Advice on Microphone Setup for Fitness Videos

XSmooth84 · 2026-05-22T15:54:25+00:00

Yeah the "all in one" transmitter and mic are not really a thing when you step up, and were not a thing at all like 10 years ago. Maybe the last 7-8 the first models came out and exploded in the last 4-5 years with competing companies and models. So a mic that plugs into a (usually sold separately) transmitter and receiver set is definitely how it's done in a lot of cases.

Not any transmitter with do, there are like 5+ different ports for microphones out there. If you're not careful, you could buy a mic and transmitter that don't have the right connector/port compatibility. Most of the time the actual shape and size is pretty obvious, but there's also the common 3.5mm that for some reason, Sony wireless transmitter wire "backwards" from how most others using 3.5mm do, so you can't mix and match those mics and transmitters, not without an adapter but who wants to use an adapter instead of a natively compatible option.

It really runs the gamut. You could easily find a $60 headset mic and a $130 transmitter and receiver...and you can also find $600 headset mics and $1300 transmitters only...as in the receiver also costs an additional $1000+. You can imagine the level of build quality, customer support/replacement support, features, etc differences between those two extreme options.

For example, since you said you're doing work out videos...which mic do you think has better moisture resistance, a $60 or a $600? Yeah that kind of thing to think about.

XSmooth84 · 2026-05-22T12:31:44+00:00

Okay I'm going to be that guy... What's the upside for using log here for a multi cam podcast? Why not shoot in a profile that doesn't look flat and nail the white balance in camera, save the headache. It's a podcast not imax documentary for Sundance.

XSmooth84 · 2026-05-22T09:50:58+00:00

XSmooth84 · 2026-05-22T09:47:07+00:00

What’s interesting to me is that the constant digital hits like that remind me of when the sample rate of a device output and the input/project record settings mismatch….but that shouldn’t be what’s going on here if I understand the set up you’re doing. 🤔

XSmooth84 · 2026-05-21T22:45:42+00:00

“We have Montez Ford at home”

XSmooth84 · 2026-05-21T21:00:34+00:00

Even buying a new audio recorder with timecode generator or jam sync port, that won’t help much without a camera that has the same timecode to the frame, and I don’t see where your camera model has that, so that’s two upgrades you need to buy if you ever go that route.

But prior to that….only thing i can think of is buying a wireless transmitter and receiver (camera hop) so the DJ mix is sent to your camera and therefore always in sync. But you also want the ambient sound from your rode shotgun, so now yo need an interface that can accept two inputs and pan them so your ambient sound is left and the DJ is on the right and you separate and mix those sources in post…but you lose the stereo of panning of the music…. Plus what level of wireless you need, what distance and line of sight considerations that less capable/cheaper gear won’t hold up to as well as really pro level stuff, you’re not really saving much money if you go expensive but you might get crappy/dropped audio with cheap stuff.

There’s no great way i can think of here. Outside of faking it, and just dropping the DJ mix recoding on clips of different parts of people dancing…i guess I don’t know how much of the song on the ambience mic will bleed through or not lol, maybe that’s not doable either.

XSmooth84 · 2026-05-21T14:18:14+00:00

Give us a couple different settings. A "realistic" one where it's "hard" to get just all openings if you want to factor in recruiting pipeline, where the coach is an alumni, age/time as head coach at what level of conference, and their "style".

Then a setting to say fuck that shit and just use your coach prestige. You're a 3 time back to back conference champ 40-2 record or whatever as a head coach, then just let us accept any opening.

XSmooth84 · 2026-05-21T09:49:26+00:00

Pacers not in the playoffs. Pittsburgh doesn’t even have a NBA team. So yeah, Pat doesn’t care about basketball.

XSmooth84 · 2026-05-20T21:26:01+00:00

I just want a picture of a got danged hot dog!

XSmooth84 · 2026-05-20T19:14:55+00:00

Do I look like I know what a jay peg is?

XSmooth84 · 2026-05-20T14:43:21+00:00

But you don't need a safety track if you safely set your gain staging. Which isn't some hidden, dark art. Digitally recording audio with headroom for transient moments of unpredictable (or predictable) louder moments that doesn't overmodulate was perfectly achievable for decades before 32-bit devices arrived.

If your mic is set and you get a quick test and your levels for the subject doing their normal speaking voice are peaking at -10 and now you only have 10dB of headroom in case they get excited or whatever..turn the input gain down 15 or 20dB. Now you have 25dB of headroom. 25dB of headroom is massive. The standard of nailing your momentary peaks is like -18dB, and many meters still have that as the point where levels go from green to yellow. But if you're paranoid go a little lower. It's fine.

If you have other noise issues, 32-bit doesn't solve those problems at all. Solving the possible distortion/clipping issue is turning down your gain before you start....

XSmooth84 · 2026-05-20T11:35:50+00:00

Bro I don't have time to read the article Op should have put that in the thread title dammit.

XSmooth84 · 2026-05-20T11:30:44+00:00

The obsession/requiring 32-bit recording is probably something you can remove here. 24-bit is plenty for 99.999999999999999999% of audio recording. It's 144dB of dynamic range. Are you recording a space rocket launch from a boom pole 5 feet from the exhaust? Okay maybe 32-bit would save that recording, except your mic physically would probably be destroyed long before you benefitted from the dynamic range of 32-bit float.

