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Podtales 2019 Microphone Workshop Redux

As a followup to Fred’s 2019 Podtales workshop on mic technique, here follows a bunch of resources and examples to help illustrate the microphone choices one faces when recording audio drama.

fred greenhalgh microphone workshop podtales 2019

Fred Greenhalgh surveys audio fiction mic technique – mono, stereo, binaural – at Podtales 2019 in Boston, MA.

Preamble

It was an honor to have Dagaz Media be invited to the inaugural Podtales conference in Boston to offer a workshop on microphone technique. Our goal with the workshop was to bring some gear into the room and illustrate that microphone choices are the audio fiction equivalent of paint brushes, or camera lenses. Microphones all have unique properties and there rarely is a ‘wrong’ choice — just different choices that vary depending on the context, resources available to the creator, and subject matter / tone of their piece.

Too often, I see creators whose mic choices are limited to the most basic USB audio interfaces… And while that’s an OK way to get started, I would like to encourage us all to dream bigger, and also make the argument that it’s really not cost-prohibitive to try out some more interesting ways to record (e.g. YES while you can spend $2,500 on mics in a heartbeat, you can also record stereo and binaural with rigs that are well under $500, with incredible results).

I have been blessed with the opportunity to work with some extremely kind, generous, and amazingly talented mentors in the audio fiction space and seen that there is no wrong way to do any of this, just a myriad selection of RIGHT ways. You can record on location. You can record in the studio – with actors looking at each other… Or not. Or even, dare I say it, when actors aren’t in the same place at the same time (though I personally dislike this approach to recording, I think it’s possible to execute well especially if you put some work into ensuring there is some modicum of consistency across recording environments and record the actors in real-time together).

This piece is not intended to be an exhaustive breakdown of every kind of way that an audio drama can be recorded, but more to illustrate from how moving beyond basic functional recording setup allows us to think about mic technique as a creative tool to employ, rather than technical obstacle to overcome.

High-level, we explore three different ways to record a show:

Multiple mono mics – the most obvious and classic way to record an ensemble cast in studio.
X-Y stereo mic – the “BBC way” and also a great way to record on-location.
Binaural stereo mic – this so-called “3d audio” method dates back 50+ years but still sounds incredibly immersive and convincing… on headphones.

Shout out to Dagaz Media

“Bill and Freds Audio Adventures” was a term coined by the team at Audible Studios who we worked with on Locke & Key and The X-Files audio dramas!

You’ll see me jump around a lot between I/me and We/our in this piece. The workshop at Podtales was sponsored by Dagaz Media, which is the parent audio company formed by me and audio co-conspirator and dear friend, William (Bill) Dufris, as Dagaz Media. Bill was not able to make it to Boston for our workshop due to medical reasons, but he generously lent a bunch of microphones from his studio so that we could pull the workshop off, and also has been instrumental in iterating on the various recording methods over the years we’ve worked together — Locke & Key, The Dark Tome, The X-Files, Expeditionary Force: Homefront. When you see we/our I’m talking about the results of my professional collaboration with Bill / Dagaz Media, when you see I/me it’s a Fred Greenhalgh personal opinion… And if the two occasionally seem to bleed into each other, it’s only because Bill is such a close collaborator it’s hard to tell who is who and which is which sometimes!

Supplementary Resources:

There is quite a lot to dig into here beyond just a blog entry and some clips. We decided to ‘open source’ one of the original session files from Dark Tome as well as all providing the raw audio from Podtales, so you can really get a sense of how the cake is baked!

See this Dropbox folder to download the resource kit: http://bit.ly/podtales-workshop

Including:

Script – Sample scene from The Dark Tome, Season 2, Episode 9 (DT S2E9)
ProTools Session including PodTales recordings as well as stem tracks from the original scene in DT S2E9
ProTools Session from the original scene in DT S2E9
Raw audio for all of the above so you can play around with the raw audio even if you don’t have ProTools
Final mix of the sample scene from DTS2E9

Also see this supplementary video where Fred walks you through what’s in the resource kit!

In-depth breakdown of the various mic’ing techniques and why I chose to illustrate them for PodTales:

Multiple Mono Mics (RØDE NTG-2)

Multi mic mono recording set-up in a professional studio

Perhaps the most obvious way to record a group of actors is to give each actor their own microphone and have them read their lines into it. Within this model there are still about a bazillion decisions to be made… e.g. shotgun vs. cardioid microphones, how do you orient the actors in the space with one another, or even do you try and break the actors apart entirely (e.g. Big Finish for all of their dramas records in a unique studio where actors have their own booths).

My personal take is that it’s really nice for actors to have sightline with one another so that they can see and respond to the other actors within a scene. We like to get the actors to physically act out a performance as much as possible – so even though movement is limited by this approach (e.g. if actors wander off-mic that’s generally a problem) we still want to see them express some of the physical aspects of their performance even when stationary so that the sense of movement is captured. We also generally instruct actors to continue to be ‘in the scene’ even when they don’t have lines… e.g. there will be little bits of reactions, overlaps, etc. when an actor is still in the scene and hearing another person’s lines, even if something isn’t scripted. These noises risk sounding campy so you also need to temper that with the direction ‘less is more.’

From a technical perspective, what you get are nice clean tracks which you can do a lot with in post. You can orient and re-orient actors in the stereo field using stereo panning or even binaural plugins. You can also much more easily splice together parts of takes, so if an actor fluffed their line in one take, you might be able to fix it with another take. Also, especially if you use a tight shotgun mic with limited room pickup pattern, you can endure slightly less ideal recording conditions since the mics may forgive a boxier or boomier room.

Anyhoo, here’s our cast running through this Dark Tome scene on multiple mono Mics:

Pros of Multi-Mic:

Most flexibility in post-production.
Lots of choices… shotgun, cardioid, etc. and price points for various mics starting at ~$50/each up till.. a shocking amount of $$/each 🙂

Cons of Multi-Mic:

For all but the simplest of shows, you’ll need a more complex audio interface than a simple 2-channel rig. Possibly a mixer mixed down to stereo, or even better, a rack piece of equipment with 4+ inputs and multitrack recording.
The amount of ‘stuff’ in the way can inhibit performer’s ability to interact with others and get in the way of creating a real human moment.
More time involved in post-production because you need to make a bunch of decisions about how a scene will lay out and how to work performances into the stereo field.

Stereo (X-Y) Mic (RØDE NT-4)

This photo from the FinalRune ‘classic’ archives shows us on location with the RODE NT-4 during one of our early works (William Dufris playing a troll impacted by suburban sprawl). Our original ‘blimp’ set-up consisted of a pencil case, feather boa, and paint roller, held together with an ingenius series of rubber bands!!!

Another way of recording actors in studio, or on location, is to enter the world of stereo. Many BBC dramas are recorded this way, and… actually for masterful effect see this clip of Dirk Maggs producing a scene for Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy where you see both multi-mic and stereo mic technique used in a single clip: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p061m3yq

The advantage of Stereo is multi-fold.

First, you can start working with staging actors and action. i.e. a scene involves two actors grappling with one another, you can actually have them doing that. It also works really well when you have a whole crowd of voices and you want to convey that sense of breadth and depth in a scene. Actors coming in/off mic almost always sounds more convincing when recorded in stereo than when you try to achieve that effect in post.

Of course, to suggest that ‘stereo’ is a single thing, is completely incorrect. There are myriad ways to record stereo tracks and pros and cons for each respective technique. For purposes of this workshop, I chose to use the RODE NT-4 microphone, a rather unique microphone that offers X-Y stereo recording in a matched pair mounted onto a single body microphone.

The RODE NT-4 is a workhorse of a microphone… I’ve used it extensively mostly for location recording, going back to the very first we did (Dark Passenger) and then for Waiting for a Window and The Troll of Stony Brook before going on to use it for Seasons 1 and 2 of The Cleansed.

While a relatively bulky mic, the RODE NT-4 sounds delightful and can be utterly convincing on location. Its bulk, however, does make it a bit more clunky to carry around and more subject to handling noise than our current rig, the Sanken CSS-5. In studio, of course, this is not so much an issue!

There is a whole workshop just on effectively using stereo — e.g. mono compatibility, X-Y vs. M-S vs. ORTF vs. other methods, mic placement, etc. — but in short this can be a really interesting way to get convincing, life-like performances captured with an economy of effort IF you have great source material to begin with.

