Micing someone while she rides a bicycle through traffic

[Robobo1]

Here in DC, next Friday is Bike to Work week, and one of the NPR shows is doing a piece about it. Seeing as how cycling and audio are my two favorite things, this ROCKS for me! Lots of opportunity for a sound-rich piece here.

I have to mic up one of our hosts as she rides her bicycle through downtown DC traffic. A lav is an obvious choice, but I'm very concerned about wind noise. Any thoughts on how to mic someone who is actively riding a bike? What mic? Placement?

AND... the producer and I would like to record stereo ambi from my perspective on my bike (the three of us will ride together). Same problems here. Two lavs on my helmet? An MS rig in a zeppelin gaffe-taped to my handlebars? PZMs taped to my chest? (KIDDING!)

One recent suggestion was rowie-clamping an MKH20 (with shockmounts) to the handlebars for the host. Same arrangement for my stereo rig. I'd still be worried about wind noise.

Have at it!

[neurosound]

Hi Robobo1,

This made me think of a recording I heard of a horse riding through a forrest in the UK. The recordist, Steve Marshall, had similar concerns regarding wind noise. An article he wrote for Sound on Sound describes how he did it:

"This is tricky, as a galloping horse goes at about 25 miles an hour, and wind noise is a big problem. I took my Tandy PZM mics, and drilled a hole in each corner of the base plate. I bent some pieces of thick wire into arcs, and hot-glued them into the holes, so they spanned opposite corners and formed something like the frame of a mountain tent. Then I stretched two layers of nylon stocking over the top. I tested the mics with a car, and the wind noise didn't appear until the car got to 35 mph. Then I fixed the mics to my riding boots and set off with the DAT. The results were excellent, but as the mics were nearly a metre apart, hardly binaural. This was corrected by converting the recording to M&S and narrowing the stereo image. When transaurally processed, this sounds disturbingly like the real thing!"

Another idea for the stereo atmos could be, if your helmet is one of those types with air flow vents, is to pick a vent on each side close to above your ears, gaffer tape some nylon stocking on the outside over the vent. Using lavs, like DPA 4060, pop the wind socks onto the mics, and having the nylon stocking as an extra wind barrier, mount the mics in the vent from insdie the helmet.

Good luck,sounds like a great challenge.

John

[Jim vanBergen]

I have miked bikes for cycling races. Lavs will work pretty well, but hide them and make sure they are wind-screened. I'd try and get the talent to ride slowly -this will make a pretty big differnce, I found-- and for you, (my opinion only) I'd make stereo ambiance less of a concern that wind-less mono unless you find a zeppelin that will give you great stereo response. Omni lavs with screens and filters will help. I often just wanted mechanical noise so I'd tape a lav to the back of a racers helmet and another on the bike frame with the lav behind the downtube collecting freewheel and chain noise.

Personally, I'd look for a couple of omni headset mics like a DPA 4061 with a larger windscreen from a 4088 over the small windscreen for a big popper-stopper. You ight try hiding a lav just at the bottom or inside of the helmet dependinngn on how the helmet is designed, I'd bring a Countryman E6 headset mic, a B6 lav, a Sennheiser MKE-2 lav and the DPA 4061 headset for options.

I hope these thoughts help. Good luck!

[neurosound]

Hi there,

I was really fascinated by this recording challenge you had. How did it go? What micing technique did you end up using. Any samples to listen to?

Cheers,

John

[Blackwater]

I believe I heard your report on the ferry to Long Island!
I thought it sounded great!
What did you end up using for your set up?

Chris

[Robobo1]

Hi! And Thanks! Here's the link to the story... it's not the highest quality, unfortunately... but it is stereo atleast.

NPR : A Four-Mile Commute on Two Wheels

I'm in the process of writing up a report about the gig... so I'll post that with pictures once I'm done.


Rob

[David Rick]

Very cool report, especially on headphones!

BTW, I pedaled into work today myself -- 30 miles. In addition to the helmet and lycra I had one other essential accessory: 15 dB earplugs. I can still hear the traffic, but I arrive much less frazzled.

-- David

[Jim vanBergen]

Can't wait to hear about the techniques you used, how you adapted to various elements ,and what your experiences were!

JvB

[Robobo1]

Here's the report I sent out to my fellow engineers @ npr.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Since so many of you volunteered wonderful ideas, I thought it'd be only fair to let you know how it went! (It's about time........)

