Quality question -- Feeding audio directly into camera

J

jthabel

Well-known member
So, I'm biting the bullet on my next project and hiring a dedicated production sound mixer. Started talking to one guy who had a fair amount of experience, and I conveyed to him that, because of workflow reasons, I intended to feed audio straight into the camera (via my XLR connections) during our shoot. He then proceeded to tell me how that was a bad idea from a quality perspective, how I could get superior audio if I fed the audio to an external recorder, then used software to sync sound in post, etc etc. I've been using a boom operator for years, feeding audio straight into my cam (a Canon C100), and while I've encountered the occasional issue in specific environments, the audio quality from this cam has always been pretty stellar. In fact, one of the big reasons I'm using this camera (and not a DSLR) is because of it's audio capabilities.

SO, my question -- how much of a "quality hit" am I really looking at here? This is a narrative short film, probably single mic, mostly recording dialogue, and my intention was to employ a production sound mixer to monitor/clean up sound between the boom and the camera (with the help of mixer HW), but I think I'm maybe being oversold on the external recorder thing. Yeah, no doubt it'd be a higher bit rate and I'd have more DR to play with in post, but how much of a real-world hit are we talkin'?
 
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jthabel said:
...I intended to feed audio straight into the camera (via my XLR connections) during our shoot. He then proceeded to tell me how that was a bad idea from a quality perspective, how I could get superior audio if I fed the audio to an external recorder, then used software to sync sound in post, etc etc.
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Your audio guy is just telling you the truth. If you don't believe him, why are you hiring him? Why would you hire a guy for his expertise and then ignore what you're paying for?
 
If it was a DSRL, I would advise against recording to the camera as well.
However, a 'real' video camera like the C100/300 has better audio than the typical DSRL.. maybe as good as a POS Zoom, and certainly decent if being fed line level by good quality mics, preamps and a competent sound person. Having the camera tethered by cable is another issue if your doing a lot of H/H work. You'll really have to weigh the pros and cons. If the sound person has a pro level recorder, by all means do a double system.
 
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A double system is great if you have the post time and skills to deal with it and it is required to counteract a poor camera recording system such as a DSLR but I always record audio straight to my camera as it may be all that is required and an external recorder is there as a back-up or to provide individual iso tracks but if the project does not have the time and budget to deal with them it may be more problematic than it is worth.
 
Bruce Watson said:
Your audio guy is just telling you the truth. If you don't believe him, why are you hiring him? Why would you hire a guy for his expertise and then ignore what you're paying for?
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Bruce, it’s not that I don’t believe the guy. Like I said, it’s not just a quality issue. It’s a workflow issue. And also an expense issue. My DP could just as quickly tell me to use a different camera, because the internal codec is inferior to others, and I’ll get a better image off a RED. But I don’t have a RED. I have a C100.

He wants to charge me to rent the external recorder. Sure, I think it’ll produce better sound, but how much better and is it going to be an incredibly big difference from what the C100 preamp can offer. I’m not particularly keen on separating audio and video and having to sync it up in post, I don’t have a huge budget to rent every piece of HW under the sun, so it’s a question of cost vs reward. For the record, I still think it’d be a benefit to hire the guy, and use his mixer (and expertise).
 
The Pro Audio guy is right - but only up to a point.
YES, using a pro quality dedicated recorder will give the best results.
YES, the audio recording quality on DSLR's isn't all that great.

BUT - on a C100/300 it really is a different story. And he needs to be clear about that.

Also, WHAT you are recording makes a difference. If you are really just recording interview or documentary style dialog then the C100/300 is absolutely fine for recordings in that frequency range.

If this is a narrative/movie where subtleties in dialog and ambient sound may be important then 'maybe' the C100/300 audio could be eclipsed by a good separate recorder. Maybe.

It could be settled hardcore in about 10 minutes: Do a test run. Set up the rigs and do a quick test recording, throw both the external and the camera audio tracks in the computer and stick your faces in the speakers. Turn off the video and just listen to the audio.
My prediction: If you blind A/B the two tracks - no one will be able to tell the difference.
IF you can't - Solved.
IF you can - Solved.

My money's on "Can't".
 
YOU are hiring him so he has to understand what your workflow and budget is not what he thinks is best!

I have met many recordists who merrily record umpteen ISO tracks and give what they call a scratch mix for guide by many fail to answer my basic question of how you monitor and listen to those ISO tracks and make sure that what I have is valid audio?

It is also far easier for a recordist to mix and monitor to give valid audio and stop a take than finding that you have lots of un-useable tracks weeks later and an editor who is failing to find the good takes or an audio post dept who is working blind trying to piece together useable audio to then request ADR.

