Basic question on recording several channels

Richard Crowley said:
Any chain is only as strong as its weakest link. This applies to video as well as audio. A gold-plated, diamond-encrusted mic preamp/mixer will NOT give you first-class sound if you are feeding it into a lousy recording device (like a DSLR, etc.) No piece of equipment is magic. Mic preamps seem to be widely over-rated as magic wands that will "improve" you sound. Simply using a better microphone (or moving your present microphone into a better position) will very often make a MUCH bigger improvement to the sound track than adding a $1000 mic preamp. A mic preamp/mixer would NOT be first on my list of economic investments for audio quality. The best mic preamp in the world can't improve the sound from a lousy microphone.
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I don't disagree with a word of this, but I do find myself, more and more, leaving my SD302 connected to the camera even when I'm doing simple setups (one or two mics direct into their respective inputs) that wouldn't, strictly speaking, require it for its mixing or routing capabilities. The reason is that the knobs are so much bigger and easier to manipulate than the ones on the camera, the metering is absolutely superb compared to the little dancing dots in the viewfinder, the headphone output is louder and cleaner, and the SD limiters are both reassuring and transparent. The operational convenience and confidence about levels easily outweighs any (imperceptible to my ears at least) degradation in the sound that results from going through an extra high quality gain stage.

And all those flashing lights look really cool and impress the talent and clients. :-)

- Greg
 
Bfilms said:
Would simply running the boom through the Mix Pre D and a DR-100 be the way to go?

Then recording the LAVs on a separate DR-100 with no mixer....

Or would the LAV quality be too terrible?

Or should I just say screw it and buy a SD 442 (future proof extra channel) and 4-track recorder and have fun paying off credit cards for a few years...
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If you're serious about putting together a professional kit and believe you could use it to generate the income to pay for it, that would certainly be an option.
 
assuming we're talking this scenario only...

imo, your best bet would be to scrap the boom and just go with both lavs through the mixer... or even just straight into the dr-100 (that's your decision on whether or not the quality you're getting with lavs -> dr-100 is good enough)... or vice-versa, if you decide for the situation the boom is working out better, scrap the lavs.
and then make sure you have someone good dedicated to monitoring the sound

the reason for this is:
-a quality mixer with enough inputs/outputs is probably going to be more than you want to spend at this point, particularly if this is the only time you'll be "needing" it. renting is a different story.
-you DON'T want to send the lavs through the mixer and the boom straight into the dr-100. Give it a shot if you have everything to test, but I'll bet the difference is going to be so great that you'll have to toss out at least one of those channels (probably the boom)
*side-note, if you do get a mixer with 3 channels but only two outputs, say the sd 302, mixing the two lavs into one channel and the boom into the second is fine and common
-the lavs alone are probably going to be pretty good. i'm sure you're aware of the disadvantages of lavs as compared to booming, and it's nothing that monitoring well can't take care of. if you hear a problem, cut and do it again. a little more pain in the ass, but fine if you're choosing cheap and good.


on the other hand, if you're looking at this as more of a generality, or plan to keep the device and really go after other work with it... then that's something different, and for any advice to be worthwhile we'd probably need a lot more information... but ultimately the decision is up to you.

edit: on buying big for future work... keep in mind, you will probably want to upgrade for what realistically makes sense for what's limiting you NOW. If something is out of your budget, don't buy it just because it will "probably" be useful in the future. That future-proof fourth channel is only future-proof until you show up to a gig and there's five people all needing a lav.
 
Bfilms said:
The Mix Pre seems to be one of the most recommended pieces of audio equipment of indie shooting...the general consensus seems to be to skimp on the recorder and make sure to get a great preamp. Am I missing something?
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This goes back to the assumption of wireless lavs with a line-level output. If you are not using the mixpre to mix sound, or to increase gain, then it's not doing anything, and is thus just an extra device in the signal chain with no purpose. That's to be avoided. Every device degrades the signal... better devices just degrade it less. When using an external mixer, one of the goals is often to "bypass" the inferior preamps of a camera or cheap recorder with better-quality preamps... that's reasonable for mic-level signals that have to be preamped. But for line level signals, the only benefit of a mixer in the middle is... well... mixing. (in terms of sound quality, anyway... there may be monitoring benefits to the mixer, too). If you're not mixing line-level signals, better to send them as directly to the recorder as possible.

However, the real issue here is whether you're mixing multiple tracks or recording multiple tracks... what's the goal?
 