The challenge was to record host Rebecca Roberts and producer Ned Wharton as they bicycle commuted from Rebecca's home in Glover Park to NPR. We wanted to record conversation and reactions between Ned and Rebecca as well as stereo ambi.

Wind noise was the biggest concern. Omnis are less susceptible to wind, so the DPA 4060s were the perfect choice. They are small and light and would easily attach to Rebecca and Ned's helmets to capture their voices. Flawn offered his Rycote Minijammer wind screens which worked like a charm. I experimented with a few different combinations by riding around the building and ended up with one DPA foam screen inside a Minijammer. NO WIND!

Using zip ties and judicious amounts of foam, I attached the DPA 4060 Headband mics to the helmets (unfortunately only one pair of "loose" DPA 4060s were available, so the headband mics were used as well). Rebecca got two for good measure... one right in front of the forehead and the other just off to the side (another Flawn recommendation). Turns out using the headband mics was a good choice... they allowed for easy positioning of the mics, and the extra bit of "wire" that stuck out the back was used to guide the 4060 cable away from the helmet and neck.

Rebecca and Ned each wore backpacks with SD 722s using Compact Flash cards. The hard drive was not used for fear that the vibration would do damage. (Side note: on the last 7 minute leg of the journey, I turned on one of the hard drives just for kicks and it worked fine!). As I found while experimenting, it was not a good idea to tether the rider to the bike via the mic cable, hence the backpacks.

My personal goal was to capture sound that put the listener on the bike. I wanted bike noises (gears, brakes, etc.), sound from the environment, and, most importantly of all, motion. I decided a good way to do this would be to mount a pair of mics on my bike.

The first decision... where? Handlebars, an obvious and convenient choice, would not give the proper perspective of motion. On a bike on the right hand side of the lane, all of the interesting "movement" occurs to your left moving from front to back and vice versa as cars pass you and you pass cars. A stereo pair oriented in the direction of travel wouldn't capture this movement.

Taking Neil Tevault's advice, I built a stereo bar using a coat hanger stolen from a cubicle. Again using quite a bit of foam I mounted the stereo bar (with a stereo pair of 4060s) to the front half of the bike on the left side. The pair faced to the left, perpendicular to the direction of movement. I had to ensure that my left knee wouldn't hit the bar and that it wouldn't restrict my handlebar movement. At low speed in traffic you can find yourself turning some pretty acute angles... I didn't want any sudden movements to leave my stereo rig (or me) under a bus on 9th Street! I ended up carefully zip-tying a brake cable or two out of the way. My first ride with this setup showed that I was picking up the coat hanger as it vibrated. More foam (to weigh it down and dampen the vibrations) helped.

Knowing from a previous (failed) attempt to tether myself to the bike, I decided to mount the 722 for the stereo rig ON the bike. As I have no panniers and no storage rack, I turned to the trusty zip ties. I "adapted" (read: mutilated) a very old PortaBrace bag and mounted that in the triangle of the bike and carefully routed the mic cable. A test ride discovered that my shorts rubbed the bag and that it was audible in the recording, so I took up the excess bag with some gaffe tape.

Voila, a "Bike-rophone!"

I wanted to take a backup 722 and also needed an easily-accessible 722 for a scheduled two-way at the end of our ride. This extra one went in Ned's panniers and I figured I'd make good use of it... I (carefully) mounted a Schoeps Omni using the Collette cables and a larger Minijammer to his storage rack. This was positioned to record shifting gears and brake squeaks.

Rebecca took much of the equipment (722s, 2-way rig, helmets) home with her the night before. Ned and I biked to her house at 6:30am that morning and I quickly setup the various rigs. I carried the 2way rig on my back in a messenger bag.

The recording ran smoothly. No problems to speak of, other than the fact that the XLR adpapters for the 4060s are very sensitive. Gaffe tape is your friend. We had two planned stops along the way so that I could monitor the rigs and the recordings.

Ned cut together some montages and I mixed them in 4B. The recordings needed high pass to cut down on some of the low, low rumble.

Listen for yourself! I even make a small cameo taking out some pent up frustration on a bread truck. Don't park in Bike Lanes.

NPR : A Four-Mile Commute on Two Wheels


Thanks for all of your suggestions!



Rob

[Robobo1]

more pics to come as I get them smaller....

[VBAcoustic]

Yes, all the busses in D.C. are that noisy. The sound of the bike without pedaling (down by the chain) sounded good and was an excellent addition.

VB

[ninjaneer]

sounds great