Audio Level Question

ZaniacMedia

ZaniacMedia

Active member
Recently shot a play - got a (line level) feed from the board to my DVX. I tried keeping my level meters as hot as possible without going into the RED. Sounded good through my cans.

Shot a band the next week. Another feed from the board, levels looked good, sounded good in my cans.

The problem is that when I listen to these tracks (once imported into FCP) my levels seem very weak. I have to double my tracks to get up near -12db. Sounds clean, just weak levels. The DVX's built-in ALC was engaged for these shoots.

Should I trust the DVX's level meters? Should I invest in a field mixer and put it between the camera and the board? Could there be some other issue I'm not aware of? It's a brand new camera and I'm pretty confident with my knowledge of how to use it. Just dissappointed that my audio seems so low.

I hope that's enough info. Thanks.

BB
 
Going into the red on the meters is not a bad thing. But peaking at the top of the red is a bad.

The best way to set levels is to feed tone from the source into the camera. There is two problems with that though; not all sources have tone and you have to trust that the tone is at the right level. I set the tone to the last white bar. If you don't have tone available, set the absolute loudest sound to just below peaking and you should be OK, assuming that the quietest things are not to low. But that should not be an issue if you are getting signal from a mixing board.
 
dpdave73 said:
Going into the red on the meters is not a bad thing. But peaking at the top of the red is a bad.. . .
I set the tone to the last white bar. If you don't have tone available, set the absolute loudest sound to just below peaking and you should be OK
Click to expand...

That last white bar is -12db. If you're peaking there, that's awful quiet.

Dan
 
Yeah, don't be affraid to go into the red. I just got doen filming some pageants, and I used the line feed from the board. On the first pageant, I kept the peaking at within the white - way to low. Now I have the peaking set to about the 2nd or 3rd red bar and it has worked great. Just don't max out the red. Once that audio is gone, it is gone!
 
Another case where Barry's book would help. The first few red bars should not really be red, they should be yellow. If you only got to the edge of the red, you are barely getting a usable sound. OTOH, you do not want to hit the LAST red bar, that would be too hot.
 
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