Mixing for Live Webcast

[Rippie]

I'm understanding that web feed stand for webcast feed, the question was about the particularity of the left channel to be appropriate for web feed whilst the right one is not.

It's strictly an option for you if you needed to create a submix of more than 1 mic to a track on your recorder.
If all your pan positions on the mixers are to the left, and you use your left output to feed the webcast that would mean everything is going to the webcast.
Now if you took a channel on the 2nd mixer and panned it to the center it would also be going out the right output which you could feed to the recorder as an iso or a submix.
Not saying you need to do that, just giving options.

Ex:
Track 1 on the 744 - Final mix out of the 2nd mixer
Track 2 - iso out of channel 1 on the 2nd mixer which would give you all table top mics or whatever the mic's on the 1st mixer are.
Track 3- iso out of channel 2
Track 4- panning just channels 3 and 4 to the center and using the right output to feed track 4 on the recorder.

Of course you could just use the iso's for 3 mic's and a final mix if thats what you decide you need most.
Once again if any of this seems confusing, go with the most simple way that makes sense. Just giving different ways to
jury rig your existing gear to make this work.

Personally my biggest concern using your existing gear is the final limiter in the film tech who's signal is being sent to the webcast.
Is the film tech limiter adjustable so you can make it kick in right where you need it too?
You do say there is another person monitoring the actual webcast so that will help. I do suggest if he isn't in the same room with you
that you figure out communication to him during the show in case any issues come up via PL line, walkie etc.

 

[Alan H. Chang]

There is work, but like I said, the pay ain't great so some soundies take what they can get which lowers the standard pay rate, thus setting the standard lower than what it should.

An understatement!

 

[Rippie]

....You almost have to invest an extra $20,000 worth of multitrack equipment and wires just to make $250 a day.

The nice thing about investing in quality sound equipment is while the original investment stings
all the years you have it you're making some kind of rental off of it. As long as you sell wisely (before a piece of gear goes obsolete)
when you go to sell it you're making most of your money back. So in the end combining rental and re-sale you usually end up turning a nice profit.

Don't feel bad about mixing to 2 track. At least in my situation if you're not doing a film or reality 90% of the remaining work I'm going straight to camera.

 

[Artkoudos]

It's strictly an option for you if you needed to create a submix of more than 1 mic to a track on your recorder.
If all your pan positions on the mixers are to the left, and you use your left output to feed the webcast that would mean everything is going to the webcast.
Now if you took a channel on the 2nd mixer and panned it to the center it would also be going out the right output which you could feed to the recorder as an iso or a submix.
Not saying you need to do that, just giving options.

Ex:
Track 1 on the 744 - Final mix out of the 2nd mixer
Track 2 - iso out of channel 1 on the 2nd mixer which would give you all table top mics or whatever the mic's on the 1st mixer are.
Track 3- iso out of channel 2
Track 4- panning just channels 3 and 4 to the center and using the right output to feed track 4 on the recorder.

Of course you could just use the iso's for 3 mic's and a final mix if thats what you decide you need most.
Once again if any of this seems confusing, go with the most simple way that makes sense. Just giving different ways to
jury rig your existing gear to make this work.

Personally my biggest concern using your existing gear is the final limiter in the film tech who's signal is being sent to the webcast.
Is the film tech limiter adjustable so you can make it kick in right where you need it too?
You do say there is another person monitoring the actual webcast so that will help. I do suggest if he isn't in the same room with you
that you figure out communication to him during the show in case any issues come up via PL line, walkie etc.

Initially I thought that there was a weird spec of the 442's left channel, that I haven't heard off and enables some features/settings (limiter/comprosser) especially for broadcast and webcast situations but I guess it was just a "lost in translation situation"

I guess there are always loads of options of how you can route your outputs on situations like this. I was thinking of using direct outs from the filmtech to the 744 so I can give them more options on post for the promo/trailer that will come afterwards and then use the Hirose out for the vision mixer and the xlr left and right for syncing reasons on one of the cameras. In that case I can have everything panned on one side on the 1st mixer, feed Filmtech's 1st channel and then everything on the center since I'm giving stereo tracks. What you say will work as well and will need less cabling etc since a mono track would be exactly the same as a stereo feed. Keep it simple less cables, less equipment to carry around.

The output Limiters on the Filmtech are unfortunately not adjustable but they do handle a lot of signal before elements start occurring... I will have to be quite careful with the signal on this job. I'm wondering if there could be any mod so that the output limiters can be adjustable on the Filmtech. I love the sound of this mixer, really warm, full on, it has amazingly loads of juice and it gives you so many options on routing and monitoring. The only problem that I have with it is that its a tad too big for on the shoulder jobs but I've got used to it quite quickly.

The webcast guy will be in the same room and quite close to me so we'll be able to communicate well and run a lot of tests. There will be a couple of rehearsals as far as I know so I'm positive that we will find a good balance.

Final question. I'm only very new with the 744 and have not gone through all its features yet but couldn't I use it in the same way as the 442 and set up the output limiters on it to kick in when I need them ?? In that case I could use the 744 output for the web cast.

Again thanks for all the info...

 

[Pete@twenty7pix]

The nice thing about investing in quality sound equipment is while the original investment stings
all the years you have it you're making some kind of rental off of it. As long as you sell wisely (before a piece of gear goes obsolete)
when you go to sell it you're making most of your money back. So in the end combining rental and re-sale you usually end up turning a nice profit.

Don't feel bad about mixing to 2 track. At least in my situation if you're not doing a film or reality 90% of the remaining work I'm going straight to camera.

I don't feel bad about mixing down to a production track (film/TV) or 2 track (straight to camera). Most of the indie productions here don't have much for post production, if any, so giving them one solid production track is better than 4-8 ISO tracks and letting some other editor or mixer "mix" my track for me.

 

[Artkoudos]

Hello guys,

Just my feedback now that I came back from the job. I faced a lot of different weird problems and all sorts of dis-functional equipment including a radio mic, a failing channel on my mixer and one faulty input on the webcast mixer but at the end and after trying many different setups it all went well. I was quite cautious with my levels but I could do well with an outboard compressor/limiter unit.

Regarding the conversation about the stereo mixing and the 4-8 iso tracks. Both setups have their purposes but I think it always good to leave more options for the post even if there is not much budget. If there is no budget at all then a solid mix is what you need but even when I only have 2 channels or only going to camera I still might try to send the boom on one channel and a radio or a couple on the other channel just so they have the option to choose which track they will use later on or to go in and replace a line if there were any weird noises or whatever. Just give them that extra possibility to go in and tweak something if needed.

It's not always nice to see your tracks mixed badly after you got good results on the set but there is not much we can do about this part of the procedure.