Dramatic Noise Download
Lanell Mesina
I mostly do drama work, and every now and again there's that intimate/soft scene in a very quiet room where I have to crank up my faders quite a bit to get a decent level, but then the self noise of the mic, or the preamp, or both? just gets that bit too noticeable. I use expensive equipment (for example a CMIT or a 416 directly into the Nomad/Mix-8 ) and still I run into those situations when I feel like I should be able to record this sort of scene with a lower noise level. I put an MM-1 between mic and recorder but it seemed to be the same more or less. The only thing that reduced the hiss was going to Lectro wireless instead of the cable and using the SRa's denoiser. Which is basically the same that post would do with a scene like that.
Would using a different preamp/console in front of the Nomad likely yield a lower noise floor? If so, any recommendations? The THD+ loise percentage stated in the specs seems pretty good, but there is no info on equivalent input noise, so what does it mean in practice? Are there other mics that would have noticably lower self noise than a CMIT or 416? Again, on the spec sheets they all look good, but in practice? And no, it's not the headphone preamp, post confirmed the noise issue to me, though they said it's no big deal to them using a denoiser plugin on a scene like that.
I think you should record your scenes with the great gear you already have and not worry about that noise. You are listening on headphones, at high volume: the viewers of your show will be unlikely to hear it that way. We have many NR tools available in post with which we gan gently and inaudibly take the noise floor down where it needs to be reduced in the final edit, with the score and sfx/foley etc in. Not to worry.
The Sennheiser mkh range have far lower noise floors than most mics, particularly the schoeps. Try a side by side comparison with the gain up. The next stage is the preamps, I don't know about the Nomad but the SD ones are pretty quiet. A dedicated external one may improve matters, but I haven't really found the mkh mics to require such a fix. I find them good for very quiet field recordings of birds and insects, and they're quiet!
As has been alluded to earlier, if a location is quiet enough that the mic's internal noise becomes an issue, post will be delighted with your tracks, as, typically, that's the easiest noise to remove they're likely to deal with.
The usual thumps, clunks, air handlers, fridges, gennies, humming balasts, walking, shuffling papers, and talking suits who believe if they cup their hand in front of their mouth they won't be heard, etc. are the issues. Next to that, a scene where the loudest noise you hear is the microphone's noise floor is a blessing.
Another option would be to get a mkh8050 or 8060 with the digital output module and take that into the nomad - that should eliminate any analogue hiss or noise altogether, in either the mic or the preamp.
I had thought about that too, but I think that most of the noise is actually created at the capsule. The mic preamp (as opposed to the pres on the recorder) plays a less pronounced role in creating hiss
That, in addition to my similar issue, would pose the question whether the noise does come from the Nomad side rather than the microphones. I di know of other mixers using the same mic as me in the same room for a similar scene, and there didn't seem to be as much noise. They used a 788 resp. a Audio Dev console into Nagra VI or Tacam HS82. So I still wonder whether the Nomad creates more noise than other recorders (despite the spec figures).
I haven't tried the Neuman, but I've got a Super CMIT and it has a very low output. Sometimes I have to really crank it to get a useable level on the Nomad and the hiss is quite apparent. This is on the processed output, the unprocessed output is not as bad, but still quite noticeable. My MKH60 has a very low self noise, as others have said, and is my preferred mic for quiet sources and spot fx recordings. So from my experience, I would say the mic capsule is probably the main factor.
Yes, the SuperCMIT is noisier than expected. Its noise specs are similar to the analogue version, which is not the quietest mic in the world. You surely know this, but the SuperCMIT has got its own output settings. I think it can boost or cut by 30dB. Maybe you've got it on the wrong setting?
The MKH series such as the 40 and 50 are supposed to be rock bottom noise. For lavs COS-11s are the hottest and gain staging the transmitter and receiver to give line level seems to reduce noise from them.
The MM-1's not going to give any benefit over the Nomad. It's not really my thing, but I know there are preamps that offer enormous boost without noise to even Ribbon mics. I know somebody on Gearslutz should know what these are....
I just converted my first S2 images to the CMYK modus for offset printing and the increase of color noise was dramatic and so big that I can't use them for publishing. Posted samples from a part from the image (screenshot) from different images (RGB & CMYK) taken at 400 and 800 ISO and put the information on the pictures. I also hope that Phil will add these conversions to his review so that we can compare the behavior of the camera's on this subject, as it is very important for people in the offset printing and digital press printing world.
Dirk- Have you tried shooting RAW, color-org, tone-org? Even if you don't have the RAW convertor, (e-mail me about this) you could try these settings in JPEG and color noise may be better. Would also try sharpenning off...Peter
I just converted my first S2 images to the CMYK modus for offset
printing and the increase of color noise was dramatic and so big
that I can't use them for publishing. Posted samples from a part
from the image (screenshot) from different images (RGB & CMYK)
taken at 400 and 800 ISO and put the information on the pictures. I
also hope that Phil will add these conversions to his review so
that we can compare the behavior of the camera's on this subject,
as it is very important for people in the offset printing and
digital press printing world.
Dirk, I downloaded your RGB sample and change it to CMYK in
photoshop, the RGB and CMYK looked exactly the same, no increase of
noise.
I'm curious why you got that result. How do you do the convertion?
Can it be the software that caused the problem?
Here in Europe we didn't receive the EX convertor and these images were taken in JPEG fine at 12 MP, so surely not in the camera. All the images from my S1 (always JPEG fine) gives no problems when converted to CMYK but here I see this dramatical change, I will try to find out what causes this as I can't use them this way for offset printing, they would turn out very ugly;
I would love it if you could upload the original file since I'm waiting on my S2 to arrive, and this is a big issue for me as well. If it can't make the color conversion process without the noise I may have to consider another option. I will admit that I'm a graphic designer and not a photographer by nature. In other words I know Photoshop better than which camera settings are the best.
I would love it if you could upload the original file since I'm
waiting on my S2 to arrive, and this is a big issue for me as well.
If it can't make the color conversion process without the noise I
may have to consider another option. I will admit that I'm a
graphic designer and not a photographer by nature. In other words I
know Photoshop better than which camera settings are the best.
I will do that but tomorrow if I find time, has a lot of jobs to do and a meeting tomorrow and for the moment it's 5 in the morning here so I urgently had to go sleeping for a few hours. But with the black point adjustment it looks already much better, I also think that using the Shade white balance saturated the images very much so that there was more color noise then normal, I already made some Raw files but I don't have the EX convertor (not in the package in Europe) but I will try to find it. I think now that the problem is not as big as I first thought, I will surely post here what I find out about this subject and try to do some test this weekend. I posted some full res images (jpeg fine setting) on pbase in the S2 map there so if you open one of these in PS and convert it you can give it a try, they were all taken with the white balance on Auto.
We report a fully-correlated multi-mode pumping architecture optimized for dramatic noise reduction of a class-A dual-frequency Vertical External Cavity Surface Emitting Laser (VECSEL). Thanks to amplitude division of a laser diode, the two orthogonally polarized modes emitted by the VECSEL oscillating at 852 nm are separately pumped by two beams exhibiting fully in-phase correlated intensity noises. This is shown to lead to very strong and in-phase correlations between the two lasing modes intensities. As a result, the phase noise power spectral density of the RF beat note generated by the two modes undergoes a drastic reduction of about 10 to 20 dB throughout the whole frequency range from 10 kHz to 20 MHz and falls below the detection floor above a few MHz. A good agreement is found with a model which uses the framework of rate equations coupled by cross-saturation. The remaining phase noise is attributed to thermal effects and additional technical noises and lies mainly within the bandwidth of a phase-locked-loop.
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