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[George Friedman-Jimenez]

I have been watching the live coverage of Hurricane Sandy and am amazed at how little wind noise comes through when the reporters out on Kill Devil Hill or the beach at Ocean City MD with rapidly changing wind gusts are speaking. No big windscreens on the mics, and the voices are coming though pretty clear with just a little wind sound in the background. Coverage is live in real time so they would not have time to overdub the voice indoors. Are they just using a mic with great wind rejection?

[Riley Casey]

Omnis work wonders - probably why EV still makes 635s.

I have been watching the live coverage of Hurricane Sandy and am amazed at how little wind noise comes through when the reporters out on Kill Devil Hill or the beach at Ocean City MD with rapidly changing wind gusts are speaking. No big windscreens on the mics, and the voices are coming though pretty clear with just a little wind sound in the background. Coverage is live in real time so they would not have time to overdub the voice indoors. Are they just using a mic with great wind rejection?

[Tim McCulloch]

I have been watching the live coverage of Hurricane Sandy and am amazed at how little wind noise comes through when the reporters out on Kill Devil Hill or the beach at Ocean City MD with rapidly changing wind gusts are speaking. No big windscreens on the mics, and the voices are coming though pretty clear with just a little wind sound in the background. Coverage is live in real time so they would not have time to overdub the voice indoors. Are they just using a mic with great wind rejection?

Dead cat/kitten.  Wikipedia says possible attenuation of 25dB, particularly at LF.

<misdirection>
"Dear, where's the Dead Cat?"
"Its in the soap dish."
"What?"
"I said 'its in the soap dish.'  There's a whole dead cat in every bar of Dead Cat Soap!"

   -- Firesign Theatre, "Police Street" from In the Next World, You're On Your Own

</misdirection>

[George Friedman-Jimenez]

No, Tim, there are no visible external windscreens, no dead cats. That is the reason for my question. I typically use a Rycote windscreen outdoors which works for moderate wind, but they aren't using anything like that and the wind gusts are much stronger than anything I have encountered while trying to record outdoors.

[Jens Palm Bacher]

I have been watching the live coverage of Hurricane Sandy and am amazed at how little wind noise comes through when the reporters out on Kill Devil Hill or the beach at Ocean City MD with rapidly changing wind gusts are speaking. No big windscreens on the mics, and the voices are coming though pretty clear with just a little wind sound in the background. Coverage is live in real time so they would not have time to overdub the voice indoors. Are they just using a mic with great wind rejection?

An omnidirectional mic will according to Schoeps have 20db less wind noise compared to an cardioid mic. A highpass filter laso helps.

[brian maddox]

I'm watching a reporter right now giving a report with a plastic bag over her handheld mic and it's still intelligible.

I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that we really only need a very narrow frequency band to be able to understand what is being said.  The audio guys can pretty much high pass and low pass with wild abandon and it'll still work..

[George Friedman-Jimenez]

Sure, bandlimited sound is part of it as is use of omni capsules rather than cardioid. Of course I don't have a subwoofer on my TV so the high pass filters are less noticeable. I have been seeing handheld, lavalier and earpiece mounted mics, but I haven't seen a wet dead cat yet. As the wind is picking up, the reporters are out in 20-50 mph gusts and higher, and I am still amazed at the almost complete absence of wind noise in the broadcast sound.

[Keith Broughton]

An omnidirectional mic will according to Schoeps have 20db less wind noise compared to an cardioid mic. A highpass filter laso helps.

True!
We forget how handy an omni can be as we all tend to be using directional mics for live sound.
When booming with a shotgun mic, a great deal of wind suppression needs to be used as they are quite sensitive to air movement.
Many cats die for the cause
In Australia, they are called dead Wombats .....

[Scott Cameron]

What is it about omni's that make them have less wind noise than directional mics?

[kristianjohnsen]

What is it about omni's that make them have less wind noise than directional mics?

Just guessing here, but since omnis "listen" to all sides equally, wind pressure on one side may "null" wind pressure on the other side, keeping the overall pressure on the capsule below the threshold of overload.

Can someone correct me if i'm wrong?

[ProSoundWeb Community]