Advice on recording 3 channels of audio

B

Brian Petersen

Well-known member
I am gearing up for a shoot in about a month and we're going to be really run and gun with a small crew. My question is in regards to audio. For a number of scenes I will most likely run 3 channels of audio. 2 wireless lavs and a boom. I wish I could record all three directly into the HVX, but with only two inputs to deal with, I'm trying to figure out what to do.

I didn't really want to have a dedicated sound recorder and then sync everything up in post, but if I decided to go that route, what is that workflow like? How easy is it to sync up all the sound to the picture in FCP. Can I jam the timecode to the mixer and then it's a snap in post? Would I need a smartslate to make it work? What would I record to? Flash drives? Are those pricey?

The other option is to mix the two lavs together before they go into the HVX, but I would really like to keep them separate if possible.

Are there any options I'm not thinking about? Let me know. I would like to figure out an easy solution, because a number of scenes DON'T use all three channels and we were planning on running straight into the HVX with those.

Thanks for any advice!

Brian
 
Pre mix the LAV's and send them into channel 1. Put the boom into channel 2.
We do it all the time and it always works. If you have the budget hire a sound team to capture the audio into a DIVA or do what David Lynch does and capture direct into pro tools. But it takes a lot more time in post.
 
What mixer do you use to premix the lavs with? Does your sound guy have this mixer on him or can you put it around the camera somehow?
 
Yes, the sound person holds the mixer. Generally, they are also the boom person. All three mics go through the mixer so they can adjust the mix and all levels to the camera.

The Sound Devices 302 is a great mixer, but if you must, the PSC Promix will do.
 
The Sound Devices mix-pre is something you could use to mix the lavs. I have the 302 and love it, but A-Man is right, the psc dv-pro mix will work fine. My company owns one and I actually like it alot. I have not noticed any quality difference between the 302 and pro-mix, however I am a photographer, not a sound man. We use only Sanken lav mics and Shotguns, so our audio source is already really really clean and nice.
 
We have a Shure 2 channel mixer (forgot the model number). I haven't heard the other mixers but I doubt this shure is as good as the others. But for us, when we need to pre mix Lav's it's perfect. Since it's only 2 channels we have to pre mix the lav's and send the boom mic direct into ch. 3
 
Rolls/Bellari makes a 4 channel field mixer that looks really cool (pretty good specs), and it's under $500.00. I have a pair of Bellari RP533 Tube Multi Processors in my recording studio and they sound terrific for the money.
 
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