Sound for Video Session: Edit/Mix Room Tour 2018

After several requests and despite my prior objections, this week’s episode is a virtual tour of my mix/edit room. This is where I edit all of my videos, edit and mix the sound for these videos, and generally work. I hesitated to do this because I don’t want anyone to think that you have to have expensive tools to edit and mix good sound for video. You can start with a basic computer and set of headphones. Once you’re getting paid to mix and edit sound for video, then it generally makes sense to invest in some tools that will help you get the job done more efficiently.

Please consider my sound for film courses.

Gear and links discussed/used to record this episode:

Sennheiser MKH 8050 (Amazon) Supercardioid boom microphone

Oktava MK-012 (Amazon) Cardioid boom microphone

Schoeps CMCmk41 Supercardioid boom microphone

Furman PL-8C (Amazon) Power Conditioner

Universal Audio Apollo x6 Thunderbolt 3 Audio Interface with 5.1 surround monitoring

Focal Solo6 Be Powered Reference Monitors (Speakers)

Mackie 802VLZ4 (Amazon) Analogue Mixer

Sony MDR-7506 (Amazon) Closed Back Headphones - my first choice for when I’m recording/mixing on location

Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro (Amazon) - my second choice for when I’m recording/mixing on location

Beyerdynamic DT880 Pro (Amazon) Semi-open Back Headphones - my first choice for reasonably priced mixing headphones

Sennheiser HD820 Closed Back Reference Headphones - My favorite very expensive headphones for mixing

Golden Age Project Pre-73mkIII (Amazon) - A modern day copy of the Neve 1073 preamp. All analogue. Fuzzy and warm

Golden Age Project R1 Active mkIII (Amazon) - A reasonably priced ribbon microphone with a smooth high frequency roll-off which I like for recording voiceover and harsh instruments. Smooth

Electrovoice RE20 (Amazon) Dynamic Broadcast Microphone

Allen & Heath SQ5 Digital Mixer/Audio Interface

Blackmagic Pocket cinema Camera 4K - used to shoot this episode

Copyright 2018 by Curtis Judd

Outro music licensed from Artlist: Keep an Eye by Back to Dream.

CEntrance MixerFace R4 Mixer/Recorder For Film & Video: Tiny Pro Level Mixer/Recorder

It has been a while since we’ve seen an innovative new handheld recorder with professional level pre-amplifiers and other features. The CEntrance MixerFace R4 and R4R, however, have done just that.

These are very compact mixer (R4) and recorder (R4R) that is very small, yet very rugged and sounds really great. They include an in-built Li Polymer batter that lasts up to 8 hours (nearly 7 hours phantom powering microphones in my tests) and provide several outputs including line and mic level, unbalanced and balanced. It includes 2 XLR microphone inputs and a 3.5mm line level input. There’s no screen, which means longer battery life, and there are physical controls to do everything you need to do.

If you’d like to learn how to make great dialogue audio for your film and video projects, please have a look at my courses at https://school.learnlightandsound.com including processing dialogue audio, recording sound, how to use the Zoom F8 and F8n, and how to get the most from the Sound Devices MixPre series of recorders.

Links to gear used in this video:

CEntrance MixerFace R4 (this is JUST a mixer and audio interface to record to camera, iOS, Android, Mac, or PC)

CEntrance MixerFace R4R (this is a mixer, microSD card recorder, and audio interface to record to camera, iOS, Android, Mac, or PC)

Apple Lightning to USB 3 Adapter (Amazon) - You’ll need this if you want to record to an iOS device from the MixerFace R4 or R4R

USB C to Micro OTG Cable (Amazon) - You’ll need this if you want to record to an Android device with USB C input from the MixerFace R4 or R4R

Shure SM58 (Amazon) Dynamic Handheld Microphone - The quintessential handheld dynamic microphone

ElectroVoice RE20 Dynamic Broadcast Microphone - great for podcasts and voiceover

DPA 4017b Shotgun Microphone - This is the shotgun microphone I use for my paid production sound jobs when shooting outdoors

Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K - I used this to record this episode

Aputure COB120dmkII (Amazon) - Key light in the talking head clips

Aputure Light Dome II (Amazon) - Newer version of the big soft box with faster setup and gel holder

Lupo Superpanel Full Color 30 - RGB 1x1 panel light

Panasonic 12-35mm F/2.8 (Amazon) OIS II Lens - Used on the BMD Pocket Cine Camera 4K

Olympus 45mm f/1.8 (Amazon) Lens - Used on the BMD Pocket Cine Camera 4K

Copyright 2018 by Curtis Judd 

Music Copyright 2018 by Cary Judd. Used with permission.

