BE 4 Little Ears Parabolic Dish Review
A while back I purchased a BE 4 Little Ears parabolic dish. It was an interesting purchase and very educational as to how these things work. I was and still am very impressed with the performance of this dish but there are draw backs and trade offs just like with everything else. Most notably on the negative side would be the loss of the low end frequencies in your recordings. On the positive side the dish really has exceptional range in picking out desirable sounds that otherwise would be missed.
I was surprised to hear just how effectively you can focus the dish by moving the microphone placement in and out within the dish. I should say that the Little ears is designed to work with a lavalier as the microphone element and so I began scouring my collection of lav's for just the right one.
The Sennhieser MKE-2 ended up winning the day but there was no shortage of fine sounding microphones for this application. It's not a very discreet method of recording sound but I like to mix it in with a quality shotgun as an element to boost the range of the shotgun. This tends to help compensate for the loss of the low end experienced in utilizing the parabolic by itself.
Hiding Lavaliers
The art of burying a lavalier microphone is just that... an art. It seems that each and every situation is different and what works one day fails miserably the next. There are however some basic starting points that one can build from. First off, understand that there are two types of sound emanating from these situations. The first is acoustic sound driven by the normal interaction of the clothing with itself and with the body. An example of a sound headache would be a nylon jogging suit. That's an extremely noisy garment that you can do very little about. The second type is rustle. This occurs with the clothing rubbing over the surface of the microphone and cable. This is where your technique comes into play.
Start by getting into the habit of securing a small coil in the microphone cable several inches below the mic head. This will greatly reduce the rubbing transients along the cable itself. Sadly we quite often have very little time to wire folks so being prepared is a great benefit.
Creating small air pockets can be very useful in securing a rustle free rig. Women have a natural space in the breast cleavage area which greatly reduces the challenge in wiring them. One note to look out for with women is the silk on silk wardrobe. A silk / satin bra combined with a silk blouse can make for a very long day in the field.
I've really moved almost entirely to the Countryman B6 microphone for rf. work. They are so small that the opportunities to achieve rustle free sound increase tremendously. They secure well behind buttons or on the tip of a button hole. I tend to lean towards finding a sweet spot on the clothing that the mic can ride along with instead of securing to the body itself.
In the bag
Mole Skin - Both Black and Nude
Toupee Tape (double sided)
Hush Lav's
Make Up Wedges (foam)
Sizzors
Sensitive Skin Medical Tape
A good day at the office quite often is dictated by whether or not you're having a good rf day. You will have them all! The only thing you can do is learn from each and every experience and file them away for another day.
Good Luck!
Yes hiding wires is a difficult and cumbersome job! Not for the faint of heart too be sure!
You'll be happy to know that the wire is a Lectrosonic 411 digital hybrid system.
For even greater flexibility in burying wires pick up a couple of SM transmitters. You'll love the way they hide under tighter fitting wardrobes.