It should be noted that several common prosumer recorders– The Zoom H1n, H2n, H4n, H5, and H6 for example — ship with X-Y stereo recording built-in mics out of the box.

Pros of Stereo Recording:

Actors can move around and be more ‘present’ in a scene
Mic, if mounted to boom pole, doesn’t have to remain in a fixed location
Incredibly convincing if brought on location

Cons of stereo recording:

Fewer options in post – e.g. how you stage a scene, you’ve essentially committed to that placement in post
More difficult to splice takes together
Captures a bit more of the room sound, which may be desirable in location recordings but unwanted in studio recordings

Binaural Mic (3Dio)

binaural recording crowd sounds for audio drama

Binaural can work TERRIFICALLY well when recording crowd sounds and other weird vocal effects. Here’s Dagaz Media co-founder Bill Dufris leading a bunch of screaming children in a foray around the microphone.

Binaural recording is a specific method of stereo recording deserving of its own section because of its novelty and unique opportunities for creative expression.

A binaural recording is stereo – two mic capsules – but the unique part about it is that the mic capsules are omni-directional, and placed in a dummy head or similar housing that mimics the human ear canal. The magic trick accomplished by recording in this manner, is that recordings that are captured in binaural, when played back in stereo, using headphones, will sound 3-dimensional.

It’s a little hard to really convey what it means to hear in 3-dimensions using only two channels (Left and Right) so you best listen on to the following clips to see what I’m talking about. Or, to really freak yourself out, check out this production of STICKS by ZBS which was recorded in Binaural.

If the results of Binaural are so cool, why isn’t it more common?

Well, the trouble with this form of recording is that as soon as the mix is played back on loudspeakers (rather than headphones), the 3d effect is completely eliminated. Worse, because of the sonic phenomenon called ‘feathering,’ there is phase cancellation of the stereo playback which results in dialogue and other effects sounding kind of weird. So, what is a gorgeous, beautiful, and immersive mix on headphones, can end up sending like crap when played back on speakers. Bummer!

As mentioned above, there have been some really interesting experiments with 3d audio over the years (Stephen King’s THE MIST in 3d sound by ZBS is a classic!!!) but because of the desire for mixes to sound OK on speakers, and no practical way to offer separate mixes for separate contexts, it’s remained a fairly fringe recording technique… though it’s currently enjoying a bit of a resurgence. Check out works by The Truth and The Owl Field.

While the mic used in this demo is fairly price ($1,299) you can get more affordable earbud-style binaural mics if you just want to play around. What happens if you hang out in the subway with binaural mics in your ears instead of earbuds? What crazy weird things might you hear in the woods, or on the beach?

Pros of Binaural recording:

3dimensional effect not achievable with other forms of recording

Cons of Binaural recording:

Weird things happen when played back on stereo

Getting Weird with Binaural

kc wayland playing with binaural at podtales

As a fun experiment, KC Wayland had us try spinning a binaural mic while chanting in Latin… It was hella creepy!

To speak to the ‘let’s try some weird stuff’ side of this all, let’s talk about how you do creative things with mic placement… as in this idea that KC Wayland had us try out at Podtales!

Here, we took the binaural mic, spun it around and around and around in circles while KC chanted in Latin. Ummmm yeah… you just gotta kinda hear it for yourself!

*** NOTE: As we said above, this effect only really works well on headphones, ideally high-quality ones in a quiet environment. This is NOT the average listening environment of today’s podcast listener, but dangit, can’t audiophiles get stuff made for them, too?!?! ***

In Closing…

Go forth, make cool stuff, and let me know how it pans out!!! And don’t miss the Dropbox full of goodies for digging deeper into this, link back at the top.

I even included the entire mix of the original Dark Tome episode, inclusive of sound design and music mix, which gives you an idea how one of my finished shows comes together (this one has a hybrid of field-recorded primary dialogue that dissolves into studio recordings when we transition from our world to hell through a demonic portal).

Original Release Mix of this Sample Scene:

Don’t forget to jump over to Dropbox and grab the resource kit that goes with this, so you can hear all the differences in clips yourself, and even better, break apart the ProTools session and see how one of these shows is made!

Dropbox link: http://bit.ly/podtales-workshop

Field Recording Adventures in Belize, OR Adventure Leisure with young children

Prepping for my family’s recent trip to Belize, I struggled a lot to decide what gear to bring. Go big with amazing binaural sound kit? Stereo shotgun mic? ORTF like my pal Eric Mooney?

My gut told me ‘go light’ and when I heard the same advice from world-traveler guru Tom Lopez, I was sufficiently convinced. I would be traveling, and more importantly, traveling with children, and to do proper field recording expeditions you really need ‘alone time’ which was not really the reality with my family with me. However, I couldn’t come home sans recordings at all (!) so instead started working on my light kit.

Which, really, is just round two of my previous post, my South African love of the Sony PCM-M10.

Gear for Belize Trip. Always bring a hard-copy book!

My kit consisted of similar gear as before:

Sony PCM M-10 recorder
a bunch of batteries
Rode NTG-2 mic and XLR -> mini plug
Koss PortaPro headphones
Nikon D5500 dSLR w/ Rode Videomic (for videos)
Small Sony point and shoot camera
Lots of extra batteries for all of the above. USB charging is pretty accessible but if you’re way off the grid plugs may be harder to come by.

Other electronics, since people seem interested:

dual 10W charger
iPad Mini Gen 2 w/ blue tooth keyboard (what I typed this on)
iPhone 5S (put on wifi-only mode in-country and used only for photos, occasionally email/Facebook when wifi access available)
- useful device to have, unbelievable how long the battery lasts when its not connected to cell network!
- we were able to use Facebook messenger to communicate with our guide, otherwise we honestly did not need a phone at all. For about $40 US we could’ve gotten set up with a local SIM card but didn’t really see the point. Cue Ghostbusters. “Who you gonna call?”
Anker portable usb charger – totally necessary. Can recharge iPhone 4-5x and just shy of one charge of the iPad
? – ?” plug for car AUX input, 12v. Car charger, headphone splitter.
Steripen Traveler water sterilizer. Nice thing to have (though potable water isn’t a huge issue in Belize)
A non-electronic book. Always bring a book, or two.

So on to the experience and practicalities, lessons learned, etc

It’s Louder than You Think

There is human noise everywhere, ‘oom oom oom’ music blared incredibly loudly from cheap boomboxes seems to be the norm in the rural areas I’ve been to in both Africa and Latin America. First comes electronics, then comes really loud and blarery bass.

So it’s always nice to get some good city ambi but many large cities sound similar, all hubbub and commotion. Now, do a little walking around and you’re sure to stumble across something a little more unique… A funky sounding truck, a particularly mad public market. And here’s where we get back to the real thrust of this piece…

Field Recording with Children

If you are just going about your traveling life collecting sounds, then the lightweight gear is critical, if you’re me and toting a 1-year-old in one arm, and hear something cool, then you need to be able to snag your recorder and get it ON and at an acceptable level aimed in the right direction and recording without handling noise as quickly as possible…. Easier said than done.

I exclusively wear EMS cargo pants when traveling (zip off pants/shorts ideal, roll up tiny and great practicality of straps and pockets). The PCM-M10 fits comfortably in one of said pockets, my iPhone often lives in a main pocket, wallet, etc. and sometimes I bring the small camera as well. BUT no place in here for a big recording rig. So point is, the vast majority of recordings I gather on my trips are ‘seat of the pants oh-something-cool-is-happening-lets-snag-it’ events not planned recording excursions.

The Sony PCM-M10 is one bad-ass Recorder. It recorded a long take of jungle night sounds for 12 hours straight!

Some samples from Belize…

Sometimes, You Bring the Big Stuff

Obviously a nice mic/mics can record a much fuller sound than built-in recorder mics. Just remember, the best rig IS THE ONE YOU HAVE ON YOU at the time the recording event is happening. The nicest rig in the world does you approximately bunk if it’s in the hotel room when some awesome shit goes down.

So, I’ve really questioned even bringing the shotgun mic, and to some extent, the dSLR (though, the dSLR’s. value is really proven in a few stellar. Shots, like this one)

The shotgun mic though?

There was literally one time I got it out during the entire trip, when a crowd of crazy macaws was overhead. And honestly, the up-close shotgun perspective was not that helpful.

