Old school overhead boom mic vs wireless lav mics on set yesterday

I was on a short film shoot yesterday where the sound guy brought this ancient looking boom mic setup with a long cable. The director wanted to go wireless lavs for convenience but the boom sounded way clearer in the playback. It reminded me of working on sets back in 2018 where we never even questioned using a boom for dialogue scenes. That cable management was a pain but the audio never had dropouts or interference. Has anyone else noticed a difference in quality between the two approaches?

3 comments

3 Comments

miles27922d ago

Oh man, I feel your pain on that! A good old school boom always sounds richer and more natural to me, wireless lavs can get that tinny or muffled sound real fast. The cable hassle is a bummer but that clean signal without dropouts is worth it every time for dialogue.

king.aaron22d ago

I gotta push back on that "richer and more natural" take, because my wireless lavs have saved me SO many times in noisy environments. A boom picks up every fridge hum and HVAC rumble in the room, while a good lav pressed right against the actor's chest cuts ALL that out. Plus, I can get clean dialogue from a lav even when I'm shooting at a wide angle or through a window, which a boom simply cannot do.

johnson.faith3d ago

Oh man tell me about it. I was on a shoot last summer where the director insisted on wireless lavs for everyone and we spent half the day chasing interference from a nearby radio station or something. The boom guy we had brought this old Schoeps mic and it sounded so much warmer and more present in the mix. I get that lavs are convenient but every time I hear that digital compression or a dropout mid sentence I just wince. There's something about the air and space around a boom that you just cant fake with a mic taped to someones shirt. Even with all the cable wrangling and boom op arm fatigue I would take that every time for important dialogue scenes.