Need Sound Help (no pun intended) with a Small Concert Shoot

P

Prather Productions

Member
I recently have started using a DVX100A and have a sort of test shoot this Friday for a small group (I believe trio) at a small church. There will be a small audience in attendance. I have the following for sound equipment at the moment: Azden SGM2X shotgun, Audio Technica 2020 condenser, Shure 57 and some other dynamics, assorted stands/cables, and a Behringer 802 mixer. Unfortunately, NO DIGITAL RECORDER yet. Any suggestions for my line 1 and 2 of my DVX?


I was thinking of getting a Zoom R16 Digital Recorder and snake soon to handle multi track recording/mixing to use for editing in future shoots.


Thanks!... Awesome board, I will be reading for hours and hours I can tell!


Dave
 
Prather Productions said:
I recently have started using a DVX100A and have a sort of test shoot this Friday for a small group (I believe trio) at a small church. There will be a small audience in attendance. I have the following for sound equipment at the moment: Azden SGM2X shotgun, Audio Technica 2020 condenser, Shure 57 and some other dynamics, assorted stands/cables, and a Behringer 802 mixer. Unfortunately, NO DIGITAL RECORDER yet. Any suggestions for my line 1 and 2 of my DVX?


I was thinking of getting a Zoom R16 Digital Recorder and snake soon to handle multi track recording/mixing to use for editing in future shoots.


Thanks!... Awesome board, I will be reading for hours and hours I can tell!


Dave
Click to expand...

What do you mean by "trio"?

Is this classical, jazz or pop music?

If it's classical I would sling a stereo pair on a catenary across the church with a simple stereo pair (ORTF, MS or Jecklin Disk).

For decent mics at a low price, consider the Røde NT5 stereo pair (you can add omni heads for these later if you need them) or the Sontronics ST-1S (stereoset), again you can add omni heads (or super-cardioid as well) at a later date. Both these are good quality affordable (ie: inexpensive).

For an inexpensive recorder I would go for the Tascam DR-680 - excellent quality for the price and 6-channels.

I hope this helps.
 
Those Sontronics microphones look very interesting, John... I've never had a chance to use them, but they look great in Tape Op Magazine!

Yes, Dave, it would be helpful to know exactly what you're trying to record (what genre and what instrumentation), in order to give you a better response.

GJ
 
One group is 3 vocals and another group is small but with vocals and 2-3 instuments. Type southern gospel (no electric guitar or drums) I believe. Also, I now have a Zoom R16 mixer/recorder and 16x4x100ft. snake in addition to my At2020 condenser, Azden SGM-2X sotgun, and several Shure/Behringer dynamics! Speakers Bose L1 Model 2 Tower System is on church stage. In a quandry about recording several channals simultaneously with the Zoom or going simple. Since this is kind of one big experiment for me to learn, maybe try a couple of different things???

Sorry for my confusion, just getting started with this whole thing and this is not for pay Friday.

Thanks guys.

Dave
 
Do you know anything about mixing sound "live?" Have you recorded any multi-track work before? Have you ever mixed music for the stage or in the studio?

You would definitely have more control with a multi-track recording of individual instruments and vocals, BUT, if you have zero experience doing something like this, I'd go very simple and do a two microphone stereo recording. Google/research "spaced pair" (there are other, perhaps better approaches, but again, if this is your first time, you want a good, basic, distortion-free recording that you can lock to picture; I wouldn't worry too much about an intricate multi-mix).

Do you have another AT2020? (Or can you access/borrow/rent one?)... Two matched microphones that are either large-diaphragm condensers or small diaphragm condensers ("pencil mikes") would be the best approach, somewhere back from the stage, giving you a good stereo "picture." I'd ditch the shotgun on this one (other than maybe for camera reference audio to match your stereo track to later). If you have two matching dynamics, that would be better than a mis-match of the AT mike and a dynamic for stereo (but not nearly as good as two matching condensers), BUT, you could also do a multiple mike thing (two or three microphones in different places in the room), and experiment with mixing down to mono later (but be careful of delay/phasing issues)...

I'm assuming that you are only recording, and that for your video only, not as a stand-alone recording or for sound-reinforcement/PA in the live room, yes?
The PA thing is a whole different set-up...

GJ
 
Oh, I _think_ what Doc might have been intimating in his post was that if the church has someone running live sound, you might be able to simply tap-out from their board or PA head, and not worry about any microphones at all. Maybe you can talk to somebody about getting a stereo feed...

GJ
 
Thanks Gregg for your input. My father-in-law who happens to be one of the groups playing is setting up a sound board/speakers/amp/moniters and now the idea is to split off of that into the zoom r16. He's planning using 8 channels (all mics). I'm bringing 8 xlr Y splitters so I can go in with the digital recording 8 channel. I'll use the shotgun on board cam with a clap to line up tracks, I guess. Done work in the past with snakes and amplified sound boards/mixers, but not alot. Just kind of interested in putting the video with multiple audio tracks on Avid in post and fooling around. Also, you're right, a second AT2020 and keeping it simple would be smart probably for now.
 
Just be sure you have proper splitters, as just a Y cable is the wrong thing to use as it will definitely effect input impedance on both PA and recorder, get transformer isolated splitters as this will keep every piece of gear seeing the proper impedance as well as isolating the Phantom power.
 
Running through a 22 ga. 100ft. snake and then splitting would not give enough impedance to recorder and PA soundboard you think? Rut ro... Would these amped splitters be individual for each channel?... that sounds expensive. Thanks.
 
Proper splitters keep balanced devices from doing odd things due to imbalance in impedance, as well as giving you a true electronic isolation from each device. not to mention that a basic Y will feed phantom from one input to the other devices input.

look at brands like : Rapco, Whirlwind, ProCo, even Horizon, there are expensive ones that use Jensen transformers but there is also budget ones as well.

Good luck
 
ART makes a rack-mounted 8-in/8X8 (16) out splitter; I think under $200(?)... If you buy separate splitter boxes (they look like DI boxes, but a little bigger with two XLR outs, one which is transformer isolated so it won't pass phantom), it may get a little expensive, but recordingwhiz is right, you want isolated splitters if you can get them.

GJ
 
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