Demonstration of 2 shot gun mics used for stereo recording

The following video was recorded using an XH-A1 and two on camera mounted long shot gun AT-835b microphones. This was not an ideal way to mount the microphones but it definitely performed “good enough”. When the camera and mics are a long ways from the field, there is not as much stereo channel separation as you might expect.

But the stereo mics add a depth to the sound that was missing when using a single shot gun mic. Why use a shot gun mic? The shot gun mic definitely records higher quality audio than the on camera mic and helps to reduce crowd noise.

The following is the performance of the Mt. Spokane High School Wildcats Marching Band at the 2011 Puget Sound Festival of Bands in Everett, Wa. MSHS band performed an original composition and this is posted on Youtube at the request of and with the permission of the band director.

Here is a photo of my set up for the recording. The two shot gun mics are above the camera. Output from the HDV camera is sent over a long Firewire cable to a Mac notebook computer, where the video stream is recorded direct to disk using QuickTime Pro. By recording direct to disk, the videos are immediately ready for conversion to MPEG4 without any time spent on import.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *