Live Audio!

[spunkme99]

I was looking over old posts, needed direction on this rock show I'm filming on saturday.

Second time I've done this band, the first time the audio sucked. What I did was ran a line from the board to my cam. But only the drums and vocals really came out. XLR to my DVX to channel 2 and used channel 1 for the on board mic. Is it because I didn't run two lines to each channel (for stereo) that the sound was so bad?

I found an older post saying that sound from the board is actually hit or miss, it might totally suck because the levels are in reverse (?) the louder instruments quieter and lighter instruments louder.

I don't know what to do. And my client wants to hire a sound guy for better sound, but what use will that be if I run a line and it's a gamble? If he hires someone and the sound is still bad on the DVD....

I was going to put two mics on a cam in the back of this club to help with this audio situation also. My brother will be monitoring that. But I don't know how much that will help in the big picture. I've heard about recording to a DAT, which I don't have. Recording to a laptop, which I don't have.

WHAT DO I DO?

 

[ptalsky]

WHAT DO I DO?

Search the archives! This has been discussed many times.

The mix from the board is not reversed, it is being mixed for the speakers and the room acoustics, not for video capture.

There are many techniques, all of the complex, and very few (if any) that involve microphones on your camera.

Phil

 

[SMuir]

I don't know what to do. And my client wants to hire a sound guy for better sound, but what use will that be if I run a line and it's a gamble? If he hires someone and the sound is still bad on the DVD....

Well, that's why you hire a good sound person. Find someone who's done this before, and they'll be able to anticipate issues before they become problems.

Consider recording to a multi-track recorder (eg. DA-88), and taking the 8 (or more) tracks to a re-recording mixer in post. When you keep different instruments (and crowd mics) on different tracks, you'll be able to propperly mix them to suit a home theatre environment. You'll be obliged to record double-system, though, with all the usual synch issues. Furthermore, timecode-enabled multitracks are significantly more costly than non-timecode models, although you can record audable TC onto one of the tracks (beware cross-track audio leak). It is also an excellent idea to run a stereo mix-down into one or more of your cameras.

You should probably approach this situation as a live album with cameras attached, rather than as a video shoot with live music.