portable recorder set up for live concert recording

Tom Knight

Tom Knight

Active member
Hi,

This is my first new post.

I'm trying to figure out how to record audio for a live band concert video. I'll be videotaping a 1 hour set of music with two cameras, and then edit it down to 5 minutes of highlights. I have two dvx100b cameras.

I've done some other shoots like this, but my buddy did the audio. He set up an expensive pair of mics on a stand near the sound guy, and then EQed it in ProTools. Sounded great to me.

I'm hoping to do something similar, but use a portable stereo recorder like the Zoom H4n.

1. Should I get a feed off the board for the portable recorder, and then mix it with the camera mic for crowd noise?
2. Or should I place the portable recorder on a stand near the sound guy?
3. Or just spend the bucks and hire a sound guy of my own? (Since I'm a low budget production, I don't think I can do this.)

Thanks!
Tom
 
Taking a feed from the board is typically a bad idea unless you have the time and skills to set up an aux mix to feed the recorder. The mix for the house typically will not serve well for a recording mix because the FOH engineer is mixing what's coming electronically from the stage with acoustic energy being emitted directly from drums and guitar and bass amps. However, if you have the time and skill, this will result is the best quality. Sometimes you can also get the feed from the house mics which are typically used to send crowd sound back to the performers thru their in-ears. In this scenario, all the instruments must be miced, and ideally iso tracked so the final mix can be done in post. Anything less is a compromise.

Positioning two quality mics at FOH is probably the best way to capture the mix if iso tracking is not available, since this is typically what the FOH engineer is mixing to. The downside is it will also capture alot of crowd noise. Placing the mics higher (above the crown and/or closer to the FOH speakers will help, but you'll have to find a happy mix between what's coming out of the PA, and what's coming directly from the stage.

The least complicated, and producing the least level of professionalism, is placing the H4n, or something similar on a stand directly in front of, and above, the foh mix position.
 
gpforet said:
The least complicated, and producing the least level of professionalism, is placing the H4n, or something similar on a stand directly in front of, and above, the foh mix position.
Click to expand...

Thanks gpfloret for your reply.

Did you mean "least level of professionalism" here?

(By the way, what's "iso?")

I'm hoping there is something in between doing a multitrack mix, and using the internal camera mics. I'm hoping the H4n could be that solution.

- Tom
 
"Iso" is short for "isolation" track... which is any one source recorded to its own track.

Here's what I'd recommend: get a stereo room recording as previously discussed, but get a board feed as well. If you can work ahead of time with the FOH engineer to get a custom AUX mix, that's great. Chances are, that won't happen. Either the engineer is too busy, has no spare AUX channels, or just doesn't care. My money would be on either or both of the first two.

If you can get a recording from the house mix, you'll find that you have lots of vocals, quite a bit of acoustic instruments (like guitars), and very little of anything else. Electronic instruments (keyboard, electric guitar, bass) have amps on stage and carry themselves through the room, so they only get a minimal push in the FOH mix. Drums carry themselves without amplification, but from the board feed you'll get varying degrees of one or all the drums in the kit depending on the room and depending on the engineer.

In the recording from the room mics, the vocals and acoustic guitars are likely to be the things that get muddied the most. So by blending an ambient room recording with the board feed, you'll be able to get something much better than either of the parts could offer on their own. It's still nowhere close to multi-tracking and mixing the entire band later, but in a pinch it can get decent (not stellar, but decent) results.
 
Thanks Alex!

So to summarize, you recommend:
1. Getting a stereo feed off the board
2. Getting a stereo mix of the room.

And if I use the H4n, do you recommend I put it up high near the sound guy?