JK Mic-J 069 Headset Microphone: Cheap Headset Mic for Recording in Noisy Places

Lots of people have asked me what type of microphone would work well for recording lectures, public speeches, demonstrations, or sermons, especially in cases where there might be a lot of ambient sound and noise.

Headset microphones are one good way to make these types of recordings and in this episode, we take a look at an affordable headset microphone option: The JK Mic-J 069 Cardioid Headset microphone.

If you’d like to learn how to make great dialogue audio for your film and video projects, please have a look at my courses including processing dialogue audio, recording sound, how to use the Zoom F8 and F8n, and how to get the most from the Sound Devices MixPre series of recorders.

Links to gear used in this video:

JK Mic-J 069 (Amazon) Headset Microphone - for Sennheiser and RODE Wireless systems

JK Mic-J 069 (Amazon) Headset Microphone - for Zoom and Tascam recorders and most cameras

JK Mic-J 069 (Amazon) Headset Microphone - for Shure Wireless systems

JK Mic-J 069 (Amazon) Headset Microphone - for Audio Technica Wireless systems

JK Mic-J 069 (Amazon) Headset Microphone - for AKG and Samson Wireless systems

Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K - I used this to record most of this episode

Blackmagic Ursa Mini Pro - Used to shoot a couple of the b-roll shots

Aputure COB120dmkII (Amazon) - Key light in the talking head clips

Aputure Light Dome II (Amazon) - Newer version of the big soft box with faster setup and gel holder

Lupo Superpanel Full Color 30 - RGB 1x1 panel light for background in some of the shots

Panasonic 12-35mm F/2.8 OIS (Amazon) Lens - Used on the BMD Pocket Cine Camera 4K

Olympus 45mm f/1.8 (Amazon) Lens - Used on the BMD Pocket Cine Camera 4K

Copyright 2018 by Curtis Judd

Music Copyright 2018 by Cary Judd. Used with permission.

Sony ECM-674 Shotgun Microphone: Compared to RODE NTG2 & Deity S-Mic 2

Microphones in the $250 to $350 range are at a sweet spot between performance, sound quality, durability, and reasonable price. In this episode we take a closer look at the Sony ECM-674 shotgun microphone and compare it with the RODE NTG-2 and Deity S-Mic 2. All three of these microphones are shotgun style boom microphones with XLR balanced outputs. Let’s see how they compare.

If you’d like to learn how to make great dialogue audio for your film and video projects, please have a look at my courses at https://school.learnlightandsound.com including processing dialogue audio, recording sound, how to use the Zoom F8 and F8n, and how to get the most from the Sound Devices MixPre series of recorders.

Links to gear used in this video:

Sony ECM-674 (Amazon) Shotgun Microphone

RODE NTG-2 (Amazon) Shotgun Microphone - our review can be found here:

Deity S-Mic 2 (Amazon) Shotgun Microphone - our review can be found here:

Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K - I used this to record most of the product shots

Blackmagic Ursa Mini Pro - Used to shoot the talking head shots

Aputure COB120dmkII (Amazon) - Key light in the talking head clips

Aputure Light Dome II (Amazon) - Newer version of the big soft box with faster setup and gel holder

Lupo Superpanel Full Color 30 - RGB 1x1 panel light for Lighting Bridget

Came TV RGB Ringlight - Used to light the product shots on white background, review coming soon

Panasonic 12-35mm F/2.8 OIS (Amazon) Lens - Used on the BMD Pocket Cine Camera 4K

Olympus 45mm f/1.8 (Amazon) Lens - Used on the BMD Pocket Cine Camera 4K

Copyright 2018 by Curtis Judd

Music Copyright 2018 by Cary Judd. Used with permission.