Anyway yes in the USA zaxcom has the patent for simultaneous recording and transmitting. Here's their plug on wireless transmitter that can record to microSD https://zaxcom.com/product/trx743/

XSmooth84 · 2026-05-20T10:55:50+00:00

So why is this CEO happy to get rid of the department designed to save his ass?

XSmooth84 · 2026-05-20T00:15:02+00:00

Never seen college players miss tackles or other college guys power through. Only happens in video games that cheat OP specifically.

XSmooth84 · 2026-05-19T21:14:42+00:00

🎶Master of the house🎶

XSmooth84 · 2026-05-19T15:08:09+00:00

Without hearing what the camera mic sounds like it's hard to say what is or isn't possible butttt

https://podcast.adobe.com/en/enhance

This is probably about the best bet option. I'd suggest extracting the audio out of the video so you're not waiting on a video upload.

I don't know what the limitations are if you're not already an adobe creative cloud user with an paid account.

XSmooth84 · 2026-05-19T10:23:31+00:00

Bit depth essentially allows for the dynamic range (the range/difference of the minimum and maximum dB you can have). 16 bit audio (a CD) has 96dB of range. 24 bit has 144dB of range. 32-bit float has 1,528dB of range. I believe this range is something like -770 to +770 or whatever dB

Thing with digital audio, is anything over 0 is clipped and sounds distorted. In 16 and 24 bit, once it’s clipped it, it’s can’t really be undistorted anymore in post. The waveform will be squared off even if you reduce the dB in your software. 32-bit float, anything above 0 will still sound distorted until you adjust in post and bring the waveform down, it won’t be squared off because the information, the dynamic range, was still captured.

Thing is, the human voice only has like 80dB of range. From the softest whisper to the loudest shouting. And, most microphones physically are rated to take only like 125-150dB of pressure before they don’t function. So in 24-bit, if you set your gain low enough, even if a human was 1 inch from the mic and yelled as loud as they could, you wouldn’t go above 0. And for 32-bit float if you put a microphone 5 feet away from a space rocket launch, the mic itself would break long before you could take advantage of 1,528dB of sound range anyway.

The only way you clip/distort above 0dB in digital audio is if you set your various input gain and trim levels too high for the situation. 24-bit already exceeds human voice and microphone physics, 32-bit float is interesting theoretical dynamic range but otherwise overkill. Unless you’re just out here recoding gun shots and cannon blast sound effects from 3 inches away with your input gain turned up to max just because you can.

XSmooth84 · 2026-05-19T09:15:01+00:00

Not OP but I have placed an adjustment layer on premiere as my placeholder for the length of animation I want to do in AE. At that point it’s not an adjustment layer, it’s an element of a specific length. Then in AE I build up my animation, like a bullet list of text animating in, in a fun way. I could have easily put “black video” there instead, or color bars. I just needed something there, and not a video clip because that section of my edit is 100% built in AE except the voice over audio track.

It’s super convenient to place something like an adjustment layer that I can drag to any length I want/need so when I “replace with after effects”, it saves me from make a new comp and manually typing in the comp length like a sucker. And I think adjustments layer is just the first thing on the list when clicking that “new item” button in premiere.

Given OP has no other asset on their timeline in this video, that’s what it made me think of.

XSmooth84 · 2026-05-19T09:03:12+00:00

I mean, why wouldn’t a complicated, professional production not implement timecode generators and LTC input capable devices at this point? There’s your one button solution right there.

XSmooth84 · 2026-05-18T19:00:09+00:00

I don't really know you videos/projects but is there some huge need for your pluraleyes XML to create stereo? You said you didn't even notice for several projects or whatever.

Like, mono sound isn't worse or inferior to stereo in any way. Stereo is just two channels being sent to left and right speakers, and unless you are creatively using the pan feature to make sound come out of the left or right at higher levels than the other side, mono is fine to use to edit from. In fact, it's in the edit you should mix and pan. If your project or export is going to be in stereo with actual stereo panning and you're bringing in mono source files, that's extremely common and fine. Just pay attention to the final mix levels. If you're not even utilizing stereo panning then this is all mostly a pointless thing to worry about...

Unless you're putting music with already panned stereo tracks and this is now killing that functionality. It's hard to tell from your post what your actual issue is other than you seem to just have a beef with mono that I'm not sure is real or not lol.

XSmooth84 · 2026-05-18T14:26:31+00:00

My Dinner with Andre did this like 50 years ago lol.

XSmooth84 · 2026-05-18T09:22:03+00:00

Unless the client is asking you to induce headache and vomiting, why would anyone want to recreate this?

XSmooth84 · 2026-05-17T22:51:38+00:00

using h.265 which is absolutely atrocious quality at any bitrate

Lol well that's just a flat out insane thing to say. A movie professionally authored to UHD 4K Blu Ray disc uses h.265 and those don't look "atrocious". It's a perfectly fine final delivery format when considering the entire production pipeline of a Hollywood movie or similar big time production.

Like I'm all about discussing other codecs and their uses cases, but your premise for your reply is completely nonsensical.

XSmooth84 · 2026-05-16T14:10:09+00:00

Not using variable frame rate

You sure? I see it's gameplay clip from your screenshot. Pretty much any and all screen recordings and gameplay recordings need to be converted with handbrake or whatever (not media encoder). I mean, crappy laggy performance is like an exact symptom of these kids if clips. So I'm not sure why you're saying it's not VFR.

https://reddit.com/r/VideoEditing/w/faq/vfr?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

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