Which mixer and lav mics for recording interviews with bands?

multi-track hard disk recorders

multi-track hard disk recorders

I've just done a little research on multi-track hard disk recorders and I was very pleasantly surprised! They don't cost the earth. I'm now very seriously thinking of scrapping the idea of buying a mixer and instead I'll buy a handful of lav mics and a multi-track HD recorder.

Two recorders that have caught my eye are:

Marantz PMD660 (£365 from Dolphin). Records 6 channels. Has 6 ballanced mic inputs with phantom power. Battery operated. Records to compact flash (so I'll have to also buy at least 1 4GB flash card at a cost of over £100). Records at either 44.1 or 48 kHz.

Fostex MR-8HD (£259 from Dolphin). 4 mic inputs. Records to internal hard disk.

I think the Marantz is my current favorite despite it being a lot more expensive.

Has anyone used either or these devices?

How naughty is sample-rate conversion?!? In other words, how detrimental would it be to capture at 44.1kHz and then change the sample-rate to 48kHz in post? Is that a recepie for ugly artifacts?

Thanks,
Jack
 
Hi Dan,

Im gonna throw your thinking a bit, this is just my opinion.

I'd suggest staying the hell away from lav mic's, and staying the hell away from a double system (external recorder) setup. If its just you, this is going to make your setup 10 times more complicated, give you ten times more stuff to lug around, and give you 10 times more opportunity to screw up somewhere.

Here's what I'd suggest - get a good little mixer. If you can spare the cash, get a Sound Devices 302. If you cant afford that, get a Mixpre for two channels.

Get a good handheld interview mic. I dont really suggest the SM58, I do like the new RE50 neodynium model. Its not even too expensive. Let the band pass it around. And dont be afraid to stop them and remind them to pass the mic if they screw up too badly! Take the time to ensure you have a branded cube for the mic - producers can quickly be turned to using these mics when they suddenly look more like MTV and less like high school AV.

Keep your 416 on the boom stand approach, or maybe, if you're close to the band, take a cam mounted approach. (take this advice with some warning - if you're further than 3 or 4 feet from the band, this is not neccesarily a good idea. it just works sometimes). A wider pattern mic would be better for this, but Im assuming you dont have this luxury. This will help catch the odd off mic comment from a band member.

Dont bother recording the interviewer! If they dont want to be on camera why bother complicating things with an out of context ghost voice? Get the band to answer in full sentences. If you dont want that, roll some voice over after the interview, and record the interviewers questions again with the RE50 and the 416.



With this rig, you dont have to worry about 6 lavs worth of clothing rustle. Carrying an extra mains powered mixer. monitoring a million tracks while you try to shoot. If you wanna get fancy, get a plug on transmitter for the stick mic - makes Vox pops and stuff easy at gigs too.


Again, just my 5c, and aimed at spending as little money as possible for the most simple fail safe system that will deliver the best possible sound in your situation.

tim
 
Hey Tim,

Thanks loads for your reply. I probably will buy myself a "vox-pop" mic at some point - that's a good idea.

My main client at the moment (The UK MSN Music site) doesn't want the interviews edited at all. If the interview is 12mins 34seconds then they want a 12min 34sec video! They don't want the interviewer to appear in shot but they do want the interviewer to be mic'd up so the audience can clearly hear the questions.

I'm not too worried about setup time with the lav mics + hard disk recorder system. The HD recorder is pretty small so it shouldn't be too much trouble to lug around. And I don't have to hide the lav mics so they're very quick to rig up - each person will probably only take about 10s to mic up.

And, whilst I'm no expert in audio (as is probably obvious from my posts), I am a fast learner and quite a geek (I did A-Level electronics and most of my child-hood toys were electronics kits and the like) so I'm fairly fast at diagnosing and fixing hardware setup problems. And I'm planning to get much more knowledgeable about audio as quickly as possible!

Thanks loads for the feedback though - all thoughts are hugely appreciated.

