What is phantom power?
Phantom power is a form of power which is most commonly used for condenser microphones which needs it. It is DC electrical power.
For interviews on the street which is a good microphone to use?
Shotgun microphone. Because it can still achieve a great sound quality even with a greater distance between you and the interviewee, it can also be used in conjunction with ‘dead cats’ which reduce the wind noise when using them.
What is a lav mic?
A ‘lav mic’ or a clip on mic is commonly used in live tv. This is because they are very small and can remain unnoticeable, with wireless lav mics they will have a cable that feeds back into a transmitter box which would be rechargeable, which transmits a signal to the receiver which processes the audio, you can also get wired lav mics but these pose an issue with maneuverability of the subject when using one.
What is the term omnidirectional pick up mean?
Omni directional is when, the microphone isn’t focusing on a specific subject and it is attempting to capture everything it can.
Should you monitor audio on a shoot and with what?
Yes, you should always monitor audio when possible. You should never use speakers as your brain will get confused between what is real audio and what is being recorded and monitored, this will also mean you wont get a reel feel for the quality of the sound. In ear headphones are a good choice but it depends on the seal that they have within your ear, but the best choice would be over ear noise cancelling headphones, this will make it so that you can only hear what your meant to be monitoring.
What does over modulation mean?
In layman’s terms, the signal is going “off the scale”. Overmodulation results in spurious emissions by the modulated carrier, and distortion of the recovered modulating signal. This means that the envelope of the output waveform is distorted. (Wikipedia)
What is the purpose of putting a ‘fluffy’ or ‘dead cat’ on a microphone?
It reduces wind noise because instead of the wind hitting the microphone head on it will hit the dead cat instead and as it is made of a ‘fluffy’ material it absorbs the wind noise and makes it less apparent in the final sound.
In the first video (a short monologue) there were two different mics used. One was a clip on/lav mic and the other a rode shotgun mic. In my opinion the sound quality of the clip on mic was much better and was overall the best performer in this specific scenario, and this is because. The shotgun mic provided too much background noise when all you wanted to hear was the actor/persons voice. The only issue with a clip on/lav microphone is that when moving around if it is not secured correctly it will cause a harsh scraping sound, this can be cut out in post, but it’s still an inconvenience.
In the second video, the phone microphone does a really good job with capturing what’s close to it (the voices) instead of any background, whereas the condenser microphone does capture background noise but the voice is much clearer and the overall quality of the sound is better and more crisp.
Bradley Smart 