mono or stereo

V

violettemaschine

New member
good evening all,

So I just recently purchased the FR2-LE for use in a short film project.

After going through the manual And recording in mono and stereo. The end result is either one mono file. or a stereo file with audio only in the left or right field. (depending on which input I plug my mic into.)

As I understand it it should record stereo through the individual inputs. is there something I am missing. please anyone with experience with this machine let me know

thanks
 
When you are trying to record stereo, each individual input on your FR2 is a mono channel which sums up to stereo at the end. Input 1 is your left channel and Input 2 is your right channel. Unless you are expecting each input to record a stereo feed, then no it will not record in such a way.
 
Is your mic a stereo mic???

Recording stereo requires either a stereo mic or two mono mics. Either way, the inputs are mono. So if you're using a stereo mic, you're going to have to split it to two mono lines -- one for each input jack.

If you're using a mono mic -- well.....then you need a 2nd mono mic plugged into the other jack if you want to record stereo.

Hope that helps. Good luck!
 
What you are seeking to do is called "dual mono" where one input is directed to both recording channels. Unless your recorder has a "pan" control on each input, which I don't believe it does, the only way to do that is to add a mixer to feed it. For example, each input channel of the SD 302 3-channel mixer has a pan switch that allows you to route that particular input to either output 1 (left), output 2 (right), or equally to both.
 
If you're recording through a single mono mic, the only purpose of sending it to both channels would be to hedge your bet level-wise (set one channel to a lower, "safer" level to use if the first one unexpectedly overloads). Otherwise, a two channel recording of a mono source just wastes recording space.
 
ok. so after looking into it the mic im using is not stereo. theres one issue.
In the manual it says it will record from the inputs either 2 stereo or 2 mono tracks. so it does record stereo from the individual inputs I just wasnt using the correct mic.

Thanks so much for the input and advice
 
I just did a quick search of the .PDF manual online (http://www.fostexinternational.com/docs/pro_support/FR2LE_OM_E.pdf) and I don't see anything that says it will record 2 stereo tracks. That would be very unusual.

I did read the product brochure online. In the specs it says "TRACKS: 2 (stereo)". This doesn't mean it will record 2 stereo tracks, though. It means it will record 2 tracks, which can be used to create stereo if 2 mics are used.

From reviewing the manual, it seems clear -- you can set it to record either stereo or mono. Each mic input (XLR/combo) is a mono input, and thus cannot use a stereo mic. To record stereo, each input will have to have a mic attached to it.

Again, good luck!
 
The FR-2LE has two inputs. How you use them is up to you. Simply plugging in two mics and arranging them arbitrarily is unlikely to give you a true stereo recording. When played back on a stereo playback system, a true stereo recording will provide an accurate spatial reproduction of the sounds within a particular angle (the "stereo image"). This is a tricky effect to achieve, but its extremely effective when done well.

True stereo recording can be achieved in a variety of manners, including the following: X-Y stereo, Spaced omni (A-B stereo), ORTF, Blumlein, Mid-Side, and Binaural (do a bit of googling for details). Each of those techniques require two carefully matched mics to be aligned in a specific manner, and some require a decoding matrix for conventional stereo playback. In actuality, stereo microphones are simply two or more microphone capsules arranged in a stereo configuration and housed in a single mic body.

Many stereo microphones terminate in a 5-pin XLR for ease of cabling. To use one of those with your FR-2LE, you may need a simple XLR-5 (female) to 2xXLR-3 (male) adapter cable. Alternately, some manufacturers make stand-alone mic power supplies with 5-pin inputs and dual 3-pin outputs, a few of which also decode matrixed stereo.
 
ok. thanks for the input/clarification.

I just misunderstood the (2 tracks(stereo))


one other question I had was
for film dialogue is it normally recorded stereo or mono?
I will have to do mono for this project but I am wondering about the feasibility of actually setting the various dual mic setups on future productions(with alot of practice obviously)

Thanks again
 
I'm no expert on this either, but I normally record dialogue in mono and room tone or ambient sound in stereo. Mono dialogue can always be tweaked in post to weight it more to one channel than another, but by and large most dialogue seems to work best if it comes out of both speakers equally.

