EMERGENCY! Wireless mic died during filming! What to do?

P

pixie85

New member
my friend asked me to film her wedding and I don't know why, but suddenly during her ceremony the receiver died! The batteries just stopped working. It happened to me for the first time. I had the shotgun on CH1 and wireless on CH2, so I still have some audio. Unfortunately, the audio is a super poor quality. Is there any way to reduce noises and make their vows ( they were whispering!!!!) louder than the wind ? The distance between them and the camera was about 30 yards.

I am really desperate because I promised her that her ceremony will be captured with wireless mics... :crybaby: As I said the batteries in the receiver just died, they were from the same new set as the batteries in the transmitter, so I don't understand what could be the reason of that? 10 minutes into the footage the mics are working and then.... just the shotgun!

Please HELP!
 
pixie85 said:
my friend asked me to film her wedding and I don't know why, but suddenly during her ceremony the receiver died! The batteries just stopped working. It happened to me for the first time. I had the shotgun on CH1 and wireless on CH2, so I still have some audio. Unfortunately, the audio is a super poor quality. Is there any way to reduce noises and make their vows ( they were whispering!!!!) louder than the wind ? The distance between them and the camera was about 30 yards.

I am really desperate because I promised her that her ceremony will be captured with wireless mics... :crybaby: As I said the batteries in the receiver just died, they were from the same new set as the batteries in the transmitter, so I don't understand what could be the reason of that? 10 minutes into the footage the mics are working and then.... just the shotgun!

Please HELP!
Click to expand...
Oh no! If all you have is the one channel of audio from the shotgun mic, the only thing I can think of is to use an equalizer to enhance the sound quality. One channel of poor audio is better than no audio, but that wind noise will pose the greatest challenge. You may have to de-emphasize the lower frequencies to reduce some of the wind noise and boost the mid to higher frequencies to (hopefully) make the vows more audible. I am afraid even if you did this, it will only modestly improve the sound. Did anyone else record the ceremony, even if only part of it?
 
You can't recover audio that isn't there so you might not be able to do anything about it. Unless you can find some obvious fault like a cable that pulled loose during shooting, that's one wireless that needs to be pulled from service and an immediate trip back to the manufacturer's service department. And the lesson is that when recording unrepeatable events you always need backup systems and backups to the backups when possible. Lightning can always strike.
 
If it's only small portion of important parts, ask your friend to re-voice the part with anyone who involve in the scene.... or just use your own voice or other friends to re- voice as exactly what they said, since you still have a shotgun audio as a ref, then add ambience....
 
Hiro Nakamura said:
If it's only small portion of important parts, ask your friend to re-voice the part with anyone who involve in the scene.... or just use your own voice or other friends to re- voice as exactly what they said, since you still have a shotgun audio as a ref, then add ambience....
Click to expand...

Thats probably the easiest... but try to get the real people involved - wedding shouldn't have my voice in it, IMO :)

Most of the time with audio we suffer from the "Crap in - Crap Out" principle.

I had issues too with recording vowes, very soft speakers, noise, etc. I used Soundbooth to boost the levels, eq out the non-voice frequencies, and remove the noise. (you can teach the filter what is the noise, and remove accordingly)
 
Thanks for all your help! I will try the soundbooth first and then if I wont me able to do anything I might try to send a small clip to Nicole.

I really don't know what happened! The batteries on the receiver just died, right after she walked down the isle.... And that were a new batteries, from the same set I used on the transmitter, and transmitter just worked fine.... I guess it was a bad luck I had that day! She leaves 4 hours away, so voice over might me a problem, but if I wont be able to do anything I guess I will contact her right after she gets back from her honeymoon.... :(
 
If the venue had someone running sound, there's a chance they would have made a recording off their mics. Anytime I run live sound for an event I'll do at least a 2 track recording, just in case a situation like this pops up.
 
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