Anyone here do folley or location work? Is most of the sound in the lower range of the metering?
Not most, but the lower gain will show you that you are getting something - at the very least. You're dealing mostly in voices from talents, several coming from variations of booms, lavs, and ambients. Record yourself talking with the mic in your face, see the range the voice gets to? Imagine capturing a whispering mother talking to a crying infant, than having to send a balanced mix straight to camera. Unlike concert recording where the spl generally sits within a range of -12 to -2 to zero - in location sound you get everything from ambient silence to screaming voices, a rumblng train in the distance, to a gunshot or pitter patter of feet. In short, you can wear out the whole range on a daily shoot.
We were able to use black lighting gels taped over the meters to get the "brightness" results we wanted in dark places. Of course this is a bandaid, but you can still get to the buttons even with it wrapped around the whole area.