Yeah, I'm shooting for "decent." Actually, I'm shooting for "doesn't sound like crap." :)
 
You don't mention what kind of band you are recording. I've done a few acoustic groups, you can hear them at
http://vimeo.com/23063427
And
http://vimeo.com/23144117
And
http://m.youtube.com/index?desktop_uri=/&gl=US#/watch?v=W8Hvghh7wO4
And
http://m.youtube.com/index?desktop_uri=/&gl=US#/watch?v=KtI-uq8R1yo
And
http://m.youtube.com/index?desktop_uri=/&gl=US#/watch?v=wXa7et-VoL0

What I would say is that the board feed, while great, is often "dry" and needing some reverb and eq to make it more lively.

I always get a board feed, it's your ultimate backup. Some of my work is wild from my shotguns with room sound. It can work. And you can blend the two. Try adding 30% wild to a board feed. Unfortunately, so many bands these days are too loud, and the board is staffed by sound guys in the process of going deaf. True. No slam, but spending your life with bands wanting to be loud and louder leads to deaf and deafer. There is no escaping it. A good acoustic sound person s invaluable.
 
Hmmmm... really need to know a lot more about the venue, the type of music, etc. In smaller places, sometimes all the instruments are not even fed through the board. Sometimes the FOH position is not the best - and sometimes the worst - place to place your mics. A board feed is often a signal that's far from optimal... often it's set up in "opposition" to deficiencies of the speaker setup, the house acoustics, or even bizarre settings of a SoundWeb or something similar. So... test, test, test. If you can, go to the venue BEFORE you start this project, and get a feed of some other band to listen to; listen at various spots in the room and grab a brief recording of the promising ones, etc. Gte a sense of how loud the venue is, and if your equipment will handle it.


I wouldn't recommend the H4n, especially if you plan to blend it with camera sound, unless someone can confirm that it doesn't have the sync issues of all the other Zoom recorders.
 
8string said:
You don't mention what kind of band you are recording.
Click to expand...

I've been working with small bands playing folk/pop/country. They have a drum set, but a quiet one. The venue of the upcoming gig is fairly small.

8string said:
Try adding 30% wild to a board feed.
Click to expand...

I like this idea. Do you use a separate recorder for the board feed?

I was set on the H4n, but now am leaning toward the Tascam DR-100.
 
ullanta said:
I wouldn't recommend the H4n, especially if you plan to blend it with camera sound, unless someone can confirm that it doesn't have the sync issues of all the other Zoom recorders.
Click to expand...

Thinking about the Tascam DR-100 now.

I'm expecting the board feed to not have much bass or drums in it, so I'll definitely need to mic the room somehow.
 
8string said:
What I would say is that the board feed, while great, is often "dry" and needing some reverb and eq to make it more lively.
Click to expand...

When you're dealing with an all-acoustic group like the Vimeo vids you linked, the board feed is going to be much more usable on the whole, and at that point the room/ambient recording is just to fill out the "live" sound. But when you get into rock/pop/country where there are more amplified instruments and percussion, the board feed is going to be much less usable and the room recording is going to be needed to fill in much more than just the sound of the room.

8string said:
Try adding 30% wild to a board feed.
Click to expand...

That really depends on the band, the room recording, and the board feed. It could be 70/30, or 60/40, or 50/50, or...
 
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Record to camera. Better audio than H4n or DR-100.. and it'll be in sync.
 
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Here's an example of how I do it - main stereo out from the system into one camera, room sound on the other, and use both in post - getting the blend right helps the crowd sound better than they really were, and makes for a much more live sound - this is just a rough pre-edit before sorting out the images - just for approval.

 
Tom Knight said:
Oh no! Now I'm really confused!

What mic should I use to record to the camera?
Click to expand...

Since you're using the DVX100b, you can get good audio recording in-camera. It will also take line-level in, so you can record the board feed to one of the cameras. If you can get a stereo pair of 1/4" balanced (TRS) outs from the FOH console, use some 1/4">XLRM cables to connect. Set your camera to line-level in (switches on the front of the camera) before you connect and set levels.

