Posted by DanR on 02/19/06 01:56

blackburst@aol.com wrote:
> Richard Crowley wrote:
>> We have not yet found a work-around for the laws of physics.
>> Decent sound requires getting the microphone closer to the talker.
>> Hand-held, clip-on lapel, boom, wireless, whatever. But unless
>> you are shooting close-ups for pimple cream or tooth-whitening
>> gadgets, the on-camera mic is just too far away.
>
> Amen!
>
> There is no miracle procedure to correct badly-recorded audio. If you
> want it to sound good, record it the correct way. generally, ACAP - as
> close as possible (except in a rare overload situation.)
>
> I preach this to my students all the time, and to my staff. A pro on my
> staff was set up to close mic a comedy performance, and the MC said he
> wanted lots of crowd noise and told him to use the camera mic. And he
> did. And the audio is unusable.

Sometimes even the pro is stuck recording audio (voice) in a very live boomy
environment. One gadget we used years ago was a CAT43 card that replaced the
main plug-in card for one channel of Dolby analog noise reduction. It had a
remote unit with 4 or 5 fader type controls. In reality it was a group of gating
circuits that gated different parts of the audio spectrum independently with
various attack and release times. It was always able to help some and sometimes
a lot.

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