Getting levels to be similar

B

budha

Active member
Hello everyone. I just filmed a debate that had 4 mics being fed into a mixer. From the mixer, I had that running straight into my camera and into an MP3 recorder as well (for backup). What can I do to get everyone's levels similar? There is a bit of sound fluctuation from the different speakers and I wanted to try and get them to be a bit more similar. Any suggestions?

I have Soundtrack Pro 3 if it makes a difference.
 
silly question but you didn't just leave everyones microphone up on the mixer
the entire time did you?

The mixer is there for a reason..you MIX with it.
In your case if you only had 2 tracks to record to you could have split 2
microphones to 1 track 2 to the other, but you still need to adjust constantly on site or
split every single microphone to its own track so you can "mix" it later.

If you did this great, but if you didn't I figured it was worth mentioning.
 
Ok sorry I should have mentioned that I had no control over the mixer whatsoever. If I would have been doing it, I would have set it perfectly, but this is one of those times that I unfortunately had no control and only filmed it.
 
budha said:
Hello everyone. I just filmed a debate that had 4 mics being fed into a mixer. From the mixer, I had that running straight into my camera and into an MP3 recorder as well (for backup). What can I do to get everyone's levels similar? There is a bit of sound fluctuation from the different speakers and I wanted to try and get them to be a bit more similar. Any suggestions?

I have Soundtrack Pro 3 if it makes a difference.
Click to expand...

Once the mics are mixed you can't un-mix them and adjust their levels separately. If only one person is speaking at a time, you can go syllable by syllable and adjust the levels using the NLE mixer but if there's any overlap you're toast. Next time you need to mic four individuals, rent a 4 track recorder and record each mic isolated on its own channel. Never mix as you shoot if you can possibly avoid it.

Ok sorry I should have mentioned that I had no control over the mixer whatsoever. If I would have been doing it, I would have set it perfectly, but this is one of those times that I unfortunately had no control and only filmed it.
Click to expand...

Why didn't you have control of it? If you were just asked to come in and operate the camera, that would be one thing and it's the producer/director's job to make sure everyone else is doing theirs. But if you've been asked to actually make the video (and it sounds like you were since you're now responsible for post), then the buck stops with you and it's your job to make sure everything that goes into the video is done properly and everyone working on it does their job correctly. If someone else was actually handling sound, then it was your job to make sure they knew what to do and would actually do it and to get them replaced if they didn't.

FYI, mixing a live shoot is not something that you can ever "set perfectly" and then turn your attention to the camera. It requires an operator dedicated totally to the job of recording sound, keeping his hands on the mixer at all times, monitoring through phones, and keeping his complete concentration on what is happening every second of the take. The technology does not run on auto-pilot.
 
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Ok I think I need to be more specific again haha. I appreciate everyone putting in their input though. Is there any filter or effect that can take the levels and make the lower ones a tad higher while keeping the higher ones the same? If so, can you give a quick summary on the process w/ some numbers to key in?

I understand that there should be multiple people doing specific things, but this is how the shoot went, and I am wondering if I can somehow make this sound a bit better. It's a simple debate, it's not going on TV, and will be used as a podcast/YouTube type of video. This is probably a horrible analogy, but if a photographer somehow under or overexposes really bad, there is a way in RAW to bring it back to a someone decent level. Should he have gotten it right the first time? Absolutely, but he didn't, and now has to salvage it. That's kind of where I'm at.

Thanks!
 
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Ride the volume slider (or apply a gain filter) using automation in Sountrack Pro. So as the audio is playing you adjust the volume/gain and the app records the changes you've made. Then you can slap a compressor plugin to balance the level a bit. Depending on the quality of the recording you are dealing with this could solve it for you. You can read up on automation in the STP manual and find tutorials on how to use a compressor online.

FYI, it's very easy to make things sound worse with a compressor so do as much reading as possible before playing with it and keep your adjustments minor.
 
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