Recording high audio levels with 151
- Thread starter Richy Lacey
- Start date
"Good audio is 75% of good video. Without good audio, you are shooting home movies.
Grant"
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Right, but how can you expect perfect audio when recording something as unpredictable as live music? No camera, as far as I know, is designed with excellent audio in mind. As Barry suggested, this was caused by user error and using the wrong mic for the job. If you're really serious about recording a live band, you should use a separate mixing board and multiple mics anyways.
Grant"
========
Right, but how can you expect perfect audio when recording something as unpredictable as live music? No camera, as far as I know, is designed with excellent audio in mind. As Barry suggested, this was caused by user error and using the wrong mic for the job. If you're really serious about recording a live band, you should use a separate mixing board and multiple mics anyways.
Phil,
Correct you are, you wouldn't be able to record pro quality music, or anything pro level for that matter, with the onboards. This would be especially true if you were moving about with your levels bouncing around. As I mentioned in an earlier post, cams like this can record decent audio for simple projects like interviews. If it gets a little more difficult, a mixer can extend that usefulness quite a bit. Beyond that, for things like music where you need multiples mics, or other larger complex projects, a separate multi-track recorder, mixer, and qualified sound folks are needed.
Correct you are, you wouldn't be able to record pro quality music, or anything pro level for that matter, with the onboards. This would be especially true if you were moving about with your levels bouncing around. As I mentioned in an earlier post, cams like this can record decent audio for simple projects like interviews. If it gets a little more difficult, a mixer can extend that usefulness quite a bit. Beyond that, for things like music where you need multiples mics, or other larger complex projects, a separate multi-track recorder, mixer, and qualified sound folks are needed.
Hi all,
a little bit late, but I would like to thank you for your inputs and share my experience so far with the HMC-151.
I ordered it depite the discussions on bad audio. But I was forced to realize, that the audio of the HMC-151 is really
significant below what you can expect for the money you pay.
Sound of the internal mic is muffeled, useable for voice, definitely unuseable for music, even with no pro sound
ambitions. Also not useable for event shootings. The lack of a real AGC is for event shooting with a one person setup
a really big issue.
I upgraded to an external microphone (Bayerdynamic MCE72 CAM), that improves internal sound significantly,
but still it misses the brilliance the sound of my old Canon XM2 had and this cam is also known to not have
the best internal audio. The extrnal mic also does not solve the lack of a good AGC and limiter. That what is
called AGC in the manual is NOT an AGC, just a limiter performing more at the low end.
So if the HMC-151 would be not as great in video performance and handling, it would have gone back to the
shop. Now I'm looking into external audio recording, but still unhappy with the additional effort during
post production.
Markus
a little bit late, but I would like to thank you for your inputs and share my experience so far with the HMC-151.
I ordered it depite the discussions on bad audio. But I was forced to realize, that the audio of the HMC-151 is really
significant below what you can expect for the money you pay.
Sound of the internal mic is muffeled, useable for voice, definitely unuseable for music, even with no pro sound
ambitions. Also not useable for event shootings. The lack of a real AGC is for event shooting with a one person setup
a really big issue.
I upgraded to an external microphone (Bayerdynamic MCE72 CAM), that improves internal sound significantly,
but still it misses the brilliance the sound of my old Canon XM2 had and this cam is also known to not have
the best internal audio. The extrnal mic also does not solve the lack of a good AGC and limiter. That what is
called AGC in the manual is NOT an AGC, just a limiter performing more at the low end.
So if the HMC-151 would be not as great in video performance and handling, it would have gone back to the
shop. Now I'm looking into external audio recording, but still unhappy with the additional effort during
post production.
Markus
8string
Well-known member
Guys, I have shot in numerous live settings in the last year with my 150. There is NOTHING wrong with the 150's sound quality, other than a floor for hiss that higher level cameras don't have (Panasonic, you really should put in better quality preamps in your cameras).
The issue that we are facing is the VOLUME of the concerts in general. They are uniformly too loud, some would say, unnecessarily too loud. I did add and do add external mics, like the AT shotgun I got for about $150. With it on the camera, I shot the following video last Feb with just the 150 and the AT shotgun off the live sound from the speakers. It's not perfect, but we were recording live on the boards in the back, the client just decided not to pay to have it added, since they thought the sound was fine! I have also bought a Sound D. Mixpre to mix live and that helps a lot. If you follow the Youtube link to 8stringthing, you can see near the bottom of the list a couple of videos shot at a Brazilian dance concert. This concert was ear splitting, way too loud, and on that, I could not get the camera to properly record the sound. But I don't think any camera could! I decided to have a board feed to the camera, and shot it with that. That worked fine! The sound guy can tweek the output much better than I could and the feed