GH4 Recording audio with GH4 - shotgun mic or other option?

B

bhuether

Member
Hi, I am recording myself giving guitar lessons. I have a ton of audio gear and recording high quality audio is something I am very familiar with, but just not sure how to adapt my current workflow to video. I need to be as efficient as possible since I need to produce my video lessons and go online with them as soon as possible.

I am going to be recording mostly indoors in a fairly small space, about 3m x 3m and 2.25 m tall. Will be treating it acoustically.I have several mics that I generally use to record guitar, but I also need to capture my voice as I am talking, and just not sure the best way to do that, since I will be about 2.5 meters or so from the camera, and don't want to set up one of my mics in front of me to capture my voice, and not sure I want to be wearing a mic. So I was reading about shotgun mic options.

How would you go about this? And since I will be recording outside sometimes as well, I need a solution that will be very directional, without capturing much audio from the sides. That is, I need ambient sound to be minimal.

Also, since I have plenty of mic preamps and audio recording interface already, I probably don't want to use the GH4's audio inputs, but rather record audio directly then sync later. So advice on the syncing workflow is also appreciated!

Thanks! Brian
 
bhuether said:
...I also need to capture my voice as I am talking….and not sure I want to be wearing a mic.
Click to expand...

Are you going to be using the shotgun for both guitar and voice? Or two microphones? If the latter, I'd prefer to us a lavaliere on the voice assuming you won't be talking and playing at the same time.
 
I would put a shotgun on a boom above to capture your speaking. Since you have all of the gear, I would run everything into a mixer and send that mixed feed to the camera and a proper recording device. This can be a portable recorder or a DAW setup. The camera gets the same feed for purposes or syncing in post or if you can get it down to mic level well enough it could serve as your end audio track. I wish the camera makers would offer "line input" on these little cameras.
 
How far should the boom be from my head? I am afraid that in my space I wouldn't be able to keep the boom out of the shot. So all mics to mixer, then a mixed output to the camera and at same time to DAW? In the DAW, voice and guitar would be three tracks (1 voice, 2 guitar). The mixed signal to camera would then be a stereo or mono mix of everything, but how would that mix help me synchronize to the separate tracks on the DAW?

Thanks!
 
The feed going to the camera is called a "scratch track" and is an exact copy which you can use to line up the real audio track in post production. After you have synced the audio you turn off or delete the in-camera audio and only use the good stuff from the DAW.

The boom should be just out of the frame. If you can not fit a shotgun then use a pencil condenser. Actually, since the space will be small, a pencil condenser with a cardioid pattern would be best anyway.
 
Ok, so if I start recording three tracks at once, then I just send one track to the camera, and then by lining one up I automatically align the others. Is that what you are suggesting? Seems if I send a mixed signal to camera then it would not allow me to align in DAW, since in DAW are three separate tracks for me to mix later.

Where would you set up the condenser?

Thanks a lot!
 
You will be aligning all of the audio in your video editor, not the DAW. Record the audio in your DAW, export it then marry it to your video in the NLE.

Mic placement depends upon who is talking. If it is just you then aim it at your mouth. If it is both people then put it in between but with more of a direction to you as you will be speaking more. But, this will pickup some guitar ambient. So you might have to mix the speaking mic up and down to only when you are speaking as to protect the guitar sound from the room audio. But you are in a small space so it probably will not be that big of a deal.
 
It will just be me, and I will not be speaking and playing at the same time.

Just trying to clarify what signal I am sending as scratch track - will I just pick one track (since I will arm and start record at same time)? Also, now that I think about it, the video and DAW will start recording at slight offset since I can't start everything at once. But I guess that is where the scratch track comes in to facilitate the aligning later.

Thanks a ton!
 
Yes, the video and DAW are not related. That is why you are sending a stereo feed from the mixer to the camera with all audio. If you sort of pre mix it you might be able to get away with the GH4 audio if you need a quick turnaround.
 
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