Homemade boom mic with windscreen

[MrCrowley]

Made this today because sound quality can really ruin anything you film. It seems to work pretty well so far. We can hold it out the window of the car driving at about 50mk/h and you can only hear the car and outside noises, no muffling at all. Before, that would be all you heard.

The mic windscreen is made from a 4" thick piece of foam cut in to a 8cmx8xcmx10cm block which I shaped to what resembles a semi-Prolate spheroid (egg/rugby ball shape), hollowed out the inside and slipped the microphone inside then used a rubber band to make sure it stays on.

Then I got some fur fabric from a car polishing mit which I cut up and sewed to fit over the foam. I need to get a rubber band just to make sure no wind goes inside it from behind where it's open (so it can be removed).

The microphone stand is just a wooden broom stick with a grip I got fron an old drill forced on to the end. The microphone is attached using an adjustable plastic circle thingy which tightens when I pull the strap. Conveniently it has two tabs for a bolt to thread through at the bottom so it can be fastened to something. So I threaded a bolt through this and through the wooden broom stick. This allows me to change the angle of the microphone but it's strong enough to stay in place.

Then I just used two cable hook thingys which you can clip a cable under so it keeps it in place. They also allow me to remove the cable, a big factor of this design was being able to remove and disassemble everything so nothing was permanent.

As usual, I have made a pretty long post to answer any possible questions I can think of, so here are the pictures:

N.B - Camera isn't mine. It's a friends. Don't expect any videos of my cannons with it until at least December.

[psycix]

Make sure to use a fresh set of batteries.

[MrCrowley]

Not that that would effect anything at all with the camera aside from how long it stays on for

[psycix]

Unless you enable macro mode...

(Yes, you will be haunted by the battery-macro story for a long time)

[boyntonstu]

Nice!

The proof is the quiet performance at 50KmH.

I wonder if your mic would be a big improvement for chrono use?

My mic picks up way too much.

BoyntonStu

[jrrdw]

Unless you enable macro mode...

(Yes, you will be haunted by the battery-macro story for a long time)

I hate the tiny font, it makes me have to quote the members post like this.

Nice work MrCrowley ! No video's untill December, you tease!!!

[Technician1002]

A word of caution when buying a camera. I pretty much assumed most video cameras have a mic input. WRONG. I picked up a 30 Gig JVC Everio hard disk video camera. Then went to video a wedding. That model has no external connections whatsoever to input audio either mic or line level into the camera. The only choice is the on board mic. Other than that fatal flaw, it's a nice camera. Now I bring along a regular VHS VCR and jack the video out from the camera into it and jack the line out from a mixer into the audio in. Kinda defeats the digital recording.

I'm working on setting up a netbook with Audacity with a Behringer U-Control UCA202 to record the quality audio track and then use a video editor to replace the audio. I don't have the video editor yet. A simple prop like a party popper or clap board like they use to make movies is an easy way to sync the video recording with the audio recording.

The advantage is the elimination of the mic wires to the camera. The sound guy and video guy do not need to be tethered together. The disadvantage is post production work is required to assemble the two recordings together.

As an FYI, the Behringer is Linux compatible. As an AISO device, it is plug and play with no drivers required.

There is a huge advantage to sound quality if you can manually adjust the mic gain instead of taking the AGC controlled volume.

@jrrdw, nice closeup of the micro font. Nice and sharp, but the color is a little off. Have you checked your batteries?

[MrCrowley]

Yeah my Sony handycam has no mic input which sucks, but this $15,000 camera has two

[psycix]

Why December? You have the camera (and portable power source) now don't you?

Whoever reads this has some darn good batteries for the macro on his camera! (Or copy-pasted or quoted the line. Whatever.)


[size=0]Did you find this hidden line too? You must have nuclear powered batteries.[/size]

[MrCrowley]

For starters, my laptop doesn't have firewire.
To get 10,000 frames per second, i'm going to need a lot of lights, which I don't have.
I need to sort out a target that could catch the projectile (like a golfball), I don't want any ricochets.

I've got exams coming up and we need the camera to film 5 promotional videos for some company that 'hired' us.

Oh and you do know i'm telling the truth about the macro and flash right? Go pick up some batteries from a $1,2,3 dollar store and you'll see what I mean.

[jrrdw]

Why December? You have the camera (and portable power source) now don't you?

Whoever reads this has some darn good batteries for the macro on his camera! (Or copy-pasted or quoted the line. Whatever.)


Did you find this hidden line too? You must have nuclear powered batteries.

Take the hint, next time i'll delete your entire post with out notice as punishment for the/your lack of concern of members who might not see as well as others.

[POLAND_SPUD]

hey that's great... and simple

uhmm I've just realized that my crappy camera doesn't have a mic input well at least the battery is good

members who might not see as well as others

mozilla firefox is great... just press CTRL and + or - to zoom-in and out

[MrCrowley]

What I do to deal with the tiny text is I just copy and paste it in to this quick reply box and it comes up as normal size.

[Technician1002]

Why December? You have the camera (and portable power source) now don't you?

Whoever reads this has some darn good batteries for the macro on his camera! (Or copy-pasted or quoted the line. Whatever.)


[size=0]Did you find this hidden line too? You must have nuclear powered batteries.[/size]

Wow, I need to ditch the camera and use a microscope.

[mark.f]

Can't wait for the test videos. Would this capture 'booms' a little better than a cheap microphone?

[size=0]If you can see this line you must have a large clean-coal plant in your tool-shed. Can you see this jrrdw?[/size]