Sound Recording

[chau]

Hi everybody
I have some questions with regards to sound recording. A friend is going to be doing Gymkhana this weekend and he asked me to film him. Now I'd like to try and tape a microphone to the car to get some extra sound mainly from the car itself. Now we tried it out tonight with a pc microphone covered with some sponge to try and help with the wind noise but at high speeds it just didn't help. The volume of the microphone on my laptop was turned way way down, almost off and it still clipped and made too much noise. I'm not too clued up in recordings and that kinda stuff so your tips would be much appreciated.
Could it be the really budget microphone that i used? I did place it by the number plate so it could have been a bit too loud?
Tips on how to prevent the wind noise coming in, where to place the microphone and anything else you guys can think of would be a major help
thanks

 

[Digilus]

I've never done this - but I've tried filming on the outside of a car and the noise is horrid. Giving it some thought here are some ideas:
Depending on what sound you want to get you could tape microphone...
a) to side mirror on the non-windy side
b) on the back of the car... near to the exhaust (if you want that sound) - plus it should be out of the wind
c) put a muffler on it and maybe put it just under the lip of the bonnet under the wiper blades .. you should get engine noise and not too much wind noise

Yip that's about all I can think of for now .. oh wait .. how about put it in the boot somewhere - no wind noise.. good exhaust noise (louder than you'd expect from my experience driving with my rear seats down)

Let me know what works .. cause I'd be keen to give this a bash myself.

ps. where is the gymkana ? no where in the cape I assume

 

[ponder]

put the mic in a area where it's not going to be hit directly by wind. Behind a side mirror or front bumber etc.

 

[chau]

I've never done this - but I've tried filming on the outside of a car and the noise is horrid. Giving it some thought here are some ideas:
Depending on what sound you want to get you could tape microphone...
a) to side mirror on the non-windy side
b) on the back of the car... near to the exhaust (if you want that sound) - plus it should be out of the wind
c) put a muffler on it and maybe put it just under the lip of the bonnet under the wiper blades .. you should get engine noise and not too much wind noise

Yip that's about all I can think of for now .. oh wait .. how about put it in the boot somewhere - no wind noise.. good exhaust noise (louder than you'd expect from my experience driving with my rear seats down)

Let me know what works .. cause I'd be keen to give this a bash myself.

ps. where is the gymkana ? no where in the cape I assume

thank you Digilus for that. What we did last night was layer the mic with two thick pieces of foam and mount it by the number plate. My friend wants to hear his exhaust. I think what we could try is mount it under the rear bmper so its not so turbulant. Ill also try putting the mic in the boot and see how it sounds. His car is pretty quiet so it might not work too well but we'll try that out.
The Gymkhana is in Pe. My first time going to watch and get driven around so im quite excited