The sound: It was late afternoon. I was in the middle of conducting an interview, recording the conversation with a small digital voice recorder. Rain falling outside, in droves. I could hear water rushing down the street. The sound of water pouring from the roof. Water dripping from here and there. Clinking and clattering on the tin roof above. Inside, one light in the corner of the room fought back the cold of the rain outside. I was talking with a mother and her son amidst the incessant deluge. The sound of the rainfall wasn’t exactly overwhelming, just constant. In the moment, it all sounded pretty nice.
The fury: When I finally checked the recording later that night, the rain made it almost impossible to hear the conversation. The voices of mother and son were swept up in an auditory wrecking ball that sounded more like a tornado than raindrops. The interview was still salvageable, but it was hardly a masterpiece of ethnographic audio. Frustrating.
The admission: While I have a lot of experience in photography, I do not have a lot of experience making high quality audio recordings. And if we’re going to record interviews, we should make them as good as possible, right? Sure, I have used digital recorders that do the trick, but the overall quality of most of my interviews hasn’t been exactly stellar. They have been decent, but not great. The above incident (which took place during my MA field research) caused me to upgrade my digital recorder to a Zoom H2, which was certainly a step in the right direction. Still, while I know how to handle a whole slew of difficult lighting situations in photography, I am willing to admit that I have a lot to learn when it comes to recording audio in tricky situations. Two situations create consistent problems for me: 1) when there is a decent amount of background noise (traffic, dogs barking, rain, etc); and 2) windy, or even slightly breezy situations (which can ruin audio pretty easily).
The question(s): How do you deal with difficult sound/audio situations? Do you have any tips or methods that help you in these kinds of tricky situations? What about controlling/mitigating background noise? Dealing with wind (e.g. what accessories/tools do you use to cut noise)?
*As a gesture of reciprocity, here is a quick, basic tip for photography in the field. If you want to photograph someone in the middle of the day (when the sun is blazing overhead)…just look for what’s called “open shade” lighting. That’s basically shade that is just on the edge of bright sunlight–whether under a porch, just inside a doorway, or any other even shadow (watch out for shade under trees because this can produce patchy light). Open shade blocks direct sun and keep the lighting nice and even. Just place the person right inside the shade line, but facing the sunlight–this will provide that even light (and avoid really deep shadows). Here’s the key: the bright sunlight is reflected off the ground to fill in the shaded subject, which creates excellent light. Much better than trying to photograph people in blinding sunlight all the time. As one blogger over at “Pioneer Woman Photography” writes, “Open Shade is Your Best Friend” (this link gives a pretty good rundown, including some tips about white balance). When it comes to photography, simplicity goes a long way.
**Apologies to those of you photographically hip Savage Minds out there who already know about the wonders of open shade. I tried. Maybe next time.
Ryan, have you tried directional microphones? See http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-directional-microphone.htm for a quick introduction. A Google search for “directional microphones” turns up a lot of other interesting stuff as well. The good news is that for basic face-to-face interviewing there are a lot of relatively inexpensive products on the market.
My guess is that what’s giving you problems is that you have a great recorder with a built-in omnidirectional microphone that picks up everything, including white noise from traffic, rain, wind, etc. A plug-in directional microphone works like the lens on you SLR, letting frame what you hear.
In your kit you should have a good lavalier microphone, you should have a windscreen and, most importantly, you should have good headphones so that you can check the sound on-location.
Also, see the Ling Anth folk’s tech blog:
http://kit.linguisticanthropology.org/posts/
@John Omnidirectional is fine. The problem is that these mics are really designed for recording concerts and such, and so the range is too wide. A lavalier is an omni mic with a much smaller range – and so it will be more focused around the person talking. A directional mic can be problematic in that it can pick up sounds behind the person as well.
Kerim, I bow to your filmmaker’s experience. I’ve had good luck with directional mikes in mostly office settings. I’ve got a couple of Sony bi-directional mikes (two mikes in one unit three or four inches apart) that do a terrific job of capturing the voices of people sitting across a table from you. It’s almost like they have a very shallow depth of field.
@John I’m curious to learn more about this, because shooting on noisy streets in India and getting good sound was very difficult and I would like to know how to do better. I’ve seen BBC productions that seem to do the impossible and I’d like to know how they do it… Honestly, I’m not sure omni/direction or dynamic/condenser will settle the matter, because there is so much variety in quality and cost. Most lav mics are pretty crappy, but we used a Tram TR-50 which is top-of-the-line. On the other hand, our shotgun mics were only good, so that probably has me biased. Sound is really difficult. The one thing I can say for sure is that it is really worthwhile investing in some high-end microphones (and good cases to protect them) as these will last you forever.
Our department recently got the Tascam. This review likes the Tascam microphone better than that on the Zoom, but I haven’t been able to do a direct comparison as we only have the cheaper Zoom H1:
http://www.rustymicrophone.com/zoom_tascam.html
Your goal is a high signal/noise ratio. Possessing the most appropriate and highest quality technology possible and knowing how to use it can overcome a certain degree of ambient noise, but anyone able to get a clean audio recording in your rainstorm context should consider working in the music industry or with a three letter agency if (s)he isn’t doing so already.
This book is on my wishlist, but I haven’t read it yet:
Producing Great Sound for Digital Video
http://amzn.to/z1e5J6
@John:
You nailed it–a lot of the problems I am dealing with are because I am picking up too much. The directional mics sound promising–any particular types that you have found useful and fairly durable???
@Kerim:
Any suggestions for good lav mics? The fact that they have a smaller range sounds like this might be a good solution to some of these issues.
@MTBradley:
Ya, I agree that getting good sound in the rainstorm/tin roof situation is probably impossible. But, I am sure that it’s possible to at least get better sound with some knowledge and tech improvements. In that situation, I was using some crappy 50 dollar digi recorder, and the sound came out terrible. I have stepped it up with the H2 that I have now, but I have a lot to learn when it comes to sound recording, which ain’t easy.
I suppose… But I think it’s probably something like that scene in Tin Cup where the protagonist asks the baddy, “You ever shoot par with a seven iron?” and the baddy replies, “Hell, it never occurred to me to try.” But I might be too picky—I learned most of what I know about recording audio in relation to gathering data for phonetic analysis and I’ve heard the buzz of fluorescent light bulbs ever since.
@Ryan
My knowledge in this area is way out of date. I am talking about the interviews I did for my book circa 1997-1998. One additional thought occurs to me. The first thing that came to mind was “directional mike.” What I wound up using most may have been–I’m guessing now from the shape of the things—small stereophonic mikes, with two microphones positioned about as far apart as most people’s ears. I was, at that point, recording on MDs, small format disks, with, if my memory serves me right, a recorder designed for stereo recording. What that meant was the difference you hear between old hi-fi and stereo recordings of music. The sound from the later lets you focus your attention on different instruments that appear to be located at different points in aural space. Imagine yourself listening to jazz. The big sound up front is the saxophone solo. You can, however, direct your attention to the bass in the background. At least in an office environment, where I was putting the recorder and mike on the table between me and the person I was interviewing, the effect was similar. I could hear stuff in the background, but it was pretty easy to focus on what the person was saying when I transcribed the recordings.
Remember, though, this is all ancient history now. For modern advice from someone who records outdoors, I’d listen to Kerim.
Oral history method is probably a good place to look for the sort of work you are doing. Give the Oral History Association and the Vermont Folklife Center a try.
You all should check out the amazing audio resource Transom.org. It was created for beginners who are learning the craft of radio and radio documentary, but it’s an extraordinary resource for anyone looking to learn how to record interviews well.