Deity D3 Pro Shotgun Microphone

At NAB 2018, Deity Microphones made their debut and announced several new microphones for video and filmmakers. The D3 Pro is their new camera-top shotgun microphone but it has some features which make it stand out from many of the others on the market. First, it can automatically detect which type of 3.5mm input your recording device is using and adapts to work perfectly with that camera, phone, or audio recorder. And, with the D3 Pro Location kit, you can adapt the 3.5mm output to work with XLR based cameras and audio recorders.

Check for compatibility with your camera or phone.

If you’d like to learn how to make great dialogue audio for your film and video projects, please have a look at my courses including processing dialogue audio, recording sound, how to use the Zoom F8 and F8n, and how to get the most from the Sound Devices MixPre series of recorders.

Links to gear used in this video:

Deity V-Mic D3 Pro - Standard, camera-top kit

Deity V-Mic D3 Pro - Location kit which adds pistol grip shock mount and 3.5mm to XLR adapter

MiniRig 2 Bluetooth Speaker - used for the off-axis rejection test. I use this because it is small enough to move easily around the mic and at the same time, is able to produce bass down to about 50hz which is critical for the test.

Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K - I used this to record most of the product shots

Blackmagic Ursa Mini Pro - Use to shoot the talking head shots

Aputure COB120dmkII - Key light in the talking head clips

Aputure Light Dome II - Newer version of the big soft box with faster setup and gel holder

Lupo Superpanel Full Color 30 - RGB 1x1 panel light for Lighting Bridget

Moza Air 2 Gimbal - shown in the gimbal product shot - review coming soon

Came TV RGB Ringlight - Used to light the product shots on white background, review coming soon

Panasonic GH5 - Used in product shots and to record the audio in the silhouette sample clips

Panasonic 12-35mm F/2.8 Lens - Used on the GH5 and the BMD Pocket Cine Camera 4K

Olympus 45mm f/1.8 Lens - Used on the BMD Pocket Cine Camera 4K

Copyright 2018 by Curtis Judd

Music Copyright 2018 by Cary Judd. Used with permission.

Sound for Video Session: Recording Audio in a Tesla Model 3

In this session, I'm looking for a way to record decent dialogue audio in a moving car, specifically the Tesla Model 3. In this test, we put the following to the test:

CEntrance Mixerface R4R Audio recorder/USB audio interface

RODELink Filmmaker Kit

JK MicJ Headset Microphone

If you wanted to skip the Wireless kit and connect the microphone directly into the Mixerface R4R recorder, use the RODE VXLR+ adapter.

Tesla - If you plan to buy a new car, Tesla makes some really nice options. Using my link, you'll get a little extra, i.e., free supercharging for 6 months.

Copyright 2018, Curtis Judd

Dialogue Editing for Film Demo

Editing the dialogue sound for your film and video projects can seem a little daunting, especially when you have two or more actors, each with a wireless lavalier microphone plus a boom microphone. How do you edit all those tracks? Do you just keep the boom and lavalier mics? Won’t it sound richer if you do keep them all?

It turns out that it generally will sound quite a bit worse if you keep them all and the main reason for using both lavalier microphones and a boom microphone is to give yourself options to use the best sounding mic in for each dialogue line.

In this demo, we show the basics on how to start a dialogue edit using Adobe audition. In this demo, we exported the edit of the film from Final Cut Pro X.

If you’d like to learn how to make great dialogue audio for your film and video projects, please have a look at my courses at my school including processing dialogue audio, recording sound, how to use the Zoom F8 and F8n, and how to get the most from the Sound Devices MixPre series of recorders.

Links to gear used to record the film and this video:

XToCC - app to convert XML from Final Cut Pro to XML that Adobe Audition can use:

Electrovoice RE20 - The mic I used to record my voiceover for this tutorial

Universal Audio Apollo X6 - Microphone preamp and Thunderbolt 3 Audio Interface used to record my voiceover for this tutorial.