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Greg Smith said:
I don't disagree with a word of this, but I do find myself, more and more, leaving my SD302 connected to the camera even when I'm doing simple setups (one or two mics direct into their respective inputs) that wouldn't, strictly speaking, require it for its mixing or routing capabilities. The reason is that the knobs are so much bigger and easier to manipulate than the ones on the camera, the metering is absolutely superb compared to the little dancing dots in the viewfinder, the headphone output is louder and cleaner, and the SD limiters are both reassuring and transparent. The operational convenience and confidence about levels easily outweighs any (imperceptible to my ears at least) degradation in the sound that results from going through an extra high quality gain stage.

And all those flashing lights look really cool and impress the talent and clients. :-)

- Greg
Click to expand...

And of course the SD preamps are probably a lot better-sounding than the camera's built-in preamps... While Richard's comments are generally true, preamps on cameras and cheap recorders are generally the weak points of these devices, and good external preamps are frequently a good way to improve sound. And, technique,m skill, and the monitoring, confidence, and control ease benefits Greg raises contribute a lot to better sound in the end.
 
sonofaresiii said:
assuming we're talking this scenario only...

imo, your best bet would be to scrap the boom and just go with both lavs through the mixer... or even just straight into the dr-100 (that's your decision on whether or not the quality you're getting with lavs -> dr-100 is good enough)... or vice-versa, if you decide for the situation the boom is working out better, scrap the lavs.
and then make sure you have someone good dedicated to monitoring the sound

the reason for this is:
-a quality mixer with enough inputs/outputs is probably going to be more than you want to spend at this point, particularly if this is the only time you'll be "needing" it. renting is a different story.
-you DON'T want to send the lavs through the mixer and the boom straight into the dr-100. Give it a shot if you have everything to test, but I'll bet the difference is going to be so great that you'll have to toss out at least one of those channels (probably the boom)
*side-note, if you do get a mixer with 3 channels but only two outputs, say the sd 302, mixing the two lavs into one channel and the boom into the second is fine and common
-the lavs alone are probably going to be pretty good. i'm sure you're aware of the disadvantages of lavs as compared to booming, and it's nothing that monitoring well can't take care of. if you hear a problem, cut and do it again. a little more pain in the ass, but fine if you're choosing cheap and good.


on the other hand, if you're looking at this as more of a generality, or plan to keep the device and really go after other work with it... then that's something different, and for any advice to be worthwhile we'd probably need a lot more information... but ultimately the decision is up to you.

edit: on buying big for future work... keep in mind, you will probably want to upgrade for what realistically makes sense for what's limiting you NOW. If something is out of your budget, don't buy it just because it will "probably" be useful in the future. That future-proof fourth channel is only future-proof until you show up to a gig and there's five people all needing a lav.
Click to expand...

Some good ideas here, thanks.

As for work, I'm not really an audio guy, just getting into it for the purpose of my own projects. I don't mind shelling out the dough if I can get close to Hollywood-grade sound. I don't envision needing more than 4 channels in the future. It's just that even a few hundred bucks is a decent chunk of cash. If I'm paying that much I want great sound, and if it can't touch an SD unit, I'd rather just pay more, that way I didn't spend a hundreds of dollars on just an "okay-sounding" device. And if its only a few hundred more for an extra channel...why not take the plunge and be done with it.
 
I have an SD 302 and a Zoom H4n. There is absolutely no doubt that I get a cleaner signal/lower noise floor when the mic is sent through the 302 first as opposed to straight into the Zoom.
 
ullanta said:
And of course the SD preamps are probably a lot better-sounding than the camera's built-in preamps... While Richard's comments are generally true, preamps on cameras and cheap recorders are generally the weak points of these devices, and good external preamps are frequently a good way to improve sound. And, technique,m skill, and the monitoring, confidence, and control ease benefits Greg raises contribute a lot to better sound in the end.
Click to expand...

ullanta said:
This goes back to the assumption of wireless lavs with a line-level output. If you are not using the mixpre to mix sound, or to increase gain, then it's not doing anything, and is thus just an extra device in the signal chain with no purpose. That's to be avoided. Every device degrades the signal... better devices just degrade it less. When using an external mixer, one of the goals is often to "bypass" the inferior preamps of a camera or cheap recorder with better-quality preamps... that's reasonable for mic-level signals that have to be preamped. But for line level signals, the only benefit of a mixer in the middle is... well... mixing. (in terms of sound quality, anyway... there may be monitoring benefits to the mixer, too). If you're not mixing line-level signals, better to send them as directly to the recorder as possible.

However, the real issue here is whether you're mixing multiple tracks or recording multiple tracks... what's the goal?
Click to expand...

Main goal is recording.
 
Went with the Mix Pre D...will be recording Lavs and shotgun separately. Looks like I have more time than money right now, so I'll just to the extra recording work and hopefully have better quality than going with a mediocre system with more channels.

Thanks for everyone's input.
 
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