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Wireless microphones are a great tool both in and out of the studio BUT they can be expensive
and they also have their own issues. However there are alternatives that can not only be
a lot cheaper but also don't suffer from the wireless problems.
In this video I'll show how I came to find a few alternatives to wireless mics that may
not have thought of. Now when I'm in the studio I use a lapel mic
connected to a Sennheiser wireless system. This consists of the transmitter where the
microphone plugs into there, this transmits a signal which goes to my base station which
is over there and this picks the radio signal and then outputs the audio in to the camera.
This arrangement works very well and allows me to move around without having to worry
about getting tangled up in wires and pulling something out maybe damaging either the mic
or camera.
However, last summer I needed to do a piece about using a monopod which meant i had to
film outside and away from the camera so I couldn't use the cameras internal mic because
that's too noisy and I couldn't or a camera mounted shotgun mic because I was going to
be too far away from the camera.
Now because my current wireless mic uses a base station which is powered by the mains,
I couldn't use that either because there was no power where I was filming.
So I had a choice to either buy a new wireless system that used battery powered transmitter
and receiver, all of which are pretty expensive. Or I could use something else.
Back in the old days before we used camcorders with built in audio, cameras just recorded
the visual element and the sound was recorded on to tape separately. Today we have replaced
the tape machines with much smaller solid state devices but the principle remains the
same. The microphone is connected to a portable
audio recorder which you carry around with you in the same way as you would with the
wireless transmitter, so you're recording all the audio as you move around.
All you have to do is make sure both the camera and the audio recorder are set to record at
around the same time, then in the edit, the audio and the visuals are synchronised together.
Another advantage to this method is that you are not limited by the range of the radio
signal and you don't have radio interference problems either.
Now the setup I ended up using for the monopod shoot was my iPhone 5 and an Audio-Technica
ATR3350 powered lapel mic.
The iPhone and other smart phones can work really well as an audio recorder. There loads
of apps available which will do the job of recording your audio. The one I use on the
iPhone is the iRig recorder by IK multimeadia. It is free and allows you to adjust the record
level and has a visual meter to check the external mic is plugged in and working and
that's its not too loud or quiet. Once you have recorded your audio you can export it
by iTunes, FTP, WiFi or to a sound cloud account.
Now whilst the IPhone did a good job I did notice there were some problems, the biggest
was that if you put the battery box of the microphone near the iPhone, for example if
you put both in your pocket when your using it. One the actual recording you could hear
a rapid clicking noise in the background. This turns out to be interference coming from
the iPhone which in being induced in to the electronics of the little battery box of the
micro phone. In the end I had to separate the by putting
the iPhone in my sock and the mic battery box in my back pocket, that worked OK but
it's not really the best solution.
The other issue is that because of the iPhone's touch screen, it's all too easy do something
you don't want to when you're handling it like putting it in your pocket for example
or in my case putting it down my sock.
So after I did this I started to look around for something that was specifically made for
the job. This can range from voice dictation devices up to multiple input field recorders.
One that I did find that looked quite good was a voice recorder made by Sony which is
the ICDUX522, it's quite cheap at about £55 or $85, it small and light weight and can
save you files to a micro SD card or you can plug it in to your USB port to get access
to your recordings that way. A couple of things to watch for with these
dictation recorders, and one is that they can take an external mic, because not all
of them do and another thing to do is try and get one which has a manual gain control
or have the ability to turn off the automatic gain control or AGC when recording.
Now I didn't buy one of the Sony's because in the end I bought one of these.
This is a Zoom H4n audio recorder. Its bigger than both the iPhone and the Sony but it can
still be placed in to a pocket out of the way, the only thing that is really missing
from this is a belt clip though I'm sure you could use a small pouch or something similar
to attach is to you in some way.
The great thing about these is that you have a high quality low noise input section that
can not only take microphones with a 3.5mm sockets like the lapel microphones but in
the case of the zoom H4n they have two XLR inputs so you can use it with any professional
microphone like shotgun mics, boom mics and condenser mics and other audio equipment that
uses XLR connections.
They record directly to a standard SD card so your recording time is only limited by
that of the card capacity. they also have a built in speaker so you can review what
you have just recorded and the headphone socket can also be used to monitor the audio input
as it is recorded to make sure your levels are actually OK.
The only thing that bugs me with the Zoom H4n is that the 3.5mm mic socket input is
on the back of the device and means that the plug and lead stick out when I think it should
have been mounted on the top or bottom like on the iPhone.
Audio recorders like this also have full control of the input levels. They have compressors,
limiters and EQ which can help maintain a high quality recording and stop unwanted distortion
from unexpected loud speech or noises.
These type of recorders are available from about $100 upwards, though the Zoom H4n was
about £200 which is around $300.
So whilst they are not super cheap, they can give you a very good audio and can be used
as the centre of your audio recording for other types of microphones and XLR equipment.
And with ones like this Zoom H4n which have built stereo mics they give you a very good
quality sound recorder too, with a much better quality than the microphone that are built
in to most video cameras.
So that's it, by using a small portable audio recorder you don't have to use an expensive
wireless microphone system if you want to be free of those pesky wires.
If you enjoyed this video then please rate and subscribe and if you have any suggestions
that you think would make a good wireless microphone alternative then please leave your
comments in the box below.
If you think someone would benefit from this video then please share it with them, so until
the next time, my name is Paul Shillito, see you later, bye
Testing, testing 1 2 3 4 5, testing, testing 1 2 ..
Ohh, you still here, if you are and your interested in more videos there are some more down here,
now try this thing out again. Stop yakking and get on with some work, will
you! Cheeky ***