It’s hard to justify bringing a (relatively) bulky mic for exactly one recording event on a trip. One thing I might try to do next time, is – I also have a RØDE VideoMicro which is an astonishingly good-sounding mic given that it retails for like $50 USD. I brought it to shoot quick videos on our dSLR (which it works brilliantly for) but next time I think if I could rig an 1/8″ extension for it and a little pistol grip to help with mic handling noise, I would consider it as a ‘quick and dirty’ shotgun mic option.

Remember Why You’re Traveling

Of course, it’s easy to second guess later. My strongest advice: find a piece of gear that’s small and light that you will carry around with you everywhere. Get to know it like a good friend. Then plan to go somewhere cool. The recording opportunity is harder to arrange than the equipment.

Descending the River with the RØDE SmartLav Microphone

Essential gear for any whitewater rafting expedition – a waterproofed carry case, SmartLav mic in celophane, and emergency flotation – err… beer

Warning: Do not try this at home. Well, I suppose you can’t – insofar as the story we’re about to tell involves Class IV Whitewater rapids on the Kennebec River in Maine.

So the mission at hand: there is a sequence in Season 2 of The Cleansed where our characters must descend a treacherous whitewater river in inadequate water craft. We wanted this scene to sound as big, loud, and scary as running an actual river is. As even the most experienced rafting guides will tell you – the river is in control. Give it respect. And when things go sour, well, go along for the ride.

This story ultimately involves us doing our best to waterproof some gear and then send it down a river, but let’s start with the setup of how we recorded this scene.

Let’s start with the script. Here’s how it reads:

Cleansed s2e2 River Sequence from Fred Greenhalgh

Dialogue

One actor holds the canoe, and two others sit in it… The recordist is just off to the side.

We’ve remarked on the audio drama field recording process before; this sequence is what field recording was made for. You can send people to outer space, have heady, emotional drama, and EQ pretty much anyone anywhere while in the studio BUT having them be in canoes just doesn’t sound the same unless they’re in canoes.

So yeah, we put our actors in canoes.

For Season 2 we had upgraded to a Sound Devices 702 recorder, which is a fantastic rig (except for the fact that it runs on Lion batteries and we were short this day, so we had to jerry-rig a charger for our recordist that ran off a car battery and sat in a box in the canoe, but I digress). Our primary location mic is a RØDE NT-4, which gives us gorgeous stereo capture, while the RØDE fishpole and BLIMP set-up stood up to a steady 5mph wind.

The sequence has three canoes, two characters in each, so we did the same while recording. We grabbed two actors, got them in the canoes, and pulled them offshore a little bit – in a nice, non-moving, shallow spot, incidentally. We positioned the recordist at the head, so one actor was a little further from the mic, physically, though both actors were recorded on mic-center.

With tape (well, CF card) rolling, we started the sequence. The actors were physically paddling throughout the sequence, their scripts laid out before them. I held the canoe taut so they could not physically progress, but their breathing, level of urgency, and paddle strokes all felt naturally timed to the dialogue. As things start to get hairy in the script, I messed with them a little – pushing the canoe up or pulling it down suddenly as the characters struct rapids in the story. So all the little shrieks – while called for in the script – got a little bit of extra terror thanks to a particularly mischievous director.

And oh yeah, we definitely dunked our lead actors from the canoes so we could get that sound, too. Here’s me (waist-deep) with my RØDE NTG-2 shotgun mic, the recordist in the foreground is getting the stereo track:

Fred Greenhalgh and Recordist Randall Farr record actors getting thrown into the water. Photo courtesy David Turner

Sound Design

When all of this was put together, we had pretty solid bones to work with. However, one of the fundamental tenets of sound design is that we expect sound to sound larger than life, so there was still quite a lot of work cranking this thing up to 11.

Intrepid sound designers Matthew J Boudreau and Monique Boudreau of Aural Stage Studios got to work layering sounds they recorded at Niagara Falls to give the appropriate amount of ‘whoosh’ – while also amping up the canoe/rapids moments. There are nice little crunches against the canoe, roars and splooshes. One of my favorites is when the characters go under water – the ‘live’ sound is there, but it is amped up with sound design to be even bigger than the real thing.

Another thing the Boudreaus did magnificently here was to convey the sense of going under water – again, just after the characters are tossed from the boat, there is a moment where purely through sound design alone you’re imagining being under water and fighting your way above. Just a little bit of bubbly sound conjures the scene in your imagination. And as someone who has been out of control flying down a whitewater river… it was appropriately terrifying.

The Rafting Trip

Lavalier mic recording whitewater rapidsa

My wife was a good sport about duct-taping a rather unsightly lav mic to her shoulder

So if this was all so good, why the hell did you go whitewater rafting and capture a whole bunch more sound? Well, mostly because I could.

My employer, ReVision Energy, was already planning a company rafting trip and the challenge of trying to capture the sounds of the roaring river (while simultaneously not ending up in the water myself) was too tempting to resist.

In the end I think I over-analyzed it a bit, but here is what my recording set-up was, with some tips from various indies on the AIR list:

- RØDE SmartLav, wrapped in a cellophane baggie and duct-taped shut. The Lav was clipped to my wife’s PFD (oh, and did I mention we have an infant? I held onto the baby and sat out the scary river parts, while my wife rode the Class IV Gorge. On the safer lower half of the river we all got in. Yeah, the compromises parents make).
- Sansa Clip used as a recorder – wha?!OK, so here’s some important fine print on the RØDE SmartLav. The unit is advertised to be a Smartphone recorder, and it’s worked really well for me doing little VO dubs on my Android phone. Nowhere in product marketing does it say it is intended to be strapped to you and sent down a river.I say this because I first tried to get the SmartLav to work on my Sony PCM-10 – my favorite pocket field recorder – and I couldn’t get any levels whatsoever. It turns out the SmartLav uses a TRRS type connector, which looks like an ordinary 1/8″ mic except that it gets some power output from the unit it’s plugged into. This meant the mic-only input of the PCM-M10 left it dead, but something like this crummy MP3 player gave it the signal it needed to turn on.This set-up seemed to work OK though as you can imagine the recording options of the Sansa were pretty plain (like, no control over levels or ability to monitor your mix) – but I had to accept that this was an experiment and what we would get was what we would get.

On later, milder stretches of river, I just strapped the SmartLav contraption to the side of the raft. As our guide said, “Use #4,671 for duct tape!”

The recorder setup was put into a sandwich bag, duct-taped shut, then put into a water-resistant recording bag which also was duct-taped shut, then carabiner-clipped to my wife’s PFD.

The Results

Well, my wife got down the river without flying off the raft, and the recorder did not get soaked, and my recordings survived the journey. Check and check!

The SmartLav recordings, however, left a little something to be desired. I think this mostly had to do with the quality of the MP3 player – it just was not up to pro standards and for most of the harrowing – errr, more ‘sound rich’ – parts, it just peaked into oblivion. It did much better for quieter moments, such as picking up this really fun moment with our straight up Mainah’ guide, GW:

finalrune · Kennebec River Rafting Raw Recording

In my obsession to get a recorder through the gorge of the Kennebec River, I forgot a lesson I had learned during Season 1 of The Cleansed: that sometimes real can be too real.

What I mean, is – on Episode 3 there is a scene where the Refuge is torched by ne’er do wells. In attempts to get the right sound of flames, I went to a burndown of a real building and to several out-of-control bonfires – and in those cases, when fire is REALLY out of control, it just sounds like white noise. I did much better with a controlled (but still pretty raging) fire in my backyard, where I could stack up extra lumber when needed, capture the sound of sizzling coals, layer multiple tracks, etc.

Likewise, Class 4 whitewater rapids sound a lot like WWHWAHIIRRAAAOOSDSOSPPPLrAAUIIISSHSHHHHHHHHHH!!!! and I think would stress out even the most sophisticated recorder.

Recording “Fire” for Season 1 of The Cleansed. In the end, making my own controlled fire was the best way to do this

However, on this particular river there’s an opportunity to climb aboard the Raft on a milder 2nd half which descends into Class 3, then Class 2, then Class “Sit back and enjoy a beer” rapids. Here I could have totally gotten away with bringing the rig I found myself really wanting – the NTG-2 and the PCM-M10 – and I would have had the right tools for the job.

Still, all was not lost. After all, Aural Stage had done an awesome job with the sound design and all I was looking for were a couple flourishes. Mostly, I kept listening to the river a lot, asking myself, “Is there something about the character of the river itself that is unique and hard to replicate using foley?”

