Which mixer and lav mics for recording interviews with bands?

[dan_aka_jack]

Hey guys,

Thanks loads for all your feedback.

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.

If this was a "broadcast" gig then I'd agree whole-heatedly. And don't get me wrong, I'd love to have a sound person on these shoots. Not only would it make my life easier but one of my best friends is a sound recordist so I'd have an excuse to bring him onto yet more of my projects! But these MSN Music interviews are destined for the web and they have a budget to match. The client is already perfectly happy with the audio that I've been capturing with a lav on the interviewer and a 416 on a mic stand pointed at the band! But I know I can do much better by investing in some kit. And it's also quite clear to me that good audio is absolutely essential for web video... the audio needs to be clear, free from noise and sufficiently compressed so that it's perfectly audable on a crappy laptop's speakers.

And look at it this way: I can either spend £1,000 buying a 4-track hard disk recorder and a bunch of lavs which will be used on hundreds of interviews or I can spend £1,000 hiring a sound guy 5 times.

Slate the head and tail of your takes to find the drift. Cheers

Awesome idea, thanks. I hadn't thought of slating at the beginning and at the end.

Are you editing?

Yes, I'm editing it so I'll be able to do my audio mix while I'm editing. This truley is a low-budget one-man-band show. I drive the kit to location, setup the mics and 2 cameras, operate the camera, edit, sound mix, grade and compress to WMV.

Here are the first 2 videos I've done for MSN... sure, they are far from perfect. The feature such fun items as Out Of Focus Shots, Crap Lighting (there's no budget for lights)... and both locations are pretty crap (I don't have any say over the locations).

(These links are to MSN so I'm afraid you'll need to be running IE to open these links...)

The Good, The Bad & The Queen

Bloc Party

edit I should just explain a bit about those videos because I realise that they're far from perfect. The idea behind these videos is basically that they're interviews that have been set up for a "text and pictures" interview but they've decided to spend a few quid videoing the interviews... partly because MSN are trying hard to produce lots of their own music content to drive people towards their new music platform and MP3 player... So, in other words, these interviews aren't organised from the ground-up to be filmed. The "Take That" interview on this page is an example of the videos they were producing before I came along (it's recorded on a handycam on a tripod... the camera never moves and the only mics used are the camera's internal mics).

The videos are in cramped little locations. Sometimes we don't know how many band members are going to turn up until they stumble through the door. Sometimes the location is changed at the last minute. Sometimes it's not possible to setup the static wide camera so that it doesn't see me operating the main camera. My job is to turn up where ever I'm told to turn up and try to get the best possible recording given all the constraints. There's no chance to re-shoot questions... there's rarely even time to do a quick zoom-in-and-check-focus before the interview starts! But, luckily, my client understands that there are loads of constraints on the filming and so they're very relaxed and the video... they don't mind if mics, cameras etc are seen in shot... it's me who's anoyed with me for not getting the best results yet. But I think the "rough-and-ready" feel to the videos can be quite compelling. The artists do come across as entirely authentic. There's no sense that it's been pre-rehearsed...

Once I've done a few more of these videos I might try to get a little more control over the filming and maybe suggest a few ways to give the series of interviews a particular style.

Anyway - I know I can do much better than these two interviews... which is partly why I'd like to invest in some equipment.

 

[timapter]

bloc party, thats pretty cool. i really like their music.

pity about the budget and all that, but i do understand where you are coming from. i still maintain the stick mic + 416 combo would be best. if you have to have the interviewer, you could consider mixing the 416 and the lav together, or maybe the lav and the stick mic.

no offense, but that placement for the 416 really sucks. not only is it not really optimal for pickup with that mic, but it just looks bad! imagine how cool a nice RE50 with an MSN cube on it would look? it would totally add to the feel, and it would be a closer match to the lav on the interviewer.

if you stick to the 416, put it on a stand over the guys (frame it out). if you want to improve that further, you could try a pair of hypercardioids on stands above the guys - more even coverage.

i said it before, ill say it again - half a dozen lavs are totally NOT the answer for this one without a sound person in my opinion.

On the whole, the audio isnt great, but for this format its really not noticably awful. It would be terrible on tv, but for the net its alright I guess - its just badly matched actually because of the different mics being used.

 

[dan_aka_jack]

bloc party, thats pretty cool. i really like their music.

Yeah, me too ;-)

if you have to have the interviewer, you could consider mixing the 416 and the lav together, or maybe the lav and the stick mic.

Yeah, that's a bit of an odd aspect to this project. The client wants the interviewer to be heard but not seen!

no offense, but that placement for the 416 really sucks. not only is it not really optimal for pickup with that mic, but it just looks bad!

No offence taken, I completely agree! I think I had maybe 10 minutes to unpack and setup all the kit before that Bloc Party interview! (while you were writing your reply, I was editing my post above to include much more of an explanation for why the quality aint great).

imagine how cool a nice RE50 with an MSN cube on it would look? it would totally add to the feel, and it would be a closer match to the lav on the interviewer.

Hmm... you are starting to sell the idea of a "vox-pop" mic to me. I'll talk to my client. They'll probably like the idea of having their logo on it!

if you stick to the 416, put it on a stand over the guys (frame it out).

Hehehe... just after I did that Bloc Party interview (my first interview for MSN) I rushed out and bought myself a mic stand in time for the interview the next day!

i said it before, ill say it again - half a dozen lavs are totally NOT the answer for this one without a sound person in my opinion.

;-)

To be honest, it'll be VERY rare that I'll be recording 6 people (interviewer + 5 band members). It'll usually be between 1 and 3 band members. Are lavs still a bad idea for that setup? I have to say that I'm still not entirely convinced that lavs are a bad idea here (but I'm clearly no expert). One great advantage of lav mics is that they can be in shot and they look fine. And it takes longer to setup a couple of mics on stands than it does to quickly clip lav mics to a few band members. And I need to get the mics really close to the band members' mouths because there's often lots of background noise to contend with so I need proximity to get a usable signal-to-noise ratio.

Thanks,
Jack

 

[timapter]

ok, for that bloc party interview, lavs would definately have worked just fine. I'm just concerned for those times when you have a lot of people speaking.

If you're doing two person interview (with interviewer), something like a 302 with 3 x Audio Technica AT899 lavs going into it by cable would probably be quite good. I'm mentioning the 899 not because its an awesome lav or anything, but because its affordable and relatively competent - which I think is the aim for your needs.


The vox pop mic works nicely if you have a lot of people ,and YES the clients totally love it when you can brand their interview like that!

At the end of the day, its your call. Good luck!

 

[lcheadle]

I just shot a band interview last night. Five lav mics. I mixed four mics on a Shure M267 into one dvx chanel. Fifth mic, wireless on the "host"going into second dvx audio input. Set up was super quick. I had everyone talk at the same time for my level check. Great audio coverage. I want to upgrade to the Shure M367 for two more inputs. I like the Shure mixers. More compact than the Samson previously mentioned.

 

[dan_aka_jack]

Hi,

Thanks loads for the reply. Were you operating the camera whilst operating the mixer? Did you change the levels during the recording? Were there any moments when you listened to the recording and thought "damn that mumbling drummer - I wish I was recording onto a multi-track recorder"?