Wireless gain structure

[Mike Peter Reed]

I was on a shoot, and being a bit old school I always follow the "if you are able, use a cable" mantra. Out of curiousity the 1st AD asked me reasons why I wouldn't use wireless by default. The context of this is UK low budget indie shooting. I gave my stock answer of "susceptible to dropout" and "it's another thing for me to manage (power, etc)". After the shoot when I really thought about ... the reason I don't like to use wireless is the lack of control I have over the gain structure of the ubiquitous (over here) Sennheiser G2 stuff. What I mean by that is that it introduces into my workflow a point of easy over-load. If I use cable, the limiters on the mixer do a generally excellent job of coping with sudden unexpected loudness from whatever source. The G2 just craps out. Of course I can put the gain down on the G2 transmitter but that (I assume) would introduce noise when the low gain is compensated for later in the chain. I have to admit to not playing much with wireless kit, since cable has served me so well.

I guess my question is, does something like a higher tier Lectrosonics deal with this sort of issue with a limiter on the transmitter input?

[Jeffrey S. Wexler]

I am, of course, "old school" as well, so we always use cables unless there is some reason that we cannot do so. As you state, there are some very real and valid reasons for having the boom mic be on a cable. Even with totally reliable RF transmission (which I do not believe is possible) when on a transmitter you are giving up several very important and fundamental things vs. being hardwired into a quality mixing panel. Gain structure is one of them, not being under your direct control, and having to rely on the quality of the mic preamp in the transmitter.

To answer your question directly about higher end wireless, it is true that the limiters in the transmitters have improved significantly. Also, the Zaxcom true digital wireless that I use have the widest and cleanest dynamic range of any wireless I have used, and these make wireless boom work almost acceptable for me now. We will always still go with hardwired duplex cable unless the shot dictates that a wireless boom will be much more flexible.

Wireless boom work is the defacto norm on every TV show and there are very few sound teams who still use duplex cable for the boom mic.