Mic Handling 101

Last week I went to an event at Rule Boston Camera given by Sennheiser’s David Missall. He provided a lot of tips, including this one on reducing handling and cable noise on lavaliere mics (especially cardiod mics - which are more susceptible - though omnidirectional's can suffer from it too.)

Just below the mic, loop the cable a couple of times and then tape it together (David uses surgical tape, which he says is also really useful for taping mics and wires to people's bodies!)

As I understand it, the loop cancels out a lot of the noise that can travel up the cable (and can also absorb some of the tension if the cable gets pulled.)

Mic handling seems to be a bit art-and-science, for more, see also: Sounds Of New Mexico: LAVALIERS: AN OVERVIEW [PDF]
DVInfo: How to use a Tie Microphone (Lav)