Thanks,
Jack

(hmm... I wonder if there's any way to automatically sync a DVX100a and the Marantz HD recorder? I'm guessing not)
 
time of day is your best bet i think. not sure if the marantz does time code at all. You'll need to slate the beginning of each roll with a clapper - this is where no editing will be your friend.

This is a very scary approach, the no editing thing. sort of weird.

Good luck with all the cables you're about to gain! :)
 
timapter said:
This is a very scary approach, the no editing thing. sort of weird.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it is a bit odd! It's what the client wants though ;-)

I shoot with 2 cameras (one static camera getting a wide shot of the band and my DVX100a which I operate and generally shoot close up singles). Using 2 cams means I can "hide" any dodgy operating by cutting to the wide camera.

timapter said:
Good luck with all the cables you're about to gain! :)
Click to expand...

Hehe, thanks... which reminds me... can anyone recommend a good cable and connector supplier in the UK? I think I'll use Farnell and Rapid although neither have a great range of audio bits and bobs.

Also - are there any good online guides to soldering XLR connectors?!?

Thanks,
Jack
 
the marantz is 2 channel recorder
you can find some mixer fromberengher or similar with firewire out and go staright to computer + ruff mix to one of your cameras , not so portable setup but may work for you .
about the lavaliers , the countryman is a good choise , the b-3 or emw

you also can look for lectrosonics automatic mixers , they come cheap on ebay
it will open the mic regarding the treshold of the input , can wok for you and give you quik mono mix of the lavaliers
 
The Marantz is 2 channels, the cheapest per channel portable multitrack, that I know of, is the R-4 Pro. That will still only get you 4 tracks. Recording direct to laptop is probably the cheapest way to record multiple tracks. Ptalsky uses the BoomRecorder and did a thread here: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=80135

Edit: If your final product has no edits you will have to watch for sync drift on long takes. You can adjust the sync seamlessly when you cut to the second camera.

Cheers
 
Hi guys,

Wow - I love how good this forum is. Hmm... how dumb am I for not spotting that the Marantz is only a stereo recorder. Doh.

I've looked up the R4-Pro and... um... it's well over my budget!

I quite like the idea or recording multichannel audio to a laptop but I'm worried my laptop will start dropping frames if I record both DV and multi-channel audio to the laptop (I use DV Rack to monitor my DV and to record DV - I'd be very reluctant to give up using DV Rack to record DV... it's saved my ass a couple of times when the tape had drop-outs on it... DV tape just isn't reliable enough for pro work, IMHO). Has anyone tried recording DV and multi-channel audio symaltaneously?!? I've used HDtach to measure my HD speed and it manages between 22 - 8MB/sec (depending on the position on the disk) so it should manage to record both DV (3.7MB/sec) and 6-channel 48kHz audio (~0.7MB/sec). Also - I'm running WinXP Pro on my laptop - I don't have a Mac laptop... but it looks like Audacity (open-source) can record multi-channel audio.

How about the Fostex MR-8HD? That claims to be able to record 4 channels to an internal HD and it has 4 mic pre-amps. The main problem that I forsee with the Fostex is that it can only record at 44.1kHz so I'd have to perform a sample-rate conversion to get it up to 48kHz to fit in with any audio recording on my DVX100a.

Hmmm... complicated!

Anyone know where I can buy a Countryman lav mic in the UK???

Thanks,
Jack
 
Humph... so... I've just tried recording stereo audio using Audacity whilst symaltaneously recording DV using DV Rack and my poor laptop chokes. I've tried recording audio to an external disk while recording video to the internal disk and visa-versa but the laptop still chokes and both the video and audio files have missing samples.

So that completely rules out recording multi-channel audio to my laptop. I guess I could try using my old PII 266MHz Linux laptop for recording audio but I wouldn't trust it to perform particularly well... oh, and it only has USB1.

So - I guess my only option for recording multichannel audio is the Fostex 4-channel HD recorder. But it can only capture at 44.1kHz and most of my work is output onto DVD at 48kHz. I don't have much experience with sample-rate conversion... is it possible to convert from 44.1kHz to 48kHz without killing the audio quality?