What I picked up on, sonically, was that the one distinct sound was the initial sploosh when the boat hit the water. There was a distinct sound to the crack of the boat into water that only happened when we were at substantial velocity. Slower waves just give you a ‘splat, splat, splat’ whereas the good rapids have a solid ‘whuuuummpp!’ with some real depth of body. So I cut out maybe 3-4 moments in the field recordings where we had good crashes, no one screaming and a minimum of peaking, then went to work seeing if I could rescue the takes and make them broadcast-worthy.

Gimme Some RX

Here I give a shout-out to Izotope RX (a sponsor of Aural Stage Studios) whose RX tool did amazing things to the lo-fi recordings off the MP3 player. I am kind of an idiot-savant (or maybe just an idiot) but after running a ‘Declip’ tool and EQ’ing off some high end, the tracks sounded a lot more usable to me:

Izotope RX - repair peaked water rafting clipping

This audio was originally so peaked it was unusable. With a bit of RX, it was perfectly serviceable and we used it low in the mix to add breadth to the little canoe crashes in this scene

There’s a lot more that RX will do for you – spectrum analysis, decrackling, noise removal, etc. but having used it for about 5 minutes total, and being able to improve audio to the point where I could do something with it, was a straight up miracle in my book.

The Final Audio

So 2-3 hours of dialogue recording, at least than much (or more) in sound design, 3 more hours whitewater rafting and then an hour or two more playing with the mix, we have this four minute sequence of audio drama. I hope you like it.

finalrune · Descending the River – From The Cleansed S2E2

Takeaways if you’re thinking about trying to record audio on a river:

Less can be more, even when you’re talking about big boom sound effects.
If you leave a recorder home because you’re afraid it’s going to get wet… Bring it anyways (a ship in harbor is safe, but that’s not what ships are made for).
That being said, the cellophane baggie, duct-tape and water-resistant recorder set all worked great. Nothing would have survived being thrown off the boat, but, if you get thrown off the boat you should not be worrying about a sound recorder anyways.
Remember to sit back and enjoy the ride. Rivers are damn beautiful.

Disclaimer: RØDE is an in-kind donor to FinalRune and gave us the NTG-2 and SmartLav mics. We purchased the BLIMP and NT-4 long before they sent us gear, and our opinions have not really been shaped by the fact that they gave us schwag. They also did not suggest, recommend, or otherwise encourage us to take equipment designed for nice peaceful video interviews into a Gorge. That was our idea.

RØDE iXY Review – High Fidelity Field Recorder in your Pocket

Updated 11-30-2014 – now includes my notes on the follow-up, the RØDE iXY Lightning.

We pit the Rode iXY vs Zoom H1 vs Sony PCM-M10 (omitted: Zoom H2 and Zoom Q3, but contact us and we’ll hook you up with sound samples)

Several gadgets over the years have come along offering recording opportunities with the iPhone – the Blue Mikey, the Apogee iRig and even an entry from Tascam. But it wasn’t until the RØDE iXY made its debut that I sincerely considered an iPhone as a serious tool for audio drama field recording.

What interested me most about the iXY is using it for stealth sound design – capturing bustling city streets, subways, weird sounds by machines, ocean ambiences, etc. while not drawing attention to myself… “Gee, it’s just another sucker with his eyes fixed on his iDevice!”

Does the iXY fulfill its promise – a compact, portable, ‘just works’ solution for field recording in your pocket? Read on.

A History of Mac Hate

Here’s the big disclosure: I am an unrepentant Mac-hater. Does anyone remember anythingbutipod.com? Yeah, probably not. I have been a PC-guy since the first IBM Aptiva my mom bought the family in 1998 (or thereabouts). I have only ever owned MP3 players that you could plug in via USB and drag/drop files, and when I finally had my arm twisted enough to buy a Smartphone, it was an Android device. Something about living off-grid makes you skeptical of devices that everyone considers the ‘best.’

So, for me to be seriously talking about ditching my Android for an iPhone just to use the iXY, that is a big deal. Yet, that is exactly where I’m at after test-driving the iXY for a couple weeks.

Update – I have in fact converted from Android devices to iPhone, my current rig is an iPhone 5s with the iXY Lightning. Yes, they finally won me over!

Why iXY it to Begin With

The RODE iXY (now with Lightning) replaces a slew of gadgets, including portable field recorder, still camera, and hand-held flip-style camera

Why is the RØDE iXY so exciting? Well, starting in 2012 I made a pledge to carry a field recorder with me at all times. When you’re serious about sound effects, you just never know what you’re going to miss if you’re out in the world and don’t have a way to capture something cool you hear.

I’ve held pretty good to my pledge, though of course the occasions I’ve forgotten to carry a recorder, I’ve missed some awesome sound gathering opportunities. Like what? Like – being at a bonfire out in the woods and then having a bunch of fireworks being shot off impromptu (can you say fill-in for rockets?). Like – being at another bonfire which kinda sorta maybe got a little out of control, and needed someone to fire up a a tractor and come dump gravel on it. Try creating that sound in post (and in case you’re wondering – Fred, what kind of frigging parties do you go to? Well, this is how we roll in the woods of Maine).

Anyways, carrying a field recorder with me at all times requires remembering it, keeping batteries in it, etc. I don’t need to repeat a previous reviews ad nauseum, but as I’ve written I’m in love with my Sony PCM-M10. But while the Sony is an extra thing to carry around with me, I carry my Smartphone (pretty much) everywhere. Doesn’t it just make sense to record great sound on a Smartphone?

Unfortunately, ‘great sound’ and ‘smartphone’ are generally antithetical phrases. To get great sound, you need three things: 1) good mic capsules (which, of course, cell phones don’t have), 2) ability to provide enough ‘gain’ to those mic capsules so that they can record an accurate representation of the original waveform, 3) quality Analog to Digital (A/D) conversion so that the fidelity of the source sound is preserved when it is saved to a digital format (which is why if you plug a good mic into the 1/8″ jack into your cellphone it will sound like shit). Smartphones have great software on them that let you do a lot of things, but record quality sounds is not one of them.

The iXY changes that by integrating audio processing (parts 2 and 3) as well as quality mics (parts 1) into a single device which attaches to the accessory port of the iPhone (models available for both the legacy iOS port and Lightning).

The iPhone’s proprietary 4-pin cable allows for devices like the iXY to bypass on-board electronics and instead transmit high-quality data. Android devices, in contrast, can only support 1/8″ inputs, and while there are various connectors that will allow you to plug-in a pro quality microphone to an Android, I’m skeptical the output in terms of audio fidelity will be worth it. Let us not forget – you can get great portable recorders for $200 or maybe less. So the smartphone option needs to at least match a Zoom H1 or H2n in order to be worth considering.

In summary: the iXY was made for the Apple iPhone not only because it is the most popular smartphone out there, but because it is the only smartphone that offers the ability to add a plug-in sound processor.

Damn, score one for Apple.

Unboxing the iXY

Let’s face it: The Rode iXY is packaged up pretty. So pretty that even packaging-haters like yours truly go ‘Ooooh’

Apple spends a ridiculous amount of time thinking about and optimizing the experience they want their customer to have when using one of their products. Everything from the way the product is wrapped, to the first thing you see when it is powered on, to their ruthless policing of apps, is all thought out in the greater context of user experience (UX). UX is what makes Apple Apple.

RØDE clearly wanted to make sure that opening the iXY appealed the sensibilities of Apple lovers. Seriously, it is perhaps the most beautifully packaged product I have ever seen (and this is from a guy who things that packaging is 99% BS). The wrapper has simple, clear graphics on what iXY will do, and even includes a QR code with link to a product video demo. There is a clear plastic shell which gives the package its heft, and the iXY itself is held at the top of it and packaged in snugly like the crown jewels. Yet, it is not a huge PITA to open, in fact it all snaps apart smartly and bam – within seconds you are holding your little beautifully iXY. Plug it in, and away you go…

RØDEincludes two accessories which are crucial for the iXY – a little zip-pouch for the unit with carabiner, and foam wind screen. Sadly, the wind screen does not tuck inside the zip-pouch, but the pouch itself is vital (this has been corrected on the Lightning edition, which has a bigger portable pouch).

