Cheap, Easy, Microphone Booms
I'm used to the cost of pro video gear, but as electronics plummets in cost while increasing in quality, all the support gear, made with more traditional manufacturing techniques, can hardly keep up. So now we have the situation that even boom microphone holders can cost more than some cameras!
Microphone Boom Mount: Azden shotgun mike on a DIY adjustable elbow.Today I went to the hardware store to see what I could use to make a budget microphone boom. The key qualities of a microphone boom are that it should be very light (even a feather seems heavy held high in your arms for ten minutes), resist transmitting handling noise to the microphone, and be variable in length (for easy storage and transport.)
Could painters' poles do the trick?
There was a good variety on display at the store. Only one of the traditional and heavy wood type, most of the others were either aluminum or fiberglass. The most expensive one was about a third the cost of the cheapest "true" audio boom pole I've ever seen, at about thirty dollars. The cheapest was about five dollars. The primary differences are length, from about six feet to 10 feet fully extended, and the way that the pole locks into position when extended. I picked out a simple one for about 7 dollars that uses a simple twist to lock its length. There was a plastic accessory available that mounted on the screw end, that allows for changing the angle of the paint roller. I thought this might be even more helpful for repositioning a microphone holder, so I bought it too. It was only $5.
The microphone I tried this out on is an Azden ECZ-990. This uni-directional "shotgun" microphone is only about $60, but comes with a nifty little shock mount that normally mounts on the accessory shoe of many camcorders. (A microphone shock mount minimizes the sound of vibrations traveling from camera or boom to the microphone pickup element.)
Close examination of this mount revealed that the shock assembly could be removed from the accessory shoe by unscrewing a single screw. I took it apart, and then drilled a tiny pilot hole in the plastic top of the angle accessory for the paint pole. Then I easily screw mounted the shock mount to the pilot hole and the elbow angle holder.
Voila! A complete boom microphone for under $75. The only thing left to buy is a mini-plug extension cable to run the audio back to the camera! Be careful not to run too long an extension. Many small consumer camcorders with external mike inputs will have trouble with a mike extension longer than 10 feet (3 meters).
