Benjamin Carter

I spent the last three months running portable recorders through their paces across warehouse concerts, rooftop shoots, and cramped green-screen studios. The hunt for the best portable recorders for music video work is real – I needed gear that could handle loud amps, quiet vocals, and everything in between without clipping or filling the take … Read more

Last , I spent three weeks on a documentary shoot in the Pacific Northwest where every footstep on the wooden cabin floor was threatening to ruin our audio. That shoot reminded me just how critical a proper shock mount for film microphone work really is. We went through four different mounts before settling on the … Read more

Wind noise has ruined more short film shoots than bad acting ever will. I learned this the hard way filming a desert scene for a 12-minute drama last spring – the audio came back with a low-frequency roar that no editor could rescue. That mistake pushed our team to spend three months testing the best … Read more

I have spent the last decade behind a shotgun mic on sets ranging from indie shorts to documentary features. The single piece of gear that decides whether your dialogue sounds professional is the boom pole holding the microphone. A bad pole wobbles at full extension, transmits every hand tremor into the recording, and breaks after … Read more

I learned this the hard way on my first short film. We shot a beautiful scene at golden hour, the light was perfect, the actors nailed their performances. Then I listened back in post. The audio sounded like it was recorded inside a washing machine. A truck rumbled past. Wind hit the camera mic. Someone’s … Read more

I spent the last three months testing eight studio headphones across film scoring, game audio, and podcast sessions. This is what I learned: the best headphones for sound design are not the most expensive ones, they are the ones that reveal every flaw in your mix before your audience hears it. Sound design is unforgiving … Read more

I’ve spent the last three months testing microphones across my Sony A7 IV, ZV-E10, and FX3 setups. After recording over 40 hours of footage in vlogs, interviews, and run-and-gun documentary scenarios, I can tell you the best microphones for Sony cameras in are no longer one-size-fits-all. Whether you shoot talking-head content or chase handheld B-roll, … Read more

I have spent the last six months running studio condenser microphones for video through real shoots, dialogue scenes, YouTube voiceover sessions, and podcast-style interviews in untreated rooms. After comparing 15 different models side by side and recording the same script with each one, our team settled on 10 standouts. The best studio condenser microphones for … Read more

I’ve been shooting weddings, corporate conferences, and live-streamed product launches for over a decade, and nothing sinks a video faster than bad audio. People forgive shaky footage, but they will NOT forgive audio that crackles, drops out, or sounds like it’s coming from the bottom of a well. That’s why I’ve spent the last 90 … Read more

I’ve spent the last decade on indie film sets, from rainy night shoots in Manchester to dusty documentary work in Morocco, and the one piece of gear I can’t live without is a proper field mixer for location sound. If you’re capturing dialogue, ambient layers, or wild effects for a short film, the difference between … Read more