I found myself thinking: “Well, what good is carrying around a second little gadget that I have to plug into my cell phone when I could just carry around a field recorder?” The answer is the little zip pouch – snap it to a loop on your pants and you will forget you have it on there. It is so lightweight, you’ll hardly even notice the power you’ve attached to your belt. Just, um, don’t throw it in the wash with those jeans.

Update – As of this writing (11/30/2014) I still haven’t found a satisfactory ‘dead cat’ style windscreen to go with the iXY, the foam windscreen is OK but it has the unfortunate property of tending to fly off the device and into the city street when you whip out the iXY from the zip pouch (yeah I guess I handle stuff aggressively!). My ideal add-on is nearly permanently affixed to the iXY so it always has wind protection, just unzip the add-on pouch, plug into your iPhone, and may audio happen. Alas, still looking.

Testing the iXY

The Rode Rec has some quirks, but is overall a great app for recording stuff on your iPhone or iPad

OK, well, a beautiful product and cool specs mean nothing. What matters is what you gather out there in the real world and what you do with it. I made it my mission to put the iXY through its paces.

My first task was to get the Rode REC App installed onto my first gen iPad. No problem – a quick visit to the iTunes store later, I had the app running, and made some test recordings using the built-in iPad mic. Let’s just say: Ugh. Let’s see how much better the iXY can do.

A quick ‘click,’ and a green LED lights up informing you that the iXY is running (though, annoyingly, it did not fit snugly with the case on my test iPad so I had to pull the iPad out of its folio cover to use the iXY). The recording process of Rode REC is straightforward enough, though there are some oddities that take some getting used to (for instance, the little ‘mic’ icon is actually settings, not recorder, the ‘help’ is hidden under the little Rode brand button in the top left, and the ‘Edit’ on the main screen allows you to change order of recordings, not actually… you know… Edit).

To put the iXY through its paces, we tried a similar exercise with a series of recorders – get inside a car, fumble with car keys, turn on car, turn off car, then get out and record the outside. This set of actions is fairly typical of the kind of field recording I’ll do (capturing ambiences and oddball sounds at environments throughout the world).

You’ve read this far. Now let’s cut to the chase. Here are a bunch of 16bit / 44kHz recordings, undoctored, with a similar set of tests:

RØDE iXY and iPad Recording

Zoom H1 Recording

Sony PCM-M10 Recording

RØDE NT-4 and Sound Devices 702 Recording

About the test-setup and why I chose these devices:

RØDE iXY – The test device, obviously
Zoom H1 – A ‘handy’ $100 recorder that gets surprisingly good results given its price point
Sony PCM-M10 – Currently my favorite compact field recorder
RØDE NT-4 and Sound Devices 702 – This is my ‘big mama’ rig, we use it for our main field recorded audio dramas. It was the ‘benchmark’ trying to compare how a compact recorder could compare to a serious set of equipment

The Results:

You can listen to the samples above and judge for yourself.

Here is what I thought:

The RØDE iXY

I was impressed with how well the iXY stacked up to its big brother (the NT-4). The levels looked low on recording, though I figured out midway through you can adjust (without making a sound!) on the fly using the Rec app. The device has surprisingly minimal internal noise, and can hold up to a fair amount of gain in post. There are some handling notes and vocal noises on this track, which are my fault. Part of the reason it’s my fault is that I don’t know the device super-well, but a more annoying problem is that it is difficult to monitor yourself when recording on the iPad. For reasons that elude me you get a strong echo in a set of headphones while recording (Update– RØDE support has informed me that there is a few ms delay when monitoring audio that is a fault of iOS – ick. That is a major disappointment).

Now, in most cases when you’re recording with an iPhone, you probably won’t have cans with you to monitor on anyways, but it still is a weak point. The little foam windscreen did an impressive job of cutting out wind noise though you could still hear it as I exited the vehicle.

Zoom H1

For some people the Zoom-H1 is really a wonder device. But, for $100 you do get what you pay for. Again, blame it on me, but the Zoom H1 is the device I have that always seems to be out of batteries when I need it. For the purposes of this test, it actually died on me in the midst of one of our takes. Now, you can read the back of a devices’ box and know what the specs are in regards to battery life. But in the field, you kind of just want it to work, and the Zoom H1 just isn’t that device. You can get good results (and if you listen to this track it’s not half bad) but you have quite limited ability to adjust the levels of your sound, and it is insanely responsive to handling noise. This is a good tool for a beginner (and given how small it is, not bad to keep in your backpack just in case) but professionals really need something a bit hardier.

Sony PCM-M10

I know this recorder well and frankly I think it got the best actual result of the portable recorders from this test. Me knowing how to hold it properly and speak into it makes a big difference. A nice solid manual input gain knob is incredibly helpful. I also have the Rycote windshield for it, which made it stand up incredibly well to movement and wind noise. This is the gadget I am going to take with me next time I go to South Africa (sorry, iXY). In fact, I did a later test where I added my RØDE NTG2 to the PCM-M10 and frankly I kind of like the on-board mic sound better in most situations than the shotgun sound of the NTG-2. For ‘run and gun’ recording, the light form factor of a device this size makes all the difference in the world. For serious recording work, having the RØDE NTG-2 and NT-4 available is invaluable. But I’d prefer to pull out this in a bus station than my dead cat…

RØDENT-4 and Sound Devices 702

This track sounds great, but given the $3,000 of audio gear I expected that. I really wanted to try and figure out WHY it is better. The NT-4 is RØDE’s premier X-Y stereo pair microphone, and I think its profound difference compared to the iXY is mic capsule spacing that gives a greater sense of ‘space’ to this recording than what the iXY did. The iXY is indeed stereo, but the sense of space is a little more compressed. Is that a good or bad thing? Not really either, it’s a ‘thing.’ Your application is going to determine the best device for you. You are not going to take this rig onto the subway.

Takeaways

Recalling that the premise of this review was to find a recorder that I would be happy taking with me everywhere, we can look at the results and say, “Damn, for 200 bucks the iXY gives a $3,000 sound recording rig a good run for its money.” I think personally I can achieve slightly better results using my Sony PCM-M10, but given its form factor the iXY is an incredibly powerful little gadget. In fact, now that I have the iXY, I have taken the Zoom H1 OUT of my bag and mailed it to Australia (to help an intern there get started recording her own sounds, not because I want to exile the poor thing).

This is not a review that is telling you one product is great and everything else sucks. This is the take of a person who is obsessed with field recorders and uses them on a daily basis. So in conclusion, let’s remember that the best tool is the one you have in your hand when you need it, that does what you need it do to well. I find having a selection of tools allows me to be more versatile and to use the right one for the job.

Here is currently what I own and how I use it:

Serious production work:The RØDE NT-4 recorder, RØDE Blimp + Boompole, Sound Devices 702. Since 2007 all FinalRune shows have been recorded with the NT-4. In 2012 we replaced our Marantz PMD-660 with the Sound Devices 702. I could not imagine a better recorder than the 702, but you pay for it. I’m still quite happy with the NT-4 after using it for 6 years, however you learn that it is quite sensitive and picks up stuff you might not notice unless you’re paying attention. So, pay attention.
Sound effects gathering:The RØDE NTG-2 really shines when capturing ‘spot’ sound effects – door slams, splashes, animal calls, etc. We pair it with the Marantz PMD-660 which we phased out of our main production kit. It can work with the PCM-M10 but that rig is a little awkward just due to the size of the Sony.
Sound recording when you’re out in the field:By the ‘field’ I mean traveling out-of-country, off-grid, away from the influence of humanity. And for this, the PCM-M10 is still my favorite. It is sturdy and can handle being jostled around in a backpack or being hucked out of a minibus. It has legendary battery life, and I can feel confident that when I pick it up, I’m going to get the sound I want.
Sound recording in the modern world: Now that I have the iXY to add to my arsenal, it is my ‘go to’ unit for my day-to-day life, which, actually is mostly in the civilized world. It is the device I’m going to have with me in train stations, city streets, office buildings, and maybe even concerts (if I can get it in with it!). I should note that the only way to get your recordings off of it is to send them to Dropbox or SoundCloud, which is incredibly useful, but also a possible limitation if, you know, you are two days’ journey into the bush (Update – this is not quite true. You can get iTunes to talk to the iXY and move tracks that way, but IMO it is a PITA).
Dustbin:The Zoom H1 is my ‘sacrificial’ unit which I’ll mail in a box to actors or aspiring sound recordists who are doing a small project for me. It can get good results and is dead simple to use. But I don’t trust it enough to carry it with me as a go-to device. Also in this drawer is the Zoom Q3 which I keep around to take video and sound clips of my infant daughter (none of which you are ever going to see). My Zoom H2, the trusty recorder which started me off on this whole adventure of portable sound recording, is going to be bequeathed to someone deserving who will use it. I’m still happy with the sound I get from the Zoom H2, I just think the Sony is better.