I'll do some quick tests now...

Thanks,
Jack
 
sample rate conversion seems fine

sample rate conversion seems fine

I've just tried converting some audio from 44.1kHz to 48kHz using Audacity and I can't tell the difference between the original 44.1kHz audio and the 48kHz converted audio. Does anyone know if there's a "difference" tool in Audacity that would allow me to objectively find the difference between the converted and the original tracks? I've zoomed right into the waveforms and they look pretty similar to me!

So... it looks like my "interview" kit will consist of:

* DVX100a recording to DV tape and to hard disk on my laptop
* A bunch of Countryman lav mics wired to a Fostex 4-channel HD recorder

If I only need to record 2 channels then I'll just use the DVX100a. If I need to record 5 or 6 separate channels then I'll record 4 channels to the HD recorder and 2 channels to my trusty DVX100a.

In post I'll first convert the Fostex tracks from 44.1kHz to 48kHz using Audacity. I'll then import these 48kHz tracks into Premiere Pro and mix the audio tracks manually to produce a mono master track. (of course, if it's acceptable to output audio at 44.1kHz then I wont do any sample-rate conversion). I guess that if I'm in a real rush then I could just apply an audio "gate" to each channel and let them mix themselves!

Does that all sound do-able and not too insane??!
 
bass problems?

bass problems?

I've just a thread over on cinematography.net which has worried me...

Dan Drasin said:
And if you use a microphone with flat response (i.e., with no bass roll off) you'll come to grief with ambient noise .... Flat-response mics should be used only by experienced sound mixers, who can apply bass roll off as needed and make the right tradeoffs between full-range sound and the need to suppress ambient noise.

With no bass roll off (aka bass cut, low-cut, high-pass filtration, etc.), a full-range mic (or its wireless receiver) should not be plugged directly into a video camera's audio input. It will be inordinately sensitive to wind noise, clothing rub, plosives, breathing (when the subject is looking downward) traffic and air-conditioning rumble, low-frequency room echo and so forth. It'll sound horrible.

So for casual and documentary use, regardless of the wireless system you get, use a lav that has a response curve that starts dipping down at around 100 to 150 Hz. Some of the better Sony's aren't too bad in this regard -- but others here may have more specific advice.
Click to expand...

I've looked at the EMW's frequency response and it only just starts to roll off at 20Hz. And the Fostex multi-track recorder doesn't offer any filtration at all. Does this mean that my EMW + Fostex system will be over-sensative to clothing noise, breathing etc? (I note that the EMW's sales blurb says that it has "Very Low Rubbing Noise".)
 
if you will attach the lavalieres over the cloths as you really dont care about it , its an interview so you can see the mics , and put windshields over the mics you will not get to much puffing and cloth noise .
some mics which are cylindrical type you can put with the heads down to prevent the puffing , not to mention , with vampire clip you can place the emw with face inside and get almost zero puffing .
yes it always better rid off some low fq , but then you need to buy better mixer:-), i dont know the one you did mention but it maybe hidden inside one of it menus - who knows .
so if you recorded it decently in the mixing processes you can pass your signal true the high pass filter and rid off of some unwanted fq n and sounds as air condition , computer and dimmers which could do some low fq problems .
keep reading less bullshit and statements which are to abstract to the situation you are going to deal with.
you want low fq roll off - buy 10$ chiniz lavalieres , you will have 200-12kh and **** sound :-)
the low fq is quit essential for camera mounted mics since camera preamp usually dont have low cuts or very high ones ( sony **** -wind :-) , cut everything 250hz), so low cut filter is something really desirable since you cant do much about wind rumbling ( softie and dead cats not really help in high wind situations ) ands that why camera mic that produced by sony already comes with low pass filter on its output 9 at least these which came with beta cams )
but since you are mostly going work insude iam sure you will find the switch to turn off the vintelator if it is there .