The exception would be off-camera dialogue. If someone is calling from somewhere off camera-left, then I'll balance that line in post so it's heavy on the left channel. (I haven't done 5:1 audio yet, so I'm limiting my comments to simple 2-channel stereo.)

Hope that helps!
 
I'll second David's comments - dialog is almost invariably recorded in mono then positioned in the soundspace during post, almost always centred on the screen. I have to point out, though, there is a difference between room tone and ambience though they often might overlap. Room tone is the sound of silence in the space, that subconcious perception of the space as being real. When you edit dialog and insert spaces, there's a different 'feel' to the gaps if they're just flatline versus have room tone laid in. Ambience, OTOH, is the sounds that go to make up a specific acoustic environment - crickets chirping in the distance on a summer evening, traffic on the freeway 6 bocks away, that sort of thing. Tone would often be recorded mono on the set using the same mic as recorded the scene. Ambience, OTOH, may be recorded either in stereo or mono and could be shot even miles away and far away in time from where picture for the scene is shot. It's more akin to background sound effects, while room tone is part of the speech and captured so the spaces inserted between segments of speech has the same acoustic space as the spaces between phonemes within the speech. Music would often be stereo these days, though not always. Remember it's 50/50 whether a stereo track will still be stereo be the time it gets to the listener's ears - it can be downmixed to mono in broadcast, at a cable TV system headend, at a link from a VCR or DVD player into a TV set, or even in the air between a TV and the viewer because the speakers on a lot of 'stereo' TVs are so close together they might as well just be one speaker.
 
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Man we really need a sticky post titled: RECORD YOUR DIALOG IN MONO.
Perhaps accompanied by: DON'T TRY TO MIX YOUR MOVIE IN 5.1
 
All good advice, regarding mono dialogue/room-tone.

I would add that a two-track recorder (eg. the FR-2LE) can be used to record a second mono dialogue channel. For example, you could record the boom mic to Ch1, and Wireless lav's to Ch2.

Another popular technique is to use a mixer on the front-end of the recorder, and record a backup copy of the boom mic to Ch2 (in case of incidental overloads or plosives) by turning the mixer's pan control to the 9 O'clock position. Everything is still recorded and mic'd mono, but a second lower-level version of the Ch1 sound is recorded to Ch2. In post production, the editor will simply use the Ch1 sound (panned to the center), and mute the Ch2 sound. If someone sneezes or coughs and overloads Ch1, the editor simply switches to Ch2 where there's still a clean version recorded at a lower level. This technique can be a kind of insurrance against unpredictably dynamic tracks.
 
this recorder does have a limiter but I am still considering a dual setup.

anyone have experience with the limiter on the FR2-LE

I was also going to try to connect to the camera via the monitor outs just with some xlr adapters does anyone have any input on that side of it? I will also have to connect my headphones to the other monitor out because one really annoying thing with this recorder is that with headphone plug in it does not monitor out. eventually I will have to get a mixer which will make all this easier
 
Regarding the limiter: You are usually far better off using a dual safety setup than relying on the limiter.

Just give the limiter a whirl and see what results you get.
 
If the limiter's anything like the old FR-2's, I wouldn't rely on it too much. A mixer like the SD 442 will do a much better job wrestling unruly signals. It will also give you a second ballanced output (with headphone return) for the camera via the breakaway cable. Bagging the two devices together can be a bit akward, though, given the design of the FR-2LE.

A good mixer will also give you cleaner preamps and better level control.
 
One thing I like to do is use the onboard mics on the camera as a synching guide for the externally-recorded audio. When I get into post, matching audio to video is a snap by simply matching it with the on-camera audio track. I then delete the on-camera audio track. It might seem a bit awkward, but it works for me.
 
You can also use a xlr spliter to deliver sound to both channels and set one track lower to protect aginst bad sound quality. Same as SMuir said just with one mike instead of two. Two mikes is always better but if you have only one mic and have the space its good to set one track lower and record both channels just in case.

Good luck.
 
SMuir said:
All good advice, regarding mono dialogue/room-tone.

... by turning the mixer's pan control to the 9 O'clock position.
Click to expand...

SMuir, do you mean the gain control? When I record to 2 tracks, I always hard mix L for boom and sum all the wireless R.

Now I much prefer multi track so I don't have to worry about this - and I can create a real mix to send to telecine.

Phil
 
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