So there you have it, the iXY has convinced an Android user to enter the iPhone fold. Anyone want to buy a used Android phone?
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Disclaimer: Rode Microphones was kind enough to donate an iXY to me to review. And the big cool boxes you see on this site are affiliate links, if you buy something through them it will send some money to FinalRune productions, which I will convert into more content…

Our South African Love: The Sony PCM-M10

Part 1 of our series of articles on gear Fred used in his adventures across South Africa in Winter 2012

It’s no secret that I love field recording and especially handheld flash-based audio recorders. I’ve carried a Zoom H2 since they were introduced in 2007 and moved on to try out most of the rest of their line including the Zoom Q3, Zoom H4n and the Zoom H1. However, in preparation for my forthcoming trip to South Africa for five weeks it was time to take stock of my recording arsenal and ensure I had the right tool for the job.

The core requirement of my audio gear is that it had to fit into a single backpack along with all my other belongings for the full 5 weeks. And of course, I need to collect fantastic audio.

I had recently purchased the Zoom H4n which served me well as a backup/supplementary recorder for sessions of The Cleansed, but when I took a hard look at it and my backpack, I felt it was time to shop outside my much beloved Zoom brand.

The Candidates

You can lose yourself for weeks in web research for these types of gadgets; I cut my search short by reading some of the fantastic audio gear reviews by Jeff Towne up at Transom.org. Towne’s review of the Marantz PMD-660 led me to buying that recorder back in 2006, which still serves me well today, and I highly appreciate his hands-on, practical approach to reviewing especially considering his public radio background (NPR freelancers, while very different from audio dramaturges, look for many of the same requirements as us).

It was there I first read about what was to be my new love – the Sony PCM-M10.

I’d never had the pleasure of owning a Sony portable recorder though I’d lusted over the PCM-D50 for years. The highly talked-up built-in mics, solid mic pre-amps, tough build quality and durability were all factors I liked. However, its $500 price tag, lack of XLR inputs, and just-a-little-too-bigness kept us away.

I found that the smaller cousin, the PCM-M10, had many of the features of the D50, as well as a few others that suited my needs as a lightweight, durable secondary field recorder:

Small form factor – Very close in size to the Zoom H2, about the smallest a recorder can be while still having a professional set of features.
Solid built-in mics – The omni mics on this recorder get a fair amount of (deserved) cricism for their limited stereo response, more important than stereo though is usable quality and for my type of work they fit the bill (mainly recording ambiences with occasional spot FX here and there).
Incredible battery life – This is truly legendary. I don’t know that I’ve ever had an electronic device that has performed as well on this front. I got through almost the entire 5-week trip on a single set of AA batteries. The only reason I needed to swap them out is that I once accidentally left the recorder on overnight and it recorded 8-hours straight of audio without putting up a fuss.
MicroSD Card Support – For about $30 I purchased a 16GB SD card which allowed me around 24 hrs of 24-bit/48Khz recordings.

There are a few other things I learned to love about this recorder which I’ll talk about momentarily. These were the features which sold me on it. Within a few days of reading Jeff’s reviews I had one on the way from BH Photo/Video.

Unboxing and Beyond

The Zoom H2 and Sony PCM M10 are almost identical in size. The PCM M10 is a bit slimmer and heftier. It lacks the surround capability and computer interface of the Zoom, but offers robust professional features such as a manual input gain knob instead

My first impression with the recorder was that yes, this was in fact as small as it looked on the internet. It also feels like a professional piece of equipment; holding it side by side with my Zoom H2, the Zoom feels like a toy and the Sony like something for grown-ups.

When I first starting doing this in 2007 I probably wouldn’t have noticed (nor been able to appreciate) the differences, but at my current level of experience here are the features that really stuck out:

Manual recording level input knob – If I could name only one feature that makes this recorder a better buy that some of its competitors, this is it. Having the ability to really control your input levels (vs. the Low, Medium, High response on the Zoom) is what separates a mainstream device from that of the audio professional.
Mic Sensivitity Low/High – Related to the above issue. Mic sensitivity should be on high most-times, but gosh, having the option of ‘Low’ helps out a lot when an unexpected lightning storm comes rolling in overhead.
Built-in Limiter – One of those features that you hope you never to need to use. But when you do, you’re glad you have it.
Cross-memory Recording – This feature speaks to Sony’s thoughtfulness of the recordist. If you run out of memory on one of two sources on this recorder (built-in memory or memory card) the recorder can automatically keep recording on the other media to keep you from losing material. Less expensive recorders would just quit on you, or worse, lose the recording you were working on.

I felt pretty good about my decision. And then I packed on a plane and flew halfway across the world.

Arriving in South Africa

Lesotho’s Sani Pass. Okay, so there weren’t any sound recording opportunities here but it sure was spellbinding

This was my first trip to the continent of Africa and though my wife had done a lot to prep me from her previous trips, there was still a lot of not-sure-what-to-expect-edness from my end. How remote would I really be? Would I be able to buy batteries? Would I be able to upload material to the internet while traveling? What would be my backup scenario if my recorder was stolen?

Not surprisingly a lot of what I thought going into the trip turned out to be wrong and several things I didn’t anticipate turned out to be headaches. South Africa is a modern country in many parts, but nowhere was internet really adequate for me to back up any source material onto the web. Batteries, on the other hand, were plentiful and I felt stupid for carrying 30 AA’s with me.

Perhaps the most useful feature of the PCM-M10 is its size. Not much larger than a smartphone, I could easily keep it in my pocket at all times as I wandered around in order to snag random audio recording opportunities you might otherwise miss. For example, this random ice cream truck on a street in Johannesberg:

[sc_embed_player fileurl=”joburg-ice-cream-machine.mp3″]

The minibus taxi rank in Maseru, Lesotho. Busier than it looks!

I did bring my trusty RØDE NTG-2 mic and dead kitten with me, but found that I made many fewer recordings with it than I expected. While the shotgun mic is far cleaner and targeted than the wide open and airy sound of the Sony’s built-in omnis, it was just a lot more equipment to pull out of my bag.

Practically speaking, I wasn’t going on a 20k hike with the shotgun mic nor would I travel a city street with it. Yet I could very take the Sony and clandestinely stoop in a building awning and record a busy market in Lesotho without attracting attention. Well, without attracting any more attention than you already do as a white person traveling that mountain country:

[sc_embed_player fileurl=”maseru-lesotho-bustling-market.mp3″]

To the random passersby, the size and built of the Sony looks comparable to a Blackberry. Interesting, maybe, but not unheard of. A fuzzy shotgun mic and headphones make you look a lot more like an alien.

That being said, outside of the urban centers I was a lot more brave taking out the shotgun mic, and recorded some amazing tracks in the remote village of Malealea of their jingling-belled sheep headed out to pasture:

[sc_embed_player fileurl=”malealea-sheep-am-rising.mp3″]

And I did have the opportunity to pull out the RØDE to record this fantastic thunderstorm. This alone was worth bringing the mic the entire trip.

We don’t get storms like this in Maine; while I have a lot of thunder/lightning tracks in my library none were quite as clear, crisp, and missing rain as these ones.

Here’s a nice clean sound of a thunderclap (good use of the lowered mic sensitivity!)

[sc_embed_player fileurl=”draks-thunder-crack.mp3″]

Why this is a Love Affair

Let’s be clear: the most important thing about any recorder is the material you come home with. You can wax and wane about this feature or that feature, but ultimately what matters is that you’re comfortable with the recorder, trust it, and can use it to do your work. In the field you need to know your recorder well enough to do basic troubleshooting if Google is 8,000 miles away. You need to know what you need to pack in order to feel confident you’ll get what you came for.

It’s for all these reasons that I love the Sony PCM-M10. It feels like it was made by someone who understands audio recording. There are lots of thoughtful small features that you don’t even realize you need at first. In some review I read somewhere they talked about Sony’s robust experience making recorders from the Minidisc days back to Beta – and let me affirm, this experience shows. I do still truly love the Zoom recorders, they are fantastic for what they are, but comparing the H2 to the PCM-M10 is like comparing a point-and-shoot camera to a SLR.

