Audio mixing, previewing the levels for the director after the shoot?

[Clint Nitkiewiz Hernandez]

My sound mixer will be using a mackie field mixer.

As the director, when I preview the footage we just shot, I also want to see the levels to make sure my mixer did a good job.

My field mixer is really a newbie, and he does not know how to do this, this is why im doing the research for him.

FYI we will be using a shotgun mic recording into the mixer, and sending that signal to the hvx200 p2 camera, and I will also be listening to the final result with headhphones connected to the camera's heaphone jacks.

So anyone know how I can see the levels of the footage we just shot and recorded audio for? I want to see the levels after the shoot, no on the fly as the mixer will be seeing.

 

[Steve House]

Mackie doesn't make a field mixer per se, to the best of my knowledge. Exactly which model Mackie are you using?

I can understand confirming you have a good recording before breaking the setup but what do you mean you want to make sure "your mixer did a good job?" Are you worried about problems with the Mackie hardware or are you worried your Mixer, the human being working the hardware, doing his work properly? Why the big concern over levels? While you certainly need adequate levels on the tape to give you a good s/n ratio so you'll have good material to work with in post, the production sound on the tape is only the raw material and the levels you have there in your master recording have little to do with the levels in the final show. Post is where you set the levels of the production.

As I recall from some earlier postings, your Mixer (human) comes from music and live sound, mixing 'beats' and such. In that world, mixing includes riding gain, applying effects and reverb, mixing instruments and vocals, balancing drums against other instruments, etc. Dialog recording in the film/video world is a whole different story and there the aim is to record clean, pristine, un-messed-with tracks. You do NOT want the mixer (human) to do ANYTHING to adjust the sound with verb, delays, effects, or any of the other things they'd do in a live-sound gig or music mix session. Clean, dry, tracks, with a high-pass filter when necessary to control wind and handling noise, and maybe just a smidge of equalization or compression if a particular talent's voice needs it, is what you're looking for. DO NOT EVEN THINK of having your sound person do a mix while you're shooting!!!!!! He needs to ride gain and monitor for problems (like a distant barking dog) that can spoil a take, NOT do a mix to get a certain "sound." Do your mixes in post where you can do and redo until it's right.

If you need to see levels during playback on the set, doesn't the camera have meters on its LCD that are active when using it for playback?

To insure proper levels as you shoot you need to make sure the camera's meters are aligned to the Mackie's meters. The Mackies I've used don't have a built-in tone generator the way a mixer purpose-built for film/video would have so you need to get a tone-plug like this one http://www.trewaudio.ca/store/product.php?productid=413&cat=48&page=1. It's a phantom powered tone generator built into an XLR connector. You plug it into an unused mic input on the Mackie and it turns on. Use the Mackie course gain setup procedure to set the input trim on that channel for 0VU just like you do when you initially setup a microphone. Set the Mackie output fader to unity gain, mute all channel strips except the one with the tone plug, pan the strip to the centre, and adjust its fader to set the meters reading 0VU. Over to the camera while it's getting tone from the mixer and set its input level controls so the 0VU tone coming from the mixer reads -20dBFS on the camera meters. Now you're aligned. Tape off the input pots on the camera so you don't accidently move them. Mute the strip with the tone plug, unmute the strips with the mics, and you're ready to roll. If your mixer keeps the Mackie's VU meters bouncing between 0 and +4 on dialog as you roll you can be certain you're getting the right levels of the dialog recorded to the tape that will give you good tracks to work with in post.