Audio setup for first short - sync or swim???

emccainaz

emccainaz

Member
I am getting prepared for my first short film using the DVX100A. It appears from other posts that there is no way to sync sound (almost all dialogue) that is recorded to an external recording device. I would like to be able to record both to the DVX100A and to my Mac G4 laptop, but I'm unsure of how to set this up successfully - and how much will this really help my final sound quality???

After poking around in this forum for a while, I am planning on the following:

MBox with Protools LE for Mac (is the LE version adequate for what I'm doing - and then moving the sound to Final Cut Pro???)

AT4073A mic (rave reviews)
AT8415 low profile shock mount
KSUS polymer suspenders
Gitzo G556 boom pole (any comments???)
25-foot XLR cable (are there any brands that are better than others?)

I already have my G4 Laptop with USB and Firewire 400 ports and Final Cut Pro. I would appreciate any suggestions on how I might maximize my bang for the buck - and how do you sync the audio from the laptop into Final Cut Pro without a huge amount of tweaking?

thank you,

Edward
 
You slate the audio at the beginning with a clapboard (old-school) or a timecode slate with a blooper (new-fangled). So you say "scene 11, take 1, <CLAP>". Then in post you line up the audio with the video, and -- well, that's just what you do. It's tedious but easy.
 
A friend of mine suggested using a mixing board between the mic and the camera/computer. Also, they suggested that running the sound directly to a computer is risky and subject to crashes. Any experience with this would be very helpful.
 
It would be in your best interest to have a sound guy on set. I am sure you have no money but I bet you can find somebody who will work for free, just feed him well and don't ask the world of him. Short of that it would be recomendable to have the ability to send audio to both the camera and your laptop simultaneously, but not daisy chained, that way if the mac goes down you still have the camera sound as back up. This can be easily achieved with most mixers.

Have fun, don't forget room tone :grin:
 
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