OT: Tape Transport Audio question

Cliff Etzel wrote on 11/5/2009, 9:32 AM

Anyone have advice for how to reduce or eliminate my shotgun mic from picking up the sound of the tape transport mechanism on my pair of HC7's?

I have discovered that when I forget to change my audio from auto to manual, that it is much more apparent. Having said that - any other ideas when needing to use my mic on camera? I'm not flush enough yet to make the jump to a new camera so any advice would be appreciated.

Cliff Etzel
Videographer : Producer : Web Designer
bluprojekt

Comments

musicvid10 wrote on 11/5/2009, 9:58 AM

Much of that pickup is from subtle mechanical vibration.
If your cameras are on tripods, a tripod extension arm with rubber-mounted shoe or mic holder on the end will give a big improvement.

Chienworks wrote on 11/5/2009, 10:43 AM

Another useful thing to do is record a few seconds of just that noise in each new situation. If you can get the room as absolutely silent as possible and record a bit of just the tape transport noise then you can very successfully use Noise Reduction to eliminate it in post. There are a couple things to keep in mind.

- You'll have to redo this in each new situation. If you move to a new room then you'll have to record new "silence".

- This procedure will also eliminate room tone. That may be ok, but it might also be important for ambiance in some situations. However, if you can hear the camera noise above the room tone then the room tone probably doesn't matter. If the room tone is louder than the camera noise then the camera noise probably doesn't matter.

farss wrote on 11/5/2009, 11:27 AM

A hot shoe extension to put more distance between the mic and camera might be of some help.
We've also found the mic preamps in the HC7/9 to have quite high gain. Using a sensitive mic with them and with AGC on gets you too much room and camera noise. A less senstitive mic is one solution or else putting a pad between mic and camera is another.

Bob.

Cliff Etzel wrote on 11/5/2009, 6:04 PM

Thanks everyone for the great suggestions - I'll give these a shot :)

Cliff Etzel
Videographer : Producer : Web Designer
bluprojekt