Live band recording . . .

bustak

bustak

Well-known member
I'm going to be shooting a death metal band at a small club in a couple of weeks, & I am wondering what would be the best way to get the cleanest audio from my 2 audio options.

1) using my AT897 shotgun mic mounted on the camera
2) the built in stereo mic on the DVX100b

The visuals are the main reason I'm taping the show, but I would like to give the band something 1/2 way decent audio wise.

Also seeing how it's a death metal band & the music is going to be loud as H*LL! What would I have to watch for to avoid over modulation, or would keeping an eye on the audio levels & adjusting the amount of audio coming into the camera be the key to avoiding that problem?

Thanx in advance!:thumbup:
 
Can you possibly feed off from their mixer? Just get the line out of their mixer into your camera or a separate recorder. Have your AT897 recording the room.
 
Alan H. Chang said:
Can you possibly feed off from their mixer? Just get the line out of their mixer into your camera or a separate recorder. Have your AT897 recording the room.
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That's a good idea, but the club wants me to be as less intrusive as possible, so I wont have access to the mixer. My 2 options are the shotgun & the DVX100b mic.

Thanx for the idea though! :)
 
If they want decent audio, then they should allow you to get the feed from their mixer. This is the best way to even record this kind of environment. The Rock music is going to be extremely loud for your DVX100B and your AT897. It might even overload your mic and damage it. If these are your only two options, then use the AT897 mounted on top and record the live room. The AT897 is not intended for this situation, but use whatever you have. See if you have a friend who has a dynamic mic.
 
Alan H. Chang said:
If they want decent audio, then they should allow you to get the feed from their mixer. This is the best way to even record this kind of environment. The Rock music is going to be extremely loud for your DVX100B and your AT897. It might even overload your mic and damage it. If these are your only two options, then use the AT897 mounted on top and record the live room. The AT897 is not intended for this situation, but use whatever you have. See if you have a friend who has a dynamic mic.
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We're going to use the club footage for a music video, that's going to have studio music as the soundtrack. I just want to document the performance, & give them a somewhat good live audio track from the concert.

That really makes me concerned that the music could cause possible damage to my mics. I did a google search & didn't come up w/ anything, is that common, or a worst case situation, but more & likely not happen.

Thanks for your advice & insight!
 
i just recorded a rock band this evening w/ the built-in mic. while the sound meter never went pas 1 red mark, and the overal levels are actually kinda low, the mics did get overloaded quit a bit by drums and bass. i guess its just the physical limitation of the mics .. levels cant fix that
 
Another option is to see if they're using IEM's. Quite often there will be a separate mixer that is sending some sort of mix to the band - maybe they will let you tag on that mixer. Not even remotely ideal in terms of getting the "live performance" sound, but it will give you a much better matching track for the music video because they can isolate the vocals for you.

As far as the 897 goes, I wouldn't sweat it. I doubt you'll hurt it. My 897 (which I consider my throw-away, meaning, if I break it I trash it) has been through hell and back, and is still delivering. I recently used mine to record a Taiko performance where I was really close to the drums (too close) and didn't even end up with a blow out. Get to the venue early or the day before and see if there is somewhere you can mount the 897 mid-room up, so you get the widest coverage.

Phil
 
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I'm looking at buying one of these puppies (24bit-192kHz-smpte) cause this is the only way to go. You might be able to rent on of these locally to try out. It depends on what camera your shooting with, weather it outputs smpte.:)

http://www.djmart.com/tascam-hd-p2-portable-stereo-recorder.html
 
ptalsky said:
[...]
As far as the 897 goes, I wouldn't sweat it. I doubt you'll hurt it. My 897 (which I consider my throw-away, meaning, if I break it I trash it) has been through hell and back, and is still delivering. I recently used mine to record a Taiko performance where I was really close to the drums (too close) and didn't even end up with a blow out. Get to the venue early or the day before and see if there is somewhere you can mount the 897 mid-room up, so you get the widest coverage.

Phil
Click to expand...

Hmm..
I bought my Sennheiser ME66 a little over a year ago, and I've used it for two very loud concerts. Didn't work out at all, the recorded sound turned out to be totally useless.
You think I might have damaged my mic? How can I find out? I'm absolutely no audio expert.
 
Any sound that would damage a mic, would most likely damage you as well. I wouldn't put it on my list of things to worry about. FWIW, I recorded a couple of shows with my DVX100B, and the onboard mics distort pretty quickly so they really arent the best choice, but neither is a shotgun, so if you can't get a board recording, just use the onboard mics and live with the crummy audio :)
 
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