As for the room, if you have a pair of condenser mics, you can set up an XY stereo pair and record to the other camera. Your other option would be to record the room to the H4n using its built-in mics. That, of course, means syncing second-system audio in post, which can be a bit tedious. It also means that you need to have some one monitoring the H4n as well.
 
Alex H. said:
Since you're using the DVX100b, you can get good audio recording in-camera. It will also take line-level in, so you can record the board feed to one of the cameras. If you can get a stereo pair of 1/4" balanced (TRS) outs from the FOH console, use some 1/4">XLRM cables to connect. Set your camera to line-level in (switches on the front of the camera) before you connect and set levels.

As for the room, if you have a pair of condenser mics, you can set up an XY stereo pair and record to the other camera. Your other option would be to record the room to the H4n using its built-in mics. That, of course, means syncing second-system audio in post, which can be a bit tedious. It also means that you need to have some one monitoring the H4n as well.
Click to expand...

Yes, this is basically what I was thinking. Using the H4n since I don't have condenser mics. Except now I'm thinking I should get the Tascam DR-100, because it sounds better and doesn't have drift.
 
Tom Knight said:
Yes, this is basically what I was thinking. Using the H4n since I don't have condenser mics. Except now I'm thinking I should get the Tascam DR-100, because it sounds better and doesn't have drift.
Click to expand...

Everything has drift, the Zooms are are just notoriously worse than others. I wouldn't count on mixing, say, a drum kit recorded on two different devices, be they audio recorders or cameras, to get the overall recorded sound for any continuous amount of time. If one is there just for audience sound, you have a lot more leeway.

The camera sound will NOT be better than any halfway decent external recorder... Might not be NOTICEABLY worse, depending on the situation, but not better.

Test test test!
Barry
 
I'd say that the pre-amps in the DVX are better than the pre-amps in the Zoom. External recorders are certainly better at a certain level, but the DVX has long been known to have some of the best in-camera recording available.
 
Alex H. said:
I'd say that the pre-amps in the DVX are better than the pre-amps in the Zoom. External recorders are certainly better at a certain level, but the DVX has long been known to have some of the best in-camera recording available.
Click to expand...

Very long... I'm not sure that's been tested against more recent cameras! But I recorded for years simultaneously to DVX, ProTools, and original MicroTrack... and there was no comparison when levels needed to be raised in post. The DVX was OK when the levels were perfect, but quickly degraded when they were raised in post. Even the MicroTrack provided a much better result. The issue is not so much the preamps as the overall electrical noise level that will be present in any camera...

I haven't surveyed the market lately, but five or six years ago any dedicated recorder was superior to the DVX. The DVX was GREAT as far as a camcorder goes, and so got a reputation for being better than dedicated audio devices... that was never really true. There are a lot more handheld recorders out now... I sure hope the overall quality level hasn't dropped so significantly!

If I were buying a recorder at that price level today, yeah, I guess I'd go for the Tascam... but I haven't tried it!
 
Agreed. These were meant to be generalizations .every room, band and sound system is unique. The op didn't specify the type of band, or anything much that could be of use. He wants answers but the questions need reading. A lot. People care coming up with swags. (silly wild ass guesses.)

Tom, you might want to get Jay rose's books on audio for video. Really " the bible" on these subjects.


Originally Posted by 8string

It was said:
What I would say is that the board feed, while great, is often "dry" and needing some reverb and eq to make it more lively.
When you're dealing with an all-acoustic group like the Vimeo vids you linked, the board feed is going to be much more usable on the whole, and at that point the room/ambient recording is just to fill out the "live" sound. But when you get into rock/pop/country where there are more amplified instruments and percussion, the board feed is going to be much less usable and the room recording is going to be needed to fill in much more than just the sound of the room.

Originally Posted by 8string
Try adding 30% wild to a board feed.
That really depends on the band, the room recording, and the board feed. It could be 70/30, or 60/40, or 50/50, or...
 
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