Fred toasts Yuri Rasovsky at the Sani Top Chalet, the highest pub in Africa. I learned of Yuri’s passing the 2nd week of my travels.

Like all love affairs, my tendency to gush shouldn’t overlook the flaws. The recorder is, after all, only $200 and cannot be perfect.

The built-in mics, while usable, are less useful than the X-Y cardioid inputs you see on most recorders of this size and, indeed, on its bigger cousin the D50.

Getting a windscreen to cover these mics is a nightmare. It’s pretty much a must to purchase a $50 windscreen to go with this recorder, but even so (at least the one I have, a Rycote) they don’t even stay on the recorder adequately without reinforcement. My solution was ultimately to hold the windscreen on using a rubber band. Surprisingly, this worked very well – but not exactly what you hope for when you spend 25% of the cost of the recorder on a windscreen.

Ultimately, what I don’t like about this recorder comes down to quibbles. For the cost, I feel I got an incredible value and can honestly say this recorder has changed my life in a small way: I’ll never be found anywhere without a portable audio recorder again. I’ve wanted a recorder that was small enough and good enough to go everywhere with me for years, and now I have it. Thank you Sony.

This is an unbiased review with no compensation offered to its writer. RØDE Microphones is an in-kind sponsor of FinalRune Productions. The author does profit for any products sold through product links embedded in this review.

Afterword

A few ‘notes for next time’ from field recording in South Africa – in case this comes in any for any other recordists out there:

Big game animals don’t really make any noise in their natural environment, and it’s practically impossible to capture usable sound while on safari. Go to a private reserve or refuge for a particular animal instead. South Africa has plenty of rescue centers for elephants and big cats, for example.
AA batteries really are everywhere, don’t bring too many. Only bother with specialty batteries, and even those seemed to be fairly common in South Africa (especially the touristy areas). Tourists with big digital SLR cameras have really changed everything.
Cables and connectors on the other hand, are practically impossible to find. Make sure you have every concievable one you want before you get on the plane. And maybe some extras.
Zip-lock bags are wonderful for packing. You don’t need any super special expensive gear bags.
My wife laughed at me but the Cocoon organizers are a great tool for organizing cables and electronic parts.
I did bring a Netbook with us which was a real treat to have. You would probably get a lot more battery life out of an iPad but I can’t imagine trying to do real work on one. I was worried about battery life but truth-be-told Ivhad enough access to grid power that I never needed the computer and found it impossible to get a charge. If you’re in the bush for 3 months that may be a different story.
Bring your recorder with you everywhere. Really. The one time I left it in our tent and ran to town I missed something really special.
Don’t let the fact that you’re recording something keep you from enjoying the place that you are. Remember that you’re a tiny fleck of dust on a gigantically massive universe and that this may be the only time in your life that you’re going to be able to record this very special moment. And then check to make sure your meters are good.

Rode NT-4 + Rode Blimp = Love

Recording radio drama with the RODE “Dead Wombat”

We’ve posted earlier about our love of recording on location, but we wanted to pause to gush a little bit about our preferred kit: the Rode NT-4 loaded with the Rode Blimp and Fishpole.

We’ve been using the NT-4 since 2007, for our first field recorded production Dark Passenger, but in those days our shock-mounting came from a DIY homemade style contraption made from a pencil case holder, painter’s roll, several elastic bands and a feather boa. It looked something like this:

Rode NT-4 with DIY shockmount

Mad props to sound man Randall Farr (pictured), who built the device which served us well for locations including beaches, woods, and lighthouses in Southern Maine. This wonderful prototype met its end during the recording of The Troll of Stony Brook and we found ourselves looking for a replacement.

It was actually Randy who suggested the Rode Blimp to me, and since I have a fondness for the brand (I had earlier that spring recorded some delicious M/S tracks with two NT2A’s for The War on Poverty), I began my research on the Blimp.

Reviews from Sweetwater were rave, and I found myself buying a boom kit that cost nearly as much as the microphone (~$428 with free shipping).

Two things made me decide not to go the DIY route again:

1 – The thing is backed with a ten year warranty so I consider this basically a once-for-life kind of investment (as opposed to recorders, computers, ProTools, etc. which I upgrade every couple of years)
2 – I really wanted to look professional on the set. I had some really top talent with me this time and I wanted there to be no doubt as to the professionalism of FinalRune.

To be honest, with the Rode kit and my Marantz recorder (recently upgraded with new Oade brothers pre-amps) we were recording with a very similar kit to what I had worked with on a BBC Radio 4 production a few months earlier. The only difference was that the BBC’s kit retailed for a little over $8,000 whereas ours, even after the Blimp, was around $1,500. So, I took the plunge.

Sweetwater delivered it in a matter of days with loads of candy. Yum. Now to get the thing unboxed.

While the Blimp is clearly intended for shotgun-style microphones, we find it works just fine with NT-4 after deciphering their directions (this video helped). I had to do a little hack to get the cable routed through the handle, but within a matter of minutes everything was hooked up. Then, to go out and record stuff.

Our first recording with the Rode NT-4/Blimp combo was in September, 2010, for the pilot of our new serial, The Cleansed. We were at a regional airport with steady breezes all day, necessitating the wombat to come out and play on some occasions:

On location recording for The Cleansed, a new post-apocalyptic sci-fi serial to air on WKIT the “Rock” of Bangor. Recorded at Biddeford Airport, Biddeford, Maine

I’m not sure how to vouch for the quality of this set-up other than to share some comments on our production:

“The quality of your location production is breathtakingly stunning” – Roger Gregg of Crazy Dog Audio Theatre

“Having done a few location recordings, I know how much time & effort goes into it, and all the quirks one has to deal with including unwanted extraneous sounds etc. Super job. I am impressed.” – Tom Lopez of ZBS

“In so much drama it’s just about the voices. Here you connect with the sheer physical effort. You can sense the actors sweating.” – John Dryden at BBC Radio 4

So, yeah. While we could have gotten results with inferior equipment, I was proud to run 30 hours of sessions knowing that we had real quality gear behind us.

In fact, I’ve enjoyed the kit so much that I’ve been taking it places it probably doesn’t deserve to go, such as outside of my house in the middle of a good ol’ Maine Nor’Easter this winter:

That load ‘clack clack’ ing, by the way, isn’t the sound of handling noise, that’s pine trees snapping under heavy snow load. Awwwww yeah.

This bit of fan love was not paid for or subsidized by Rode in any way, though they have later sent me free schwag reviewed elsewhere on this website. The BH Photo Video links will support us if you clickthrough and end up buying something. We hope you will.

Producing in the Field – Doing It, and Doing It on the Cheap

There are a couple of different camps in the audio drama community when it comes to studio vs. location recording, and I fall devoutly in the latter, both of out necessity and artistic aesthetic. By the end of reading this, I hope you’ll be on the same page with me, but before we get there, let’s get some definitons out of the way.

When it comes to producing audio drama, you have a few fundamentally different approaches to choose from:

1. The Classic

You get your script, you cast your actors, you have everyone who’s involved come to a studio and record them in the best manner you see fit (stereo or mono, multiple mics or single mic, etc. — that’s an article of its own).

This is the tried and true way of producing audio drama, heck, the tried and true way of producing practically any work of audio. At the end of the voice recording sessions you have nice-sounding, consistent voice tracks for you to play with in post-production. But it’s (generally) expensive and you’ll still need to create the environment of your scene in post.

2. The Brave New Way

You cast your actors from all across the globe, have them record their lines at their home studios or other recording location available to them, and then receive those lines via electronic delivery which you put together using post-production software. This way has been pioneered by podcasters and is pretty ingenuitive, allowing you to cast talent wherever they happen to be and allowing your actors to record on a schedule that’s convenient to them. However, this method necessitates a lot of post-production work to assemble the voice tracks and almost ensures inconsistency in quality/room timbre. You also lose the special sumthin’ sumthin’ when actors act in a scene together.

