

or you get a separate mike system and a separate person to carry it.
Depends how mobile you want to be. If you're tripod mounting your camera, you might as well have a separate mic on a stand. Though I guess TLR is going to want to hike to places with this gear, so overall weight and bulk is a factor.

[The Lone Ranger]

Yeah, portability is nice. It's not necessarily absolutely essential that sound and video be recorded simultaneously in most cases -- though that would certainly be nice. On those occasions where it's absolutely essential that sound and video be recorded simultaneously, I'll probably have to rely on the camera's microphone.

If nothing else, though, it'd be nice to be able to go into a nice natural area and record some nice, clean ambient sound (free of camera noise, wind noise, etc.) that could then be added to the soundtrack of the video shot in the same place.

I've been doing a bit of hunting around. I'm certainly not going to invest thousands in professional recording equipment, but it looks like I could pick up a really nice solid-state digital recorder, a binaural microphone system and a really good shotgun mike for just a few hundred dollars. That should be packable, so I could probably carry the sound-recording equipment into the field with me on most occasions. (I have a large backpack into which I can fit my still and video cameras and their lenses, and a tripod in a separate pack.)

Cheers,

Michael

[fragment]

Even if you're recording video and audio on separate media, there are ways of time-coding so they can be synced up easily. No idea on the details, though.

[Demimonde]

Even in the same media, you can edit your sound in garage band. This is assuming since you have iMovie that you got Mac.