<p>We’re using the Zoom Q2 to videotape my son’s prescreening. Some takes have a slight clicking or pinging sound in the background while others do not. We can’t figure out what is causing this sound. It’s almost as if the sound is coming from the recorder itself. We’re filming in our living room, approximately 4 feet from the piano. Any ideas or suggestions? What I don’t understand is why some of the takes are clean and others aren’t. The noise isn’t continuous and again it’s very slight. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, my son’s best takes have this issue. I don’t think it’s very noticeable but he does. Not sure what to do, but getting very stressed. We’ve lost time because we had to return our first recorder. </p>
<p>Just to add, the clicking or pinging sound occurs only when the piano is being played – it’s as if the sound is bouncing off of the piano. Crazy.</p>
<p>That REALLY is stressful. Im not a tech person, so Im not sure where that clicking sound could be coming from, but I suspect its probably not coming from the recorder itself (if it were a cassette recorder Id be more suspicious). Weird that it only happens when the piano is played; I don’t know, maybe it is coming from the piano in a way that you can’t really hear it live but the camera is somehow picking it up (but then you say it’s intermittent, so who knows). Some dumb obvious things are there any chords hanging from the recorder that could actually be hitting the tripod? Is it possible to reposition the recorder (if it is in the environment, not the recorder, maybe moving the camera to another spot could diminish the sound). In the meantime, if you run out of time, I would bite the bullet and definitely go with the better performance regardless of the click (unless it’s insanely loud and overpowers the performance). These recordings are all about tradeoffs anyway, since theres pretty much no such thing as a perfect performance. I wish I could offer you more than just moral support. I hope someone more knowledgeable than I am responds to your query.</p>
<p>If it’s really slight, and the takes are the best ones, I wouldn’t worry about it all that much. The people who are assessing these recordings know that they are not professional quality recordings. They’re just trying to assess if the kid is good enough to invite for an in-person audition.</p>
<p>Thanks to you both. We are going to retake this weekend, but will go with the best takes when everything is done regardless of the slight click/ping. We’re currently recording him on “solo” but are going to try “concert” which is recommended for larger sound. It’s a big piano in a not so big room. I think it may be the placement of the camera. Maybe we’re a little too close to the piano? Unfortunately, we don’t have a lot of room to back up. More trial and error tonight. My son is holding up well, but starting to flag a bit.</p>
<p>The mics on the Zoom equipment are pretty sensitive, you may be picking up the clicking from the piano itself the generally unheard noises it makes.</p>
<p>Also, what gain are you setting the zoom at? They have I seem to recall low,medium and high gain, if you are set too high it could be causing the mic to overload, that could I would guess show up as a ‘click’. One way to tell, they have the fluorescent bar display, in standby mode if you play the piano, the bars react, and if they are in the red zone it is too high, that is a sign to move back and/or change the gain lower. </p>
<p>My recommendation? Try an experiment, lower the gain on the mic (they may call it sensitivity, I don’t recall, it may be a slide switch) and also have the recorder further away from the piano. If you are in a small room to start with, the sound of the piano is going to reverberate, and being back a bit more would be helpful too. Again, the indicator on the recorder should tell the story; and if it is the piano itself, moving back and lowering the gain should help, too. Given how sensitive the recorder is (I was in a recital hall recording my son’s recital earlier this year, pretty big hall, I was halfway back, and had to turn the gain down).</p>
<p>The other thing to play with is the mic’s direction, the zoom products have the ability to do 90, 120 degree or 360, I would set it for 90 and see what happens.</p>
<p>Wow! Very helpful and insightful. Thanks musicprnt! We’ll start experimenting tomorrow and let you know what happens. I’ll definitely be able to sleep a bit easier tonight.</p>
<p>Hopefully it helps. If you are still having problems, I’ll ping my S and ask him what he thinks, and after rolling his eyes (well, okay, hard to tell over IM), he’ll probably come up with something:).</p>
<p>I looked up the q2hd (I think my s has the q3 hd and the h2), and there is a wheel marked “mic gain” that you turn, with number gradients on it. I would set it midway in the range, record, then see how it sounds, if you hear the clicking, move it down…and so forth.</p>
<p>I’d say it’s picking up the mechanism inside the piano. It’s not usually audible to us as it’s muffled by the felts on the hammers, but a very sensitive microphone not hampered by human ears has no such problem! You’ll figure it out by adjusting the gain, as musicprnt said, or try moving the recorder to a different spot in the room to see if it makes a difference. Honestly, it’s a pre-screen and I know that you want it to be perfect, but panels make allowances for small things like that. Please do continue to post and let us know what happens- it could help others who might have a similar problem.</p>
<p>Thanks Mezzo & Musicprnt – I will let you know the results early next week. I think you’re both spot on. The pinging is coming from inside the piano. Unfortunately, we don’t have much leeway in terms of moving the video camera (it’s a narrow room), but we’ll definitely experiment with the gain. I also think closing the piano lid may help.</p>
<p>Update on clicking/pinging – we played around with the gain this weekend and did many takes. There is no clicking on all of the first takes. However, there is always some clicking on subsequent takes in the same set. Always. At this point, I think this may be an exporting/importing or software issue. Luckily, the clicking is very slight, so we will go with the best takes overall. We even bought a back-up Zoom Q2 and had the same problem. Right now, we plan to import/export after every take – this solves the problem short term, but it’s time-consuming and a bit disorienting. I’m going to call the vendor who sold me the camera later today and ask what he thinks.</p>
<p>Another problem we’re having is that my son really doesn’t like being recorded, which is strange because he loves performing live and has never had a problem auditioning live either. We’ve had a lot of false starts over the last month. My goal was to have completed the prescreens by this time. Not going to happen. Now my goal is to complete them by third week in November so we can upload them fully one week before the deadline. One way or the other, we will get this done!</p>
<p>Thanks to all for your support and encouragement!</p>