morgan_moore
Major Contributor
Dual levels - if you are running and gunning - say doing people as they cross the line at a marathon - I find dual level super handy.
Formal interview- less so
Formal interview- less so
Audio options are totally confusing.
- Thread starter Amadou
- Start date
Amadou
Carbonite Member
We filmed a scene in which the actor started screaming. The levels were at five and the audio clipped. So to avoid this situation we like to have one channel set to 20 percent lower thajn 1. I have never worked with the limiter activated. Could it not damage the audio quality of a regular scene?
Some in this thread have said they see no point in doing this. I worked fulltime in a production shop where this was actually standard operating procedure when we only had one talent and one mic (though usually a single talent was covered with a boomed mic and a wireless lav, recorded to separate channels). Granted, that was 20 years ago when in-bag multitrack recorders and mixer/recorders weren’t yet a thing and we were recording straight into camera from a 3-channel field mixer for everything (TV shows, not movies). And I still like to do this for the on-cam mic when I’m shooting b-roll in unpredictable situations.
It’s really simple: just turn the dial on the second channel. So what if there’s no setting to make Ch2 automatically follow as a safety channel? You have manual audio controls. Use them.
Yes. No. Maybe.
It depends on the limiter and depends on how hard it’s driven. I typically don’t like the limiters offered with in-camera audio but I do use limiters constantly in the field... just through my Sound Devices mixer/recorder. Cheaper limiters tend to sound really crunchy, and get there faster than with better limiters. If you want to use the camera’s limiters, just set the threshold higher so that it only catches harsh peaks and isn’t kicking in for lower-level audio.
I really don’t know where the breaking point is on the FS7’s limiters. Again, this is something to test outside of the shoot to see how well it works for you. Try to drive them hard at different settings and hear for yourself how they work and how they sound.
That’s really the moral of this whole saga, Amadou: you need to learn these functions by testing them out. We can give you guidance on what they do (and several folks here have done that), but we can’t tell you how they apply to your current production. Put them to use. Listen as you change settings. There’s no magic number that we can give you as a “set your dial here and your limiter there and you’ll be fine” formula because sound is so dynamic. You’ve got to know how your camera responds and learn how to pick the right settings for each scene.
We can’t hear what is coming through your mic, your camera’s audio circuits, your headphones. Blind guesses from this end. Plug the mic in, keep your level control set to SIDE, set levels as best you can, and roll with it. Adjust the level as necessary.
Surely you have time in the evenings/mornings between shoot days to try and fax this stuff out? We can’t fix it for you.