I think Damien is right - there are two things being conflated here, the use of cardioid mics vs omnidirectional
(presumably people will not be going to highly-directionals as an alternative), and the use of lavaliere vs headset or other mounting type.
Both have effects, but they're independent of each other.
Most of the lavaliere mics I've used over the years have actually been omnidirectional, not cardioids, while the cardioid AKG Bartek reviews is headmounted...
I still think lavalieres are better for reducing people's awareness of wearing a mic in informal settings, because if wired up right they can't see or feel them w/o effort.
That doesn't mean they have to be wedged against the body though, you can put them on eg a collar wing. I've also often used them unobtrusively in other positions, eg hanging
from a ceiling lamp or even chair-back near the speakers, when they don't want to wear it, or as an additional input.
Obviously headsets can be better for formal elicitation if you position them properly. Radio engineers when I've done BBC interviews have often wanted me to swing the mic up just
above eye level. But I can't see how anybody will ever hold relaxed conversation with that kind of mounting... Of course, you can't believe it when speakers tell you they're not
aware of or bothered by mics, that's just politeness I think in most cases. Kids who wear them all the time for gaming might be different I suppose...
It's true that mics designed for singing are not ideal, as Bartek points out! but you shouldn't need to do lab tests - just look at the manufacturers' rolloff charts, assuming they
are close to reality, or a good stereo equipment review to find their characteristics.
-p-
Peter L. Patrick E: [log in to unmask]
Dept. of Language & Linguistics Ph: 1206 87.2088
Office: 4.328
W: http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~patrickp
-----Original Message-----
From: Variationist List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Damien Hall
Sent: 06 April 2011 11:12
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Dialectological recordings with head-set microphones?
PLEASE NOTE MY NEW E-MAIL ADDRESS / PRIÈRE DE NOTER MA NOUVELLE ADRESSE ÉLECTRONIQUE
Thanks a lot for all the responses so far (and there've been more that came just to me). I'm encouraged by this, as there are clearly a few people who've found that their informants weren't as bothered by head-set mics as one might have thought they would be.
To cope with the fact that some people _might_ be bothered by head-set mics, another thing that Bartek Plichta recommends (if you have the money, of course!) is to buy two of a good mic that is available in both head-set and lavalier configurations. Then you can use the head-set version if your informant is happy with it, or the lavalier if they're not. One example is the AudioTechnica BP892 / 896, where the 892 is an 'ear-set' mic and the 896 is a lavalier, both based on the same apparently excellent mic:
http://bartus.org/akustyk/BP892/index.php
and another one, by now, might be the Sanken COS-11D:
http://bartus.org/akustyk/COS11D/index.php
(at the time of Bartek's review, this mic was available only as a head-set, but they promised that it would be available by now as a lavalier as well; I haven't checked yet whether it actually is).
Another solution to the problem might be what Vineeta Chand suggested, fixing a lavalier mic more-or-less parallel to the ground (though she cautioned that she wouldn't trust her data in the particularly low-frequency range, not (only) because of this configuration but because of general background noise, which is everyone's problem!). This solution would get away from the problem of (excessive) damping by clothes, which is presumably part of the deal with many lavalier mics, as a frequent configuration for them is perpendicular to the ground. I suppose it depends on the brand of mic and the type of tie-clip you have.
But this leads to my other question: I was originally concerned about low-frequency emphasis by cardioid mics, which I wanted to avoid. A few people said that they had successfully used omnidirectional lavalier mics. But don't omnidirectional lavalier mics become effectively cardioid if one side of them is damped by clothing that they're fixed close to? Of course, reception patterns are to do with the construction of the mic too - probably mostly that - but can anyone say how its reception is affected by what it's placed close to? I'm not a sound technician or a physicist, so my expertise runs out before we get to this stage. I'm not talking about improving the signal by placing the mic closer to the subject's mouth - I know about that - but about what difference it makes if the mic is fixed against clothing (as they often are) or horizontally, comparatively far from the clothing it's clipped to.
Please keep responses coming about this and also about my first question (socio / dialectological experiences with headset mics, and recommendations if you have them)!
Damien
--
Damien Hall
University of Kent (UK / Royaume-Uni)
Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, 'Towards a New Linguistic Atlas of France'
Projet de recherche: 'Vers un Nouvel Atlas Linguistique de la France'
English Language and Linguistics, School of European Culture and Languages
Section de Langue et Linguistique Anglaises, Faculté de la Culture et des Langues Européennes
########################################################################
The Variationist List - discussion of everything related to variationist sociolinguistics.
To send messages to the VAR-L list (subscribers only), write to:
[log in to unmask]
To unsubscribe from the VAR-L list, click the following link:
http://jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=VAR-L&A=1
########################################################################
The Variationist List - discussion of everything related to variationist sociolinguistics.
To send messages to the VAR-L list (subscribers only), write to:
[log in to unmask]
To unsubscribe from the VAR-L list, click the following link:
http://jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=VAR-L&A=1
|