Running these analyses costs money. Buy through my links to help keep lights on! I may get a small commission.
Reddit Reviews
BarMountain7DPA 6060/61 isn’t available as CORE+ yet. 4060 and 4061 are.
catsaysmrauThe best professional quality? That would be a current Lectrosonics, Zaxcom, Sound Devices, or Wisycom wireless system. There are many models of transmitters and receivers, but for argument sake let’s say Lectro DBSM and DCR822. As for lav mics themselves? DPA 4060, DPA 6060 or Sanken COS-11D. All great. (There’s tonnes of other options top, those are just too of mind). Boom mic will sound better in general though, and best would be a Schoeps CMIT5U or miniCMIT or SuperCMIT for exteriors, Sanken CS-3e for very noisy locations that need a laser-like focus, and a Schoeps CMC6 MK41 or Sennheiser MKH50 for interiors. Best would be used with a plug-on transmitter like a Lectrosonics DPR-A or HMa, and the paired receiver running into either a Sound Devices, Zaxcom, Sonosax, or Aaton recorder with maybe a Sonosax or old Cooper 208D mixer in front of it. (Again there’s tonnes of somewhat equivalent options for mics, transmitters, and mixers, I’m just illustrating a point.) Then presuming that’s all utilized properly and recorded well (meaning proper wirelesss signal distribution and power distribution and proper gain staging), it would be a matter of taking the best of both worlds, the open natural sound of the boom and combined it with the up front body of the lav, using Auto Align Post 2 to phase align the two. Then some in depth editing of cut/fill/fade, layer in additional ambience, foley, library effects, sound design, etc. and mix using EQ/compression/reverb/etc.. with a high degree of automation across many parameters written in through a physical control surface for fader moves. Listening while moving a physical control gives way better and faster results than drawing automation lines and curves on with a mouse. or wait… did you not actually mean THE BEST MOVIE-LIKE QUALITY for realsies? People seem to get okay results with the DJI for a cheap, social-media-quality, streamlined, user friendly system. [If you learn](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLk55CEmjflkbEK-P8jag5pqZ1CpbjaVwZ&si=5dkXp77d7NCOQdaG) how to do a half decent job in post production you could probably squeeze a lot more life out of it too. Or if you can tolerate a little more complexity in operation, a Sennheiser G4 system would probably sound better. Best upgrade you could do for it is to replace the kit mic with something better like a Sanken COS-11D. Just gotta make sure it’s wired correctly. Recording separately from the camera and syncing up afterwards also will help since camera audio inputs typically have terrible noise floors. A cheap entry level recorder like the Sound Devices MixPre series would be where to look for that. Again increasing complexity. Sorry, didn’t mean to be snarky at the start, but it’s extremely unrealistic to expect the BEST or MOVIE-LIKE out of inexpensive consumer/prosumer grade gear. The truth is that there is an unbelievable amount of cost and skill that goes into getting that movie sound you’re talking about. There’s a reason it’s a whole department.
Fun_Comparison906Indeed it’s a complicated question to answer, and it ultimately depends on the person’s voice, but If you’re asking “best” lav mic without a boom, and you’re renting, I would say get DPA 4060’s or 6060’s. COS 11-D’s are great as others have said, and they’re workhorses, but in my experience the DPA’s generally surpass it in quality, and arguably have the same tonal quality as a nice boom mic would.
johnpaul215DPA 4060 lav and Zaxcom wireless is an option. Zaxcom wireless can record and transmit simultaneously, in case there’s dropouts. They also sound fantastic.
No_iseThe built in mics on zoom recorders are good enough, and you won’t gain much by adding more cheap mics (rode et al) apart from the annoyance of additional wires and gear to carry around. The beauty of the small zooms is portability. I have used recordings from the h4n mics in multi million productions. Sure it’s not as nice as any number of posher options but the best mic for the job is the one you have in your pocket then and there. I take my zoom with me on hikes because it’s small and light and simple. That means when I happen across something unique or interesting, it’s there and ready to go. If you do want to up your game and stay portable then you could try some of the tiny DPAs 4060 or 4066 etc . These are super light and amazing for the price and size. Easy to rig unusual items and leave unobtrusively for wildlife on a long line.
slavatarliciousMore of a live sound thing and not really low budget, but I'd recently found out that sticking a DPA 4060 inside a harp can work wonders even in a busy arrangement.
TheBerricJust hire someone. The gear you need is going to cost several thousand dollars. Sound mixers will rent their gear out to you to use on your production. There’s plenty of sound people, including myself, looking for work. Placing a mic on someone in order to get clean audio is a skill that takes years to master. But to answer your question, I would use lectrosonics transmitters with a microphone from DPA. Either a 4060 or a 6060 depending on the circumstance. At 100 feet I might even just use a personal recorder and trust the skill of a sound person to mic up talent.
zmileshighI often end up liking my 4061 lav mics over the boom option. Another 4061 anecdote: I do a significant amount of classical music location recording and these mics get used a TON especially when video is in play, as they are very easy to hide but still get a very natural sound. I’ve even used them as hanging orchestral flanks and they compared surprisingly well against the DPA4006TL main pair. The 4006 is of course much better for that application, but the margin is smaller than one might think. Anyway, 4060/4061 is a fantastic mic, I have four of them.
