Mic'ing a group of seated kids

jnatalie

jnatalie

Well-known member
I have been asked to do two different corporate gigs where there will be students sitting in a semi-circle with a group facilitator in front of them. My job is to document the process with close attention to lighting and audio.

I'm doing one now and I've used to Oktavas on a boom in x/y config and though the sound is "ok" the problem I'm having is dealing with quiet speakers. There are six kids. I've put lavs on the two facilitators.

What would you suggest for optimal sound, including equipment?
 
Hi:

Optimal sound would probably be two boom ops, depending on how much the kids step on each other's lines OR putting a lav on each plus keep your two facilitators and running them all into a Pro Tools system and handling levels and talkining over each other in post. I produced a very similar sort of setup for the 25th reunion of the Hill Street Blues cast. They were in a semi-circle in director's chairs and one of them was sort of the moderator although I interjected from behind the camera to "guide" the conversation.

We brought a small Pro Tools rig on a laptop and eight wired lavs and it worked out extremely well, we ended up with great sound. Realistically no sound mixers are fast enough to ride levels and mute with eight talent speaking unrehearsed. It will require extensive audio post production mixing to make this thing sound optimal.

Been there, this is how you need to do it. I would suggest an audio crew of two, one to rig and take care of the kids setups in case they squirm or fidget the mics out of position and one person to run the Pro Tools setup. Use clapper board slates and it's not hard to sync it all up. Run a summed mix output to camera from Pro Tools for reference so the video editor can get to work and the audio editor can conform to something guide tracked.

Good luck.

Dan
 
"Good Luck"

That's good advice Dan. Never thought of wired lavs...great idea. Which lavs did you use?
 
jnatalie said:
"Good Luck"

That's good advice Dan. Never thought of wired lavs...great idea. Which lavs did you use?
Click to expand...

If memory serves, we used eight Trams. We had a little issue with phasing when they were overlapping but with some careful editing, it sounded pristine.

Dan
 
jnatalie said:
I have been asked to do two different corporate gigs where there will be students sitting in a semi-circle with a group facilitator in front of them. My job is to document the process with close attention to lighting and audio.

I'm doing one now and I've used to Oktavas on a boom in x/y config and though the sound is "ok" the problem I'm having is dealing with quiet speakers. There are six kids. I've put lavs on the two facilitators.

What would you suggest for optimal sound, including equipment?
Click to expand...


WHen you say "kids," how old are you talking about? Highschool kids or first graders?
 
Oh, ok. I am doing something SIMILAR, but with kids under 7. It is certainly a job to get the mics right. I usually only have two kids at a time so I put wireless lavs on them since the wired ones will just give them something more to be distracted with! :)

But keeping them from bumping the mic end is a challenge. That's why I asked the ages. Teens would be a lot easier to get on lavs... but since there are so many of them probably a Digi003 and Protools as suggested earlier would be the easiest way to keep it simple (relatively speaking of course).

This is what I have http://www.digidesign.com/index.cfm?langid=100&navid=126&itemid=5028 and it works good when you have a lot of lines in.
 
Lloyds said:
Oh, ok. I am doing something SIMILAR, but with kids under 7. It is certainly a job to get the mics right. I usually only have two kids at a time so I put wireless lavs on them since the wired ones will just give them something more to be distracted with! :)

But keeping them from bumping the mic end is a challenge. That's why I asked the ages. Teens would be a lot easier to get on lavs... but since there are so many of them probably a Digi003 and Protools as suggested earlier would be the easiest way to keep it simple (relatively speaking of course).

This is what I have http://www.digidesign.com/index.cfm?langid=100&navid=126&itemid=5028 and it works good when you have a lot of lines in.
Click to expand...

How many channels at a time can you record with that box? Looks cool.

Dan
 
I have 4 XLR inputs and 4 additional 1/4" inputs. I heard that you can add another one of those 003s in a series and double everything, but I'm not sure. I've never used more than 4 at a time so I'm not sure how the 1/4" inputs work, but I'm sure they're fine.

The only thing about them is wiht Protools it's a pretty heavy load on your system, so if you are trying to record video to disc AND the audio via ProTools, it could be too much for most computer systems.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top