Recently a friend asked me to help record a forum discussion he had arranged. I talked to the sound guy and he gave me a line to record my audio. They had a wireless mic which was going round the speakers, now someone in the audience asked a question which was audible to everyone in the room, and i didn't think about it until i put the files into FCPX for sync, only to find that the question being answered was not there. I had to salvage it from the camera audio which does not match the quality. How do you experts normaly go about avoiding this happening and how do you solve it when it happens.
Problem Forum Discussion
- Thread starter qap15
- Start date
The camera recorded the audio, the problem is that i was recording parallel to an Edirol R-44, the audio from the Edirol is so clear that trying to insert the camera audio just spoils the whole thing. Monitering would not help me because the camera recorded what it is able to record, which is not as clean as the dedicated audio from mixer-Edirol-mic combination.
Wait...what?
Let me make sure I understand this correctly.
Audio was run to the R-44 and not the camera. You monitored the audio on your camera, and not the R-44?...so when you went to plug in the audio in FCP is when you realized the questions being asked weren't being run to the R-44?
If this is correct, then it sounds like you might have been getting an AUX send from the mixer, and the wireless mic used for the questions wasn't sent to it, thus it didn't make it to your recorder.
To avoid this, ALWAYS have headphones plugged into your audio recorder and actually look at the audio meters during recording. If you do these two things you'll know right away if there is a problem. Make sure before the thing starts that everything is set up correctly. I can't stress monitoring your audio recorder enough. This is basic production audio recording 101 stuff. If you are not able to do so, then you need a sound person that can.
As far as how to fix it...there isn't much you can do in terms of making it sound like the higher quality stuff. What I would do is add the camera audio really low in the mix and then just subtitle it. I've seen that done lots of times in the type of setting you are talking about.
Noiz2
Sound Ninja
You NEED to monitor the audio you are planning on using. In your case it seems this was the R-44. That is how "pros" avoid your problem they listen so they know there is a problem and can fix it. And they would have run a sound check to make sure everything was working before they started recording.
David is probably right about what happened to your signal. But that is why you do a sound check BEFORE the shoot. Then you would have found that the wireless was not in your feed and the mixer could have fixed it.
David is probably right about what happened to your signal. But that is why you do a sound check BEFORE the shoot. Then you would have found that the wireless was not in your feed and the mixer could have fixed it.
Sorry, i think i'm not describing the situation in a right way. The wireless was ok, the problem is that the person who asked the question did not wait for the wireless to be handed to him, he just shouted his question without the mic(about 10 meters away), so the camera mics got the audio but not clearly. I was asking this because this seem to me as an experience issue, i'e how does one audio-cover a non contributing audience incase one suddenly interjects without the presence of a mic amongst them?
Im doing a show exactly like that tomorrow (a medical forum)..... there will be a separate mix for the video side of things TOTALLY independant from the PA mix.
We are using 2x handheld RF mics for the forum main speakers out front and 2x 4m boom poles with 416 mics on them with operators to get the audience questions. So a sound crew of 5 people. (PA, Video Mix, Boom 1, Boom 2 and back stage tech)
Some of the alternate ways of doing the audience questions are RF SM58's on boom poles (taped into the clips so they can't be removed) and then passed to the person asking the question, they hold the mic but its still attached to the pole so it can be passed onto the next person. This method works well in heated or political forums.
Just passing a single RF mic around just doesn't work as you will always get a 'Mic Hog'
With an audience 150+ putting 2-4 RF mics on stands in the isles where people move to the mic to be able to speak.
Its always good to 'color' code the mics some way with colored foam pop filters etc to enable easy identification on the screen.
Then if ALL of these options don't work get the forum main people speaking REPEAT the question asked by the audience member, that way it confirms the question as well it give you good audio.
We are using 2x handheld RF mics for the forum main speakers out front and 2x 4m boom poles with 416 mics on them with operators to get the audience questions. So a sound crew of 5 people. (PA, Video Mix, Boom 1, Boom 2 and back stage tech)
Some of the alternate ways of doing the audience questions are RF SM58's on boom poles (taped into the clips so they can't be removed) and then passed to the person asking the question, they hold the mic but its still attached to the pole so it can be passed onto the next person. This method works well in heated or political forums.
Just passing a single RF mic around just doesn't work as you will always get a 'Mic Hog'
With an audience 150+ putting 2-4 RF mics on stands in the isles where people move to the mic to be able to speak.
Its always good to 'color' code the mics some way with colored foam pop filters etc to enable easy identification on the screen.
Then if ALL of these options don't work get the forum main people speaking REPEAT the question asked by the audience member, that way it confirms the question as well it give you good audio.
Last edited:
Richard Crowley
Veteran
If you have pre-produciton planning and a coherent speaker/moderator, ask them to repeat the question, both for the audience and for the recording. This is my go-to solution as I have had poor to zero luck with other solutions.
As a "repair" in post production, you can voice-over the question/comment or put sub-titles on the screen.
Yes..ALWAYS try to get the person answering the questions if most people can't hear the question.
Allan Black
Veteran
+2 but check out the speaker/moderator first. We once had a jet lagged expert who'd been on the sauce the night before
and couldn't even remember his room number.
We saw him coming and staged someone in the audience with a roving mic. (Actually this guy was Walter Cronkite and he eventually pulled himself together)
But what that does is smarten the whole thing up, ppl put their hands up in advance and inane and stupid questions are likely to get filtered out.
Cheers.
and couldn't even remember his room number.
We saw him coming and staged someone in the audience with a roving mic. (Actually this guy was Walter Cronkite and he eventually pulled himself together)
But what that does is smarten the whole thing up, ppl put their hands up in advance and inane and stupid questions are likely to get filtered out.
Cheers.
Rick R
Veteran
In my 15+ yr. tenure of doing professional educational seminars, I put two room mics to pick up 'what I can' and put an official printed notice on the lecturn and speakers table to remind them to PLEASE REPEAT AUDIENCE QUESTIONS. In my experience... Verbally instructing speakers to repeat questions, 'goes in-one-ear-and-out-the-other. Furtherrmore, even when there are Q&A mic/stands, there's always idiots in the audience who won't use em'.
Example:
Example:
Jim Ritscher
Well-known member
If you see an audience member starting to talk before they are handed the wireless mike, just break in and say, "We're recording this. Wait until you get the mic." If you say it in a calm, friendly and confident way, people will follow the instruction.