Automatic Mixer good idea?

G

Gregg A. George

New member
I am shooting a conference in Chicago in about a week and I will be working without a sound person. My plan is to purchase a Shure scm410 automatic mixer and a couple pzm mics which will be placed in the audience of about 100 as there is a lot of interaction between the audience and speaker. I will also be using sennheiser g2 wireless lavs for the speakers and moderator. Does this setup sound feasible? Does anyone have any experience with auto mixers in similar scenarios? Any recommendations for affordable pzms?
 
Gregg A. George said:
I am shooting a conference in Chicago in about a week and I will be working without a sound person. My plan is to purchase a Shure scm410 automatic mixer and a couple pzm mics which will be placed in the audience of about 100 as there is a lot of interaction between the audience and speaker. I will also be using sennheiser g2 wireless lavs for the speakers and moderator. Does this setup sound feasible? Does anyone have any experience with auto mixers in similar scenarios? Any recommendations for affordable pzms?
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Remember that boundary layer microphones need to be placed on a flat solid surface at least 1 metre square such as a stage, table-top, large sheet of plywood, etc for them to work properly. They depend on the behaviour of the sound pressure wave at the interface between the air and the solid plate they're affixed to - that's why they're called "pressure zone mics" (or PZM) - because they detect changes in the pressure zone that occurs between the mic diaphram itself and the surface it's mounted to rather than the direct sound pressure wave in the surrounding air. What are you going to put those audience mics on?
 
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I don't have any experience personally with automixers but I know a few sound mixers that swear by them for
situations like yours.
So that being said as long as you set it up correctly I'd have to think you'd
be way better off using one and having a few smaller issues than just leaving
all the mic's open (which would sound ..blah)

How many cameras? I'd still try to iso as many mic's as possible or at least group
the important ones. I would NOT try to run the audience mic's through the auto mixer with the panel. With that amount of people someone is always going to be making noise and triggering that mic.

Also I think your better option would be 2 shotguns on stands on the sides near the front pointing back into the crowd.
 
I was planning on mounting the mics on the walls to the right and left of the audience. The audience will be seated at tables but I dont think mounting them there is a good idea - I want to avoid the noise as they will be coming in and out often, shuffling papers, filling water glasses, etc. I know the distance will be greater than the ideal pickup range, but with budget constraints, I just need to get intelligible audio from audience questions. Do you think shotguns from the front would be more effective than pzms mounted in this manner - should i simply aim the shotguns at the middle of the audience on each side? This is a single cam single operator shoot.
 
Gregg A. George said:
I was planning on mounting the mics on the walls to the right and left of the audience. The audience will be seated at tables but I dont think mounting them there is a good idea - I want to avoid the noise as they will be coming in and out often, shuffling papers, filling water glasses, etc. I know the distance will be greater than the ideal pickup range, but with budget constraints, I just need to get intelligible audio from audience questions. Do you think shotguns from the front would be more effective than pzms mounted in this manner - should i simply aim the shotguns at the middle of the audience on each side? This is a single cam single operator shoot.
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You're going to be fighting excessive mic/subject distance no matter what. Most of the audience will sound very distant and "ring'y" to the shotguns, like they're in a well. PZMs on the wall might work - don't know - there will be less of the room in the sound but whether it will be usablle or not remains to be seen.
 
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you think the sound will sound more distant and "ringy?" with a shotgun compared to a pzm?
interesting.
 
Rippie said:
you think the sound will sound more distant and "ringy?" with a shotgun compared to a pzm?
interesting.
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Was thinking the pzm doesn't respond to reflected sound in the same way a shotgun does, thus the "bottom of a well" effect could be a bit reduced. Even so, I don't see it as a very good solution because the mics are going to be too far away from the source and they'll still hear the room slap.
 
Not all shotguns suffer from reflection issues..and if its a big enough crowd and room
I see even less issues than usual with reflections.

Just my opinion
but pzm's are terrible. Ive used them a number of times in the past for covering
large groups spread over many tables..and i was very unhappy with the sound.

I've also many many times covered the same type of situation the original poster is
asking about and covered it many different ways
from stick mics to shotguns to hanging lav's to using parabolic dishs

For a 1 man band with no one to pass around a mic or follow..
2 shotguns in the front well placed are going to get the best result.

Of course its not "perfect, but you're going to get the majority of it.


Also, to the original poster if you can get the panel to repeat the questions
that would be your safest bet, and the rest of the crowd will appreciate that as well.
 
Thank you both very much for your suggestions. I decided to go with a combination of the two. I ordered a SHure scm410 auto mixer and two crown pzms. I already have two sennheiser g2 wireless lavs and a rode shotgun. I am going to mount the two pzms on opposite walls (room should be no more that 40 feet wide, again-not ideal but what can you do) and I will stand the shotgun at the front aiming toward the audience as a safety. Those three, as well as the lav worn by a moderator who gives brief introductions will be run through the mixer and recorded on one of the dvx audio channels. The other lav for the main speaker will run directly to the other dvx channel. Hopefully this gives me something to work with. Worst case scenario- if the audio is horrible but intelligible, I will edit the audience questions in as text- did this on the first one- not preferred but gives final product a cleaner feel than boosting noisy audio. Thanks again guys.
 
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