FUQ (eff -yu - cue) - FAQ's with an EDGE

Tagged As: Contact Microphone

Question:
How 'bout a contact microphone on the end of the barrel? Or a pair of cheezoid electret capsules mounted on either side of the target? Hell, why not devise a microscopic piezoelectric mic. element inside the bullet, with an antenna and a flea powered radio transmitter? Seriously, all this stuff has been done into the dirt. Recording gun shots is probably best conveyed by some old film sound geezer... Naturally, the gun shots one hears in movies are contrived, often a mixture of found and/or manipulated sounds that may not convey the reality of a gun shot at all. But they are definitely cool!

Answer:
In the good old pre-sampling days, I was recording a rock group that wanted a gunshot in several places in the song, really as more of a percussion effect. After talking to a friend at another Dallas studio that had recorded live musical gunfire into a bale of hay (it still ventilated the drum booth) we decided on using a revolver with extra loud blanks. I miced the room with a pzm, a Sennheiser 421 and an EV RE-20. The PZM didn't work because we had it taped to the studio glass, and the glass flexed and would make a clink sound right after each very loud gunshot. Both the Sennheiser and the EV worked, and we settled on the Sennheiser. Less compression was better than more. After a short period of time, the studio was full of smoke, and the gun wadding was everywhere in chunks and in powder. It took quite a while to clean up. The funny thing that happened was the studio had been loaned a video monitor to test for ADR sessions. They had forgotten to return the monitor, and an angry equipment rep walked into the control room during the session. Where's that monitor? he snapped at me. I told him it was in the studio and pointed. He ran to the studio, as the 24-track was rolling and the band member was preparing to peal off a few well placed rhythmic rounds. Coincidentally he happened to be pointing the pistol at the door to the studio. The rep opened the door, and saw a man with headphones on, and a pistol pointed at him. He dropped his jaw and made the fastest backtrack I've seen since Clinton and Monica. He slammed the door, left the building, and as far as I know, never came back for the monitor.