Aputure COB120dmkII - Key light for lighting Amanda

Aputure Light Dome II - Newer version of the big soft box with faster setup and gel holder

Lupo Superpanel Full Color 30 - RGB 1x1 panel light for Lighting Bridget

Audio Ltd A10 Wireless Microphone System - Used for Bridget and Amandas lavalier microphones

Countryman B6 Lavalier Microphone - Bridget’s lavalier mic

DPA 4160 Lavalier Microphone - Amanda’s lavalier mic

Sound Devices 633 Audio Recorder/Mixer - Field recorder used to record the film sound

Sennheiser MKH 8050 - This is the boom mic used to record the film

Copyright 2018 by Curtis Judd

Music Copyright 2018 by Cary Judd. Used with permission.

Auto Mix Discussion

Last week I had an interesting conversation with my new friend Allan Tépper about mixers and recorders under $1000 USD with an auto mix feature. Allen is a contributing author at ProVideoCoalition and also hosts Beyond Podcasting. You can listen to our conversation over at ProVideoCoalition.com.

For those not familiar with auto mixing, this feature is very helpful in situations where you're recording two or more people, each with their own microphone, for interviews, panel discussions, or podcasts. In such situations, it is common for one person's speech to bleed over into the other peoples' mics, at least a little bit. Also, the mics that are not currently in use will often pick up reverberation in the room as sound bounces off the walls. Auto mix helps solve this problem by fading back the microphones not currently in use and then quickly fading them back up when that person begins to speak.

Zoom F8n Review

The Zoom F8n is the latest F-series audio recorders from Zoom aimed at filmmakers. The F8n is an evolutionary upgrade from the original F8 with some useful hardware and software upgrades including advanced hybrid limiters, AutoMix, simultaneous recording to a computer as an audio interface and internally to the F8n, timecode generator that keeps time while the recorder is powered off for up to 2 hours, mic/line selectable inputs, pro line-level balanced outputs, and many more features that pros demand. And this is available at a groundbreaking price that makes it accessible to many independent filmmakers - $1000 USD at the time of this review. Let’s run through a few of the highlights in this video.

If you’d like to learn how to get the most out of the Zoom F8 or F8n, please consider my course over at our school.

Links to gear used in this video:

Zoom F8n Audio Field Recorder

Orca OR-28 Sound Bag - I have the slightly larger OR-30. Great, sturdy bag. The OR-28 was made specifically for recorders the size of the F8/F8n

TA3F to XLRM Adapter - to adapt the outputs from mini to standard XLR. This allows you to run sound to pro-level cameras, wireless headsets for directors, producers, or script supervisors, or any other audio device with balanced XLR inputs.

JuiceBox V-mount Battery - 95 Watt Hour

Aputure COB120t - Key light for the talking head portions of this video

Aputure Light Dome II - Newer version of the big soft box with faster setup and gel holder

Lupo Superpanel Full Color 30 - RGBW 1x1 panel light for the funky background colors

LED GO E268C Bi-color Edge-lit LED Pad - super thin and light, making it a great soft light source for tight spaces

Vistek Canada (also ship to USA)

Holdan UK

Sennheiser MKH 8050 - This is the boom mic used to record this episode

Panasonic GH5 Camera - Used for all of the product shots

Panasonic 12-35mm f/2.8 OIS Lens - this is the the lens I use more than any other on the GH5s

Copyright 2018 by Curtis Judd

Music Copyright 2018 by Cary Judd. Used with permission.

RODE VideoMic Me-L Review: Better iPhone Audio

If you shoot video with your iPhone or iPad and are looking to improve the quality of your audio, the RODE VideoMic Me-L might be the solution for you. This little mic attaches to your phone via the lightning port and with its 1/2 inch capsule and directional pickup pattern, it helps focus the sound and reduce the noise you capture. Here we take a closer look at how it works in the difficult situations we often find ourselves such as windy outdoors, crowded, noisy spaces, and even in relatively quiet household rooms.

If you’d like to learn how to make great dialogue audio for your film and video projects, please have a look at my courses at my school including one that focuses on processing dialogue audio!

Links to gear some of the gear we used here:

RODE VideoMic Me-L for iPhone and iPad

Panasonic GH5s Camera - my favorite small camera for video, used for a couple of the b-roll shots

Panasonic 12-35mm f/2.8 OIS Lens - this is the the lens I use more than any other on the GH5s

Copyright 2018 by Curtis Judd

Music Copyright 2018 by Cary Judd. Used with permission.