It's good that the "Quick FX" guy is curious about learning how to record good sound. He's at the start of a long, long road. ;-)

This is a good read:
http://filmsound.org/production-sound/openletter.htm

True. Although it's a relatively old document, it at least hints at why getting good sound usually isn't as simple as "hang a lav mic above your head" or some-such. It's often way more subtle than that. But again, I admire the Quick FX guy expressing curiosity on the subject. Hopefully he'll keep at it. Cheers.

Sheesh. When I read that open letter in Vitaliy's link it makes me glad I don't work in film. Having worked for radio in the BBC for many years, in all sorts of productions from drama to music to news to foreign-language to sound effects, yes there was the same sort of attitude, particularly in the bigger teams. It's part of any organization of different craft people that's still based on old ways of thinking, which simultaneously celebrates its history while it desperately tries to avoid coming to terms with new technologies.

I was reminded of that when I read the open letter with all its depressing details and I hope whoever wrote it is now working somewhere more fulfilling than in film. I don't see any point in tolerating anachronistic working practices. Life's too short to waste energy protecting the status quo when there's technology that frees us to experiment with new ways of doing stuff and getting it out there. The fantastic thing about where we are now is that there's room for agile, small, multi-disciplined teams and individuals - and room for creative people to develop a portfolio of skills across many disciplines and make great, accessible, engaging video. It's a no-brainer that there's going to be less and less room for big-budget stuff with huge numbers of craft specialists, because there's less money around. I have huge respect on an individual level for all craft specialists, but when I read that letter it makes film look like some sort of Jurassic Park money-pit of antique working practices.

I think it sounded lousy when he was hanging the lav over his head. The kind of microphone he needs in that position is a hyper-cardioid small diaphragm. It's true that you can get great sound by hiding a lav in someone's hair (if you have it positioned properly), the thing is, every time I've suggested it to a director or actor - they were kind of weirded out by the idea.

>I'd like to nominate this video for world's worst audio tutorial.

:-)

Hey guys, this is actually my professional field I've been doing sound fx, field recording, foley and music for tv shows, videogames, albums for about 14 years now and i made a living through this only...so I'd like to share with you a very important hint about working with microphones that I learned with years of experiences and that made my life a lot simpler and which is very easy to understand and to apply.

When placing a microphone for best effective sound placement (Not Aesthetic but efficient and balanced sound frequency wise so that you won't need to correct much later on, except for volume and noise reduction) you should always think of the sound source you are capturing with your mic as a Flame of Fire, a Sound-Flame...

The tip of a fire-flame is always the hottest part and you want to capture the hottest part with your mic...

If you put the mic too close (within the flame) the sound gets muddy ( proximity effect ) too far from the tip and you'll have a lot of ambience sound and you'll miss a lot of the frequencies that are in the voice of your actor or in the details of your sound source ( the Sound-flame won't be hot enough ).


So what you are looking for with mic placement is always the tip of the Flame of your Sound...

Off course, the bigger the flame the further you'll have to put the microphone to keep the sound nice and natural...

So if your source is really loud...like an explosion or a gunshot, the idea is to have your mic far from the source at the tip of the sound-flame NOT AS CLOSE AS POSSIBLE...otherwise you ll just get a POK kind of sound...


And if you are tracking soft dialog ( a smaller/quieter Sound-Flame )...you'll need to get closer to the tip of the Sound-Flame...


The worst thing you can do is to always put the mic at the same distance just because it looks nice, or because it is not framed in your camera shot...a microphone mostly cheap ones transform the sound but they all work pretty nicely if you put them at a correct distance...Correct distance being the tip of the Sound-flame...Off course you also don't want to see the mic or the shadow of it in your frame so you'll have to make choices about that according to the rule you just learned...But you can also redo a lot of your sound in studio...

Now an other amazing voice-over/dubbing trick...Microphone harshness level:


Let's say you are on a budget but you want to achieve the best sounding dialog you'll do voice-over/dubbing recording but how to get the best possible results on a budget??? The most important thing to think of is:

Harshness of microphones vs softness of your voice actors:

If you have a few microphones (even very bad ones) and you have to re-dub the dialogs...the best microphone for the job might not be your most expensive one...it all depends on the Sound-Flame softness level...Even a 75$ mic can do an amazing job depending on the source.


In this situation the rule is: A "beautiful balanced" sound is made from balancing Harshness and Softness.

If your Sound-flame is harsh, smooth it with a dull microphone...Some dynamic mics ( like the Shure SM58 ) can give amazing results on a Voice-Actor who has a metallic/nasal/harsh type of voice.


On the contrary if your Sound-flame is too soft use a harsh microphone...these can be models like the RODE Nt-1000 or NT-2000 for example...or Chinese brand SE 2200A...they are pale imitations of Neumann U87 or U47 but because I own many of these mics and also the one they tried to copy i can tell you that they can become really useful according to the type of Sound-Flame I need to capture.


These are very basic rules to use your microphones in the best possible way...and even if you have more budget the same rules will apply...but in a bigger budget situation we will be able to add an amazing tool called a mic preamp which changes a lot on how your microphone reacts...to use this correctly you'll need more ear-frequency-training and skill...or a sound engineer :D

I you have questions about preamps, compressors, reverb, noise reduction,gate/thresholds, equalizations or anything else in the audio field i'll be very happy to answer,

it will be my way of contributing to this amazing website that our incredible @vitaliy_kiselev created...

Great analogy! I agree with much of that except I never, ever, point the mic straight at the source. It is always oblique, even if only a few mm.

Alex, great advice (though I differ on mic models). Ihope lots of people read it.

How to Mic Up 17 Different Outfits