Question about Shotgun Audio and Wireless Mic Audio panned L & R

Z

zepsun

Member
I recorded a wedding for friends as their wedding present. I did wireless audio panned Left and Shotgun mic audio panned Right... Sometimes I can hear the groom's sleeve brushing the mic as he is scratching is head or whatever, and I want to mute that audio and use the shotgun audio at that point, then switch back when the coast is clear. Also, sometimes I want to mix the audio for hymns etc...

I believe in the Final Cut Pro Studio timeline when separating the audio you get two centre channels and when the audio is linked it's two mono channels panned left. How do I ensure, what ever audio I'm using ,it is able to be heard on any Tv..wether it's a tv that has stereo sound or just an older model with one speaker?

Thank you.
 
zepsun said:
I recorded a wedding for friends as their wedding present. I did wireless audio panned Left and Shotgun mic audio panned Right... Sometimes I can hear the groom's sleeve brushing the mic as he is scratching is head or whatever, and I want to mute that audio and use the shotgun audio at that point, then switch back when the coast is clear. Also, sometimes I want to mix the audio for hymns etc...

I believe in the Final Cut Pro Studio timeline when separating the audio you get two centre channels and when the audio is linked it's two mono channels panned left. How do I ensure, what ever audio I'm using ,it is able to be heard on any Tv..wether it's a tv that has stereo sound or just an older model with one speaker?

Thank you.
Click to expand...

While you have "stereo" as far as the audio track arrangment coming from the camera is concerned, what you really have isn't stereo but dual mono. Think of them as two separate mono recordings that you can choose clips from to assemble the final mono dialog track. You shouldn't try to mix the two together. Instead checkerboard them, chopping them up so you can take audio from one track or the other, whichever is best but never mixing both at once, and copy it to a new third mono dialog track. Pan this third track centre and either mute or delete the remainder of the two source tracks. Now add your stereo music, FX, and ambience tracks and mix to taste.
 
zepsun said:
How do I ensure, what ever audio I'm using ,it is able to be heard on any Tv..wether it's a tv that has stereo sound or just an older model with one speaker?
Click to expand...
Home theaters and consumer TV's can be an unpredictable lot, and you need to be confident that your mix will sound good on every system from a high-end home theater right down to a beat up old 12" TV. This often comes down to two tried and true practices: checking the mix on a cheap set of speakers, and summing your stereo channels and checking everything in mono.

Additionally, all dialogue (lav and/or shotgun) should generally be panned to the center of the stereo image. If dialogue is hard-panned left or right, then any viewer who has connected a mono TV in such a way that they're only hearing one audio track may loose some of the dialogue.

Steve's advice is right on the money regarding checkerboarding the two mics after center-panning them. I would add that any time you edit between the two channels you should take care to cover your edit with a short cross-fade. If the edit still draws attention to itself, you may need to cut in a short section of "room tone."

On feature film mixes, you may find yourself mixing lavs and shotguns to give the dialogue a bit of perspective, but the general rule is to go with the track that sounds better.
 
tigeba said:
Just send both tracks right up the middle and automate volume.
Click to expand...

Not a good idea to mix the same sound recorded by the boom and a lav, IMHO. Intercut them, sure, but use only one or the other at any given time and don't try to mix 'em. If you do, you risk comb filtering or reverb effects caused by the arrival time differences between when the sound arrives at the boom versus when it hit the lav. With the lav about 12 inches from the source and the boom at 3 or 4 feet, the arrival time difference effectively introduces about a 2 or 3 millisecond phase shift into the waveform of the boom track when compared to the lav track.
 
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