( not every mics have low fq roll off , and almost zero lavaliers come with preamps which have low fq roll off )
 
Oleg 2 said:
yes it always better rid off some low fq , but then you need to buy better mixer:-), i dont know the one you did mention but it maybe hidden inside one of it menus - who knows .
Click to expand...

I've downloaded the manual for the Fostex 4-track HD recorder and I'm not very impressed. It definitely doesn't have any low-freq cut-off and it generally feels very "my first Sony". I've done some more searching and found another two alternatives:

* Edirol R-4. Records 4 tracks. Up to 96kHz/24bit. Very portable and battery powered. £822. Processing options = 3-BAND SHELVING EQ, 6-BAND GRAPHIC EQ, NOISE GATE, ENHANCER, COMPRESSOR AND DE-ESSER.
* Korg D888. Records 8 tracks. 44.1kHz/16bit. Mains-powered only (internal transformer). £410. 3-band EQ. Trim. Phantom power (only two options: on for all XLR inputs or off for all XLR inputs).

Both look very tempting. Hmmm...
 
Jack,
I'm with Tim going the double system is just complicating matters. When I 've done 6on1 or more interviews that are sit down, you have time to light etc. Then I will 'rent' a couple of Shure 410 mixers that are 4 channel 'auto' mixers basically they have noise gates that will open when one talks you can adjust them and get pretty good results. Especially if you don't have a soundman. If the client demands a double system then by all means keep them happy, but they need to keep in mind you will charge them a rental on the machine and you will need a sound man to operate it. After all it is fun doing what we do but you need to make a living and pay for your gear. jmtc.
good luck
A.G.
 
Hmm... I was kind of hoping that my "lavs-wired-to-a-multi-channel-recorder" audio system might actually be easier to setup than a "lavs-wired-to-a-mixer-set-to-mix-down-to-stero-and-output-th-the-camera" system. With my mutli-channel recorder setup, I should just be able to set it up and not worry about it while I'm filming because I can pull out any mumbles, clothes russtles etc in post. A noise gate doesn't know the difference between a band member dropping their mic ("thud") and a band member giving a good interview. So not only will a multi-channel system be easier to setup but it should give really nice results too... the end result should be as good (if not better) than having a sound mixer on location. Or am I missing something???

I'm making the assumption that recording to a multi-channel recorder is a bit like shooting RAW on a digital stills camera... the philosophy is that you capture as much data as you can so you have loads of head-room for playing with things in post.

My main concern now is that the camera and audio recorder will drift. that would really anoy me ;-).
 
Jack,
Yes having everyone on separate tracks would be ideal. Also if you are doing a documentary for yourself and have the time and the luxury of mixing in post. The Shure mixer is not an end all, yes if doesn't know the difference between dropped mics and answers, but if this is a sit down type interview it should be manageable. I've used this mixer for sit down 6 to 8 on 1 interviews for network magazine type shows in the U.S. (Dateline, 48hrs). Once you tweaked the mixer it seemed to work ok. Talk to whomever is editing the piece and ask him/her what they prefer. really the editor is going to be doing the heavy lifting on this. If you are the editor then you will deal with it either way.

If you use a timecode recorder such as the Sound Devices 744, Zaxcom Deva, Fostex PD-6, or timecode dat Fostex PD-4 or HHB with a timecode slate you should never drift. Even if you use a solid non-time code recorder (DAT or nonlinear) with a clap slate you shouldn't have any drift problems. Again it's all about who you are working for and what they are willing to spend. I still think you should use a good soundman. Just my 2 cents. Hope this helps.
Good luck
A.G.
 
Gotta agree with Allen. A sound guys is really the most viable solution in your case. For simple audio setups it is possible to pull off one man band solutions with enough time, gear, and experience. What you are looking at does not fall into that category. You have a client for this gig, he should be paying enough to do it right.

On the matter of drift, if you are shooting non-stop and not editing you will more then likely get drift after 15 minutes, TC or not. You can't genlock the DVX. Slate the head and tail of your takes to find the drift.

Cheers
 
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