Omni vs Cardioid Lav Mics & Hiring Well Rounded Crew: Sound Speeds Podcast E11

Welcome to the Sound Speeds Podcast, now a member of the Geeks Rising Podcast Network family! For more info, visit: GeeksRising.com.
In this episode I'm going to cover the difference between omni and cardioid lav mics and the importance of hiring a well rounded crew.
0:00 Intro
0:59 Omni vs Cardioid Lavs
17:37 Hiring Rounded Sound Techs
35:52 Outro
For episode 11 we're going to start out discussing lav mics and the differences between omni and cardioid patterned lavs. Second, I get into a bit of a rant and I'm sorry in advance. Many boom ops I've been running into lately don't possess basic troubleshooting skills necessary to do a technical job (like that of a boom operator) and when their sound utility doesn't either, I'm called to save the day. I'm going to go over my policy change and why I believe it's time for crew members to learn what they should know.
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[@kartanosaka]

Sometimes I am amazed by people not harnessing the power of a search engine. Sure, I love fixing and troubleshooting things - be it cameras or audio gear - but I get ever so slightly annoyed, when people claiming to be professionals are not in full understanding of their gear. That should be, in my opinion, the baseline of a working professional. Thank you Allen for this incredible KZbin-channel. It has been an invaluable resource full of eye (or rather ear?) opening moments and epiphanies.

[@SoundSpeeds]

Sure thing. Thanks for watching.

[@TheHalfmanofOz]

2am. Perfect timing 😂.

[@SoundSpeeds]

🤣

[@QuestionMan]

Spicey! Go get em tiger. Eventually ya just gotta draw a line.

[@SoundSpeeds]

Yep.

[@imark7777777]

Yes the Art of troubleshooting is getting a tad bit forgotten much like the realm of common sense. And a lot of that basic signal flow that's getting abstracted and not documented well publicly. I photocopied the manual for the audio mixer at my old church way back when and went back-and-forth through it and still do this day every so often and I'll pull it out and find things I didn't know were in there. Now you get a manual and it doesn't even tell you what tracks are routed in what order to the digital I/O. And you might be able to track that information down after watching 100 videos. I was fighting with a router recently couldn't figure out why it wasn't working when I set it up I followed the documentation and I swear that documentation has changed since then and added a step that it didn't say to do previously and after that wow it works. Back to the Audio world. I finally got my hands on a microphone from the band that I do sound for, it had a buzzing problem. This problem presented itself whenever the microphone was touched we thought it was a cable for a while and I kept taking the cables and checking them and couldn't figure it out. I finally got the microphone in my hands and for whatever reason Sennheiser decided to connect the ground through the screw to the case back to the circuitboard. Needless to say the screw comes loose you lose your ground and then whenever you touch the body you get a buzz. Remedied that with 2 inches of wire and a soldering in about 30 minutes permanent fix. I see a lot of people will jump around instead of going up or down the chain and go back-and-forth between different parts and then next thing you know they don't know what doesn't work and what works. I had somebody insist that I had a bad cable, I came in and everything worked so the problem had to be user error. then again that was a bit of a disaster of a show due to implied know it all-ism.

[@SoundSpeeds]

Yeah, it's really sad what the world's turning into

[@andrewp1513]

Good to hear that you’re standing up for yourself and the industry by not being used. Sorry you had to make that choice.

[@SoundSpeeds]

👍

[@imark7777777]

Hard to say but well put. I have a pretty unique skill set that's ever expanding. The local music store and nonprofit music school used to do all the sound for the county fair essentially. the county fair, it's small I guess I should say no animals no rides it's a small town, moved to a new location and was going to be outdoors. they bailed due to rain and weather concerns with equipment. so I said I'll do it and I'll provide sound for the entire stage all Day and the bands could just walk in play etc. announcements, music. I did that for two years then got replaced by dare I say it the lowest bidder said music store group again for the last two years. I also took responsibility for Electrical services they said they always had problems at their previous location due to it being an old building, and since I will be a primary user and highly concerned about that it was in my best interests and I didn't have any issues except one slight issue due to supplied equipment from the food vendor but back on topic. The new person managing the fair asked if I wanted to pay to have a vendor booth there, OK so what is my business? what would I have at my booth? Yeah I think if I brought my own bands it might not go over very well. Although this year is going to be interesting as I have been hired for that date a block away... And I know the loud clean sound system very very very very well! I am really liking this karma thing. I got hired by a another group nonprofit in the county that wanted to do weekly concerts last year, this year same organization at the yearly youth art thing I was asked to record the video again. I show up and this group I know all too well at this point is setting up sound for like half the day already and they asked me well why aren't you doing Sound for this? we wouldn't have had to drag everything over here and do all this work. .....My response I wasn't asked I was only asked to record it. I'm not gonna work for free with all this knowledge. And then there was all the other stuff from 2020 onward. Meanwhile I'm sitting back here on KZbin trying to suck up as much knowledge as I can especially in the field of film audio since it's a corner I haven't Learned too much of yet ( I also need to watch that seminar from last year that I paid for and haven't gotten to yet "nervous laughter" ). Long and short of it is I am always constantly learning wait I think that's a paraphrase of another catchphrase... Yeah I watch that channel also. Some people like to do things and find out how to do them, then there's others who try to learn from other peoples mistakes, failures and success so they're not starting from square one. Now if I could just figure out this whole money thing, the banks have it maybe I should just go there and ""ask"" for it.....

[@SoundSpeeds]

👍

[@imark7777777]

I try not to go over my 2 comments maximum policy but felt this deserved it's own snippet. I know two guys who did installed/live sound in the neighboring state. One of them got known to all the churches that he would do their outdoor gigs for free. He came to this realization that he was getting no respect working for free with high demands like setting up to do an orchestra in a park on a hot day by himself. He eventually had to say he was out of the business and quietly went working for this other guy doing installed stuff and some mixing. People keep telling me about this word "n o" it's still very confusing but I guess it's useful?

[@SoundSpeeds]

It is and I use it more and more often as I get older.

[@12yfilms]

THANK YOU SOOOOO MUCH FOR THIS VIDEO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@SoundSpeeds]

Sure thing. Thanks for watching.

[@meistudiony]

I need to lose a bunch of weight… im “well rounded”. Am i hired?!

[@SoundSpeeds]

Yeah, of course.

[@meistudiony]

@@SoundSpeeds in all seriousness. You definitely hit close to home. Theres a production company in my area that always calls me AFTER they’ve messed up to try and salvage from the ashes, the audio that they captured. From forensic level restoration to ADR, ive done it or have had to invent a way to do it. But NOT ONCE have I been hired to be on set. Lol.

[@SoundSpeeds]

Yeah... unacceptable