Every project is different and applying sep sound and feature film production techniques to everything is not a fix all for most productions.
 
It also depends on the final product and what it's going to be used for.
If you were shooting a corporate video or something that had a shelf life of a few months the C100 is absolutely "good enough".

For a narrative short, I would have to agree with the potential sound guy and push for double system.
Lots of other reasons besides "quality". I wouldn't want to be tied to the camera dept, not only because of them possibly messing something up
but also because I wouldn't want to get in their way. They have enough on their plate.
I'd slap a receiver on the camera whether it was a comtek/lectro ifb or an actual decent wireless system and leave them alone.
 
DPStewart said:
The Pro Audio guy is right - but only up to a point.
YES, using a pro quality dedicated recorder will give the best results.
YES, the audio recording quality on DSLR's isn't all that great.

BUT - on a C100/300 it really is a different story. And he needs to be clear about that.

Also, WHAT you are recording makes a difference. If you are really just recording interview or documentary style dialog then the C100/300 is absolutely fine for recordings in that frequency range.

If this is a narrative/movie where subtleties in dialog and ambient sound may be important then 'maybe' the C100/300 audio could be eclipsed by a good separate recorder. Maybe.

It could be settled hardcore in about 10 minutes: Do a test run. Set up the rigs and do a quick test recording, throw both the external and the camera audio tracks in the computer and stick your faces in the speakers. Turn off the video and just listen to the audio.
My prediction: If you blind A/B the two tracks - no one will be able to tell the difference.
IF you can't - Solved.
IF you can - Solved.

My money's on "Can't".
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I've never worked with the c100, but I'm guessing that in 90 percent of the use cases, recording audio in the camera is fine and makes sure you don't have sync issues. Just about all professional cameras are recording 48khz audio at 16bits, many are now doing 24bits or better. If 96khz/32bit audio is a must, I'd still want a good scratch track on the camera. But if I was needing audio like that, I'd probably send the edited video and multiple tracks of audio to a specialist to be mixed properly.
 
I will make a bet that the sound person you are intending to use doesn't have a mixer at all...... He will only have a recorder that does discreet tracks.
So by charging more for ISO recording he is taking the easy way out and making more profit for himself and adds to post production costs.

Simple question to put to him is 'what mixer does he have?' And see what his answer is, then come back with his answer...
ISO tracks increase you work load and reduces his..

The Cannon c100 has great audio facilities.
 
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The difference between hiring an audio pro who will have the right microphones and know how to use them will make a bigger improvement in your recorded tracks than the difference between recording on a little plastic Zoom recorder vs. recording a proper line-level signal directly to your C100. If you said your camera was some DSLR with 3.5mm stereo mic input, I wouldn't say that.
 
I may ruffle some feathers here, but a lot of audio guys(I didn't say all) like to squeeze in as much "extras" as they can just to bump their rates up as opposed to the production REALLY needing it/benefitting from it. Is he lying? No. But is the cost vs. reward worth it? My opinion is no. Now if you need multi-track ISO recording or safety back-up, that's a completely different story.

As you said, you don't really have the post workflow/budget to deal with separate audio tracks. That's a very legitimate problem and he should understand that instead of trying to strong arm you into doing something that is not in the best interest of your project, overall(meaning production AND post). I shoot mostly network/broadcast and one of my mixers is a SD 664 and we almost always ISO record when using it(a lot of times just as back-up and if there were no issues we don't give them to them especially in just one to two mic situations). And it's rare when the ISO tracks are actually used, because of their workflow. They have two mixed tracks already married to the video and they just go with that. Sometimes they SHOULD go with the iso's, I did a three cam, four person shoot last year and they used the camera mix, because their post process usually precludes it(my nice way of saying lazy editors 90% of the time).
 
Might I suggest... A second opinion!

Get a second bid from another sound mixer. Tell them exactly what you are up to, and what your budget restraints are.

You might just find a mixer with all the gear willing to record second to their recorder as well was provide the camera hop without any further rental cost.
 
Some have mentioned this, but some are just assuming you are doing what they are. The answer to your question starts, as most things in film do, from the end. What kind of film are you doing, how professional does it need to be.

IF you are not planning on spending for a real sound post then the answer to the second is going to be heavily influenced by your answer to the first. If you are doing a Narrative film and you don't do a real sound post the "professionalines" of the film is going to be severely affected.

On a narrative film your post sound folks, if they are any good, will want iso tracks. The mix tracks have any mistakes baked in and you can't undo that. However since you are under the impression that your mixer is going to be able to do "clean up" live I have my doubts that you are doing sound post worth the name.