3. The Indie-Film Way

Field recording is essentially filmmaking without the camera — with all the associated benefits and pitfalls. While a little trickier for sci-fi and fantasy — it is, after all, a little difficult to find lonely castles and spaceships lying around — the general idea is to find a spot that resembles the acoustic environment of the scene in your drama and then go and record there. The benefit is a sense of sonic verisimilitude – you get those crooning gulls or chirping crickets in the take naturally – at the risk of having to deal with unwanted noise and, if you don’t get adequate permission, angry property owners. But it saves you an enormous amount of time when you get to post-production, the costs of renting out studio space, and maybe, just maybe, adds some magical quality you’ll never get in the studio.

What Works Best For You?

The approach best for you will vary on what you’re trying to produce, what your budget is, and what you want it to sound like. That’s the pleasure of being an independent producer — it’s YOUR story, make it sound like YOU want it to!

My first few stories (Day of the Dead, Tales from Williamsville, Fall of the Hero) were all recorded in the studio of my local community radio station where they gratiously let me record for free, then supplemented with field recordings of ambience and spot FX, and library effects and music. Day of the Dead also had a splash of “The Brave New Way” because two of the actors were actually recorded in New Orleans, and I had to splice their takes with audio I later captured for other characters in the scene:

[sc_embed_player fileurl=”http://media.blubrry.com/finalrune/www.finalrune.com/mp3/alley-scene.mp3″]

Knowing what I know now (and having better gear), I would’ve recorded Day of the Dead completely in New Orleans, as man, you ain’t gonna find too many places with a richer sonic backdrop than that fair city. But the background sound that IS there (recorded with a wimpy portable mp3 player) does add quite a lot of “character” to the story.

They look happy now, but man, it was crowded!

The follow-up stories were recorded using a series of Shure SM-58 mics fed into a mixer, with an individual mic for every actor as we crammed into a tiny recording booth probably meant for two people (this approach was a crude facsimile of what Tony Palermo suggests).

Were the space not so tight, this approach might have worked well, but I had some other problems, too. First off, the ostensible “studio” wasn’t really soundproof, so if someone stomped to or from the on-air recording studio during a take, we’d have to redo it (or live with it, which I’m shamed to say I did on occasion). I also was monitoring, mixing, recording, directing and occasionally acting all at the same time, which was just a couple too many balls in the air.

But graduating from this set-up was a challenge, too. After all, this space was free, and while I did pay for all the equipment I brought in, it worked out to be cheaper than paying for a professional studio. And once I paid for all the equipment, I had even less incentive (and money) to pay a professional studio.

Oh, what is an independent dramatist to do?

Take it Outside

It was about this time that I headed to the National Audio Theater Festivals’ (NATF) week long audio drama workshop, and learned about a million things I was doing wrong when it came to mic placement and recording. Concurrently, I was corresponding with Roger Gregg of the Crazy Dog Audio Theatre, who heavily encouraged me to try producing a show entirely in the field (as he just had for Infidel). And while I was a little skeptical at first (what if it rains? what if it snows? what if we get attacked by a rabid moose?), on my next story, “Dark Passenger,” I gave it a shot.

Philip Hobby is spooked during a recording sequence

“Passenger” was a huge step forward to me, not necessarily in terms of story (though I do find it delightfully gory) but in producing my own soundscape and customizing the recording environment. Just about every sound you hear in the story (apart from the car screeches) was recorded either in the scene or created — and a special shout-out to David Shinn who both showed me a lot of great tips at NATF and also volunteered his brain for some picking when I was trying to create a few particularly tricking sound effects.

“Passenger” still had some rough points, mostly due to lack of preparation and me single-handing the gear again, but I took everything I learned from that hastily assembled tale and poured it into “Waiting for a Window.” Which I’ll let you hear and be the judge of when it debuts September 26th.

What You Stand to Lose, and Gain

In a climate like Maine, you do have some challenges when it comes to field recording, weather being foremost among them. Winter is entirely off the shelf (at least for outdoor scenes) though you can’t even guarantee it’ll not be pissing down rain in the middle of July.

You also have to find places where people will allow you to record, either private businesses or public places. If you’re not paying anyone (like, as I said above, I just can’t afford to do), you have to deal with the fact that random people will be walking by and possibly nosing their way into your scene. You also have uncontrollable noise factors like motorcycles, oil barges, airplanes, chainsaws, semi-trailers and invasive european starlings (yes, I’ve had ALL of them ruin a take).

Then you have to GET everyone there, and find a time that the location AND all the people can be available simultaneously. Not always easy.

BUT… When you finally get there, when the ambience has just the elements you want in it, and the characters get in the groove… well, there’s something about it you just can’t replicate in a sound-proof room.

For Example…

Directing in the Field Can be Fun

My friend let me use his band’s practice space to create a bar for “Waiting for a Window.” In this case, finding a somewhat controlled space was MUCH preferrable to using a real bar, as we had enough people to make it sound like a bar without random drunks intruding in the scene.

We had six people off to the side at the “bar,” full with appropriate props, including a few, um, “live” bottles, a separate area for the stage where the mysterious woman sings karaoke, and then another area with a table where the characters in the scene have their dialogue. We recorded it in a few takes, finally getting an almost continuous take, and when it came to post-producing it, all I had to do, literally, was cut out the junk and line up the tracks. No supplemental foley, no additional music mixing, no “make this guy sound off mic” effects.

Listen to the results:

[sc_embed_player fileurl=”http://media.blubrry.com/finalrune/www.finalrune.com/mp3/bar-scene.mp3″]

On Gear

So. You can beg, borrow, or squat on a location for free, saving you all the cash required to rent out a professional studio. But you still need equipment to record it, which is expensive, right?

Not necessarily.

As I mentioned earlier, I stole just about everything of my approach from Roger Gregg (ok, it was solicited advice) including my choice of equipment — a Rode NT4 mic. I paired it with a Marantz PMD-660, a wonderful compact flash recorder I’d been using to record the mix off the mono equipment hereotfore spoken of.

Marantz + Rode = Match Made in Heaven?

The beauty of the Rode NT4 is that it’s a fixed XY stereo pair, which means that if you’re a semi-luddite like me, and not a true technical junkie, you can set up your equipment quickly and not worry about arranging two mics to get your proper stereo positioning. Just put up your mic stand, flick on the phantom power, and start recording away.

But at just over $1000 ($530 for the mic and $500 for the Marantz), this is not the rig for everyone. But damn, if there aren’t some great alternatives nowadays.

I bought my first round of gear just months before they released an amazing recorder for this kind of work: the Zoom H4, followed soon by the Zoom H2. I grudgingly bought the H2 ($200), rueing the audacity of Zoom for releasing such a tiny recorder only a year after I’d bought a much larger set of equipment, but soon found myself in love with this, well, “handy recorder” (how’s that for truth in advertising?)

The Zoom H2 is to the PMD-660/NT-4 as the point-and-shoot camera is to the SLR. I carry my Zoom with me everywhere, capturing random sound effects, spot interviews, all my podcasts and for light-duty voiceover work (as it doubles as an audio interface).

While I put my pennies away for over a year in order to be able to afford the investment in the Rode, if you’re just starting out, and maybe aren’t even sure if this audio drama thing is for you, the Zoom H2 is a great recorder to start with. Use it to kick off your podcast, to record all the FX, your buddy messing around on guitar, and hey, your whole radio drama too.

What? Record an entire audio drama on a Zoom H2? Hell yeah. I’d do it in a heartbeat.

Stereo Vs. Mono

Whether you use the NT4 or the H2, you’ll be capturing stereo sound, which greatly compliments the efforts of your field recording. While your audience might not always appreciate the nuances of stereo, it gives you a rich sonic portrait you lose out in in mono.

I’m not a math guy, but here it goes: in mono, you have one axis: loud and soft. Soft voices are far, loud voices are near, and the listener determines the layout of the scene based on their interpretation of that scale. Cool and all, but in stereo you get that “y” axis — left and right. Suddenly you have a three-dimensional portrait of sound, which, to the listeners who DO get it, is very, very cool.

Get Out There!

If you’ve got much gumption than green, ate the red pill and maybe slosh down a little bit of that special Kool-Aid for kicks, then field recording may be the way for you to go. It frees your actors from the constraints of working indoors, adding vitality to a scene while capturing a rich sonic portrait you’ll spend hours trying to create in post.

Will your listeners notice? Well, that’s where the different camps disagree. Some people will say that an exotic waterfall in South America sounds like their shower, and there may be some truth to that. But what you WON’T record in your shower is the experience that being in a remote area of South America contributes to your actor.

Me, I’ll go for the trip.