Topic: Help human rights group trying to decide on field recording setup, Which lav mic

[pinktank]

Hello All,
I know there are a million messages on recording interviews, and I'm parsing through them, but I wanted to enlist your help as we are slightly limited on time.

We are a group that is creating an archive of interviews with witnesses/relatives/victims of human rights abuse, we have a team of non-AV professionals that conduct these, and capture video as well.

The interviews are usually 1-2 hours long, and are between the interviewer and the interviewee, though we sometimes get an extra person chiming in in the middle

We would like the interviews audio to be good enough to splice into future documentaries and research projects.

Our current setup of zoom h2s facing the person contribute too much noise, and render it pretty useless for splicing.

I do not know if it's possible to get decent audio running a lav mic to the h2's mio-in, especially since it would need a Y-adapter to get two omni mics, one going in the left, and the other going in the right channel.

My suggestion was going to be a recorder such as the dr-40, h4n, or the dr-100 along with two phantom powered wired lav mics. It is not crucial for us to not have it visible in the shot, and we cannot afford a boom operator (too much travel to sometimes dangerous areas)

Our budget is a little flexible, but I wanted to keep it under $120 per mic, though ideally, they would be around the $60 mark. Vampire clips would be a plus.

ps. Is there a way to have it so that there is an extra mic recording the room for unexpected people chiming in, or in cases where are two interviewees and we want to interviewer for information purpose? I know some recorders will multitrack internal and external mics, but I also heard that causes a lot of noise. Another thing I thought that might work was to use to on-cam mic, or put another mic on camera for splicing if that emergency arises.

Thanks a lot for the suggestions!

[Smokey]

At your price range I'd look at the offerings by Naiant:    http://www.naiant.com/naiant/microphones.html

I have a pair of X-S and have successfully recorded using plug-in power from a Sony M10. The results were not as good with the R09- I can't say how well they'll work with the DR-40 or DR-100. They work great using phantom inputs. I was pleased with the sound- they don't have too much HF emphasis.  I'd look at the X-X as well for phantom in- that model will not run with PIP but is more sensitive.

 XLR cables are included, PIP dual cable is $20 so you could get 4 mics with the proper cables for around $200. That's a hard price to beat.

[pinktank]

I've been looking at naiant but cannot find any samples, just requested some on the microphone boards. I jsut wanted to hear how voice sounded paired with a common recorder such as the h4n, dr40 etc, and what the battery life was.

[eman]

It sounds to me like you also need a cheap mixer, which will eliminate the problems with mic powering. To get a nice, radio-announcer type voice rather than a distant, echoey general room sound, you need the mics up close to the speakers. Electeret condensers on lavs are good, but if you get them on stands close enough a regular cheapo dynamic or condenser mic  (60 each range is doable) can work too. One for the interviewer one for each interviewee. If there are other random voices in the room, and additional condenser (possibly stereo? $30-50 range) could be added in that is farther away from the principals and so picks up everyone in the room more or less equally. Then you can balance these different inputs using the mixer and a pair of headphones. You'd be looking at probably a 4 channel mixer with phantom power. You could continue to use the line-in on the Zoom to record from the mixer. The low end 4-channel mixers are in the 80-120 dollar range. I have an old Behringer that I've been using for years and I believe it would be adequate for this application. I know this depletes the microphone budget, but consider that you won't have to post process the right/left thing plus the additional room mic so it may be worth it. You can control the pan right/left of each mono input, say to give some but not too much separation of the interviewer/interviewee. You are still under 250 budget and far more flexible to get good sound. A 4 track recorder will blow this budget up, and I don't think you want to do much post processing (mixing right/left, additional mic, two recorders) if you can possibly help it. If portable power is an issue, that might limit the options a bit more and make a large external battery pack part of the kit.

Another option for recording is to use a USB mixer and plug that into your laptop, pretty sure they make some preamp/mixers that can be powered by the USB cable, perhaps two xlr inputs for the principals and a stereo RCA or 1/4" for the room mic. The pre/mixer will generally come with recording software or you can use Audacity which is freeware. Maybe something like this http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/598914-REG/Alesis_MULTIMIX_4_USB_MultiMix_4_4_Channel_Audio.html

[acidjack]

I responded in the mic section. I've made some great music recordings with mine.   They will be more than adequate for speech.

[pinktank]

It sounds to me like you also need a cheap mixer, which will eliminate the problems with mic powering. To get a nice, radio-announcer type voice rather than a distant, echoey general room sound, you need the mics up close to the speakers. Electeret condensers on lavs are good, but if you get them on stands close enough a regular cheapo dynamic or condenser mic  (60 each range is doable) can work too. One for the interviewer one for each interviewee. If there are other random voices in the room, and additional condenser (possibly stereo? $30-50 range) could be added in that is farther away from the principals and so picks up everyone in the room more or less equally. Then you can balance these different inputs using the mixer and a pair of headphones. You'd be looking at probably a 4 channel mixer with phantom power. You could continue to use the line-in on the Zoom to record from the mixer. The low end 4-channel mixers are in the 80-120 dollar range. I have an old Behringer that I've been using for years and I believe it would be adequate for this application. I know this depletes the microphone budget, but consider that you won't have to post process the right/left thing plus the additional room mic so it may be worth it. You can control the pan right/left of each mono input, say to give some but not too much separation of the interviewer/interviewee. You are still under 250 budget and far more flexible to get good sound. A 4 track recorder will blow this budget up, and I don't think you want to do much post processing (mixing right/left, additional mic, two recorders) if you can possibly help it. If portable power is an issue, that might limit the options a bit more and make a large external battery pack part of the kit.

Another option for recording is to use a USB mixer and plug that into your laptop, pretty sure they make some preamp/mixers that can be powered by the USB cable, perhaps two xlr inputs for the principals and a stereo RCA or 1/4" for the room mic. The pre/mixer will generally come with recording software or you can use Audacity which is freeware. Maybe something like this http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/598914-REG/Alesis_MULTIMIX_4_USB_MultiMix_4_4_Channel_Audio.html

Unfortunately, we don't have reliable electricity at times so we can't do non-powered mixers. I looked into some other powering devices but they all seem out of budget.