If you are not doing a sound post then the picture editor won't, generally, want the iso tracks and in most cases won't know what to do with them. I was hired once to salvage some sound on a film because it had horrible phasey problems and they were sure it was the wireless that had screwed up and that "stupid" production mixer "ruined it all and charged me for it". Actually the production mixer gave them boom on one track and lav on the other and the picture editor was using it as "stereo" so the voices were jumping all over the place.

Bottom line is IF you are going to do an audio post iso is a good choice. If your audio post is your picture editor then forget the iso.

Personally when I have done shoots for low budget stuff I run everything to a recorder, even if I'm feeding the camera. There are a bazillion ways for the camera op to trash the sound and it is not there job to make sure they don't. If they pay for it great, if not I do it so I cover my butt and if they end up needing it I have it. I may charge them for it or not depending on the relationship but I have it. I also archive every project to DVD and stash it in my files. It's kind of weird but I have had more than one long gone show call and ask if I still had XYZ because they were going to redo it and they had lost the originals.

So if it were me I would record the feed separate from the camera ALSO.
 
jthabel said:
It’s a workflow issue. And also an expense issue.
...
He wants to charge me to rent the external recorder.
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Different (worse) spin on it. I'm surprised he's not supplying the recorder, most do. So now it becomes a cost/unit quality issue, and that I can't help you with. Depends on the camera (if you give it line level, does it take the preamps out of the circuit or does it just pad the line level down and run this newly created mic level signal through the (potentially noisy) preamps? IDK), and it depends on the recorder. Not to mention the skills of the audio guy who, since this has become a renting the recorder thing, may or may not have much experience with the recorder you end up using.

So... can you get better audio going second system? Almost certainly. Will you in this case? IDK.

I can say that in my experience, the biggest improvements you can generally make to in-camera audio, in order of improvement (in my experience again):

* Monitoring the audio with proper headphones (catch things before they hurt you)
* Getting the mic in proper position (good quality booming)
* Improving the quality of that mic
* Using a decent mixer (high quality mic preamps, good meters, good solid limiter) and using it properly (good gain staging, levels, HP filter, etc.)

That's easily most of the available improvement when using a camera with decent in-camera audio. Using a decent recorder will get you a little farther, but at the cost of trading from in-camera to second system and syncing in post.

So your question becomes: Is that incremental improvement from using a separate recorder and going second system worth the money and the workflow issues? I can see now why you are asking your questions. They are good questions to ask.
 
I'll pile on the scrum as well with a little different take. First, if you have good reference for synching, it isn't a big deal. Using your camera scratch track makes it easy. Second, cost be damned, why not dual system the audio? If your pro-sound guy has a good recorder (think Sound Devices or similar) then why not have him record to his recorder and also send the feed to your cam. If there is any problem with your in cam recording or you prefer the (probably) better audio from sound dudes recorder, then it is available. Third, you might enjoy being un-tethered to audio dude.

I have recorded a fair amount of audio direct to cam from a SD mixer feeding line level, and for typical corporate voice work, it is plenty good enough for me. If I were doing music, or something more involved, I'd go with your sound guy recommendation. Again, it isn't a big deal to bring it into your workflow.

Grant
 
In this Sound forum there are a handful of people that respond, their advice is always solid, and most of them have already chimed into this thread. To summarize:

1. Regardless of his advice, the particular professional that you, jthabel, talked to sounds a little sketchy.
(A) He ruled out recording directly to camera, regardless of camera, even though some cameras these days are pretty good, the recording quality imperceptibly different from a dedicated mixer when you're recording mere dialog.
(B) He just so happens to make more money if you do it this way.
(C) He doesn't own the thing he believes so much in. He must rent it.

He's probably not terrible. He's probably average. He will probably give you adequate results for above-average pricing. But you two will never really gel. The work will not be ruined, but it will not be cheap and it won't be fun.

2. Recording both to your camera and to a recorder, at the same time, should be just the basic offering from most professionals. It seems like they would want to do it for their own sake, like Noiz2 said.

3. Mic placement, set prep (sound dampening, picking a better location if too noisy, etc.), live sound monitoring through headphones by someone with nothing else to pay attention to, and microphone model --- in that order --- will make a bigger difference than an external recorder, especially now that you're at least using something like a C100 and not a DSLR.


Bottom line: keep interviewing, keep asking for bids.
 
Kind of far away, but my friend runs this business and is making a good living between the audio work and sports remotes.

http://www.engsound.com/

Depending on your budget, he is willing to travel and he owns pretty much everything you would need on the audio side of equipment including wireless. Everything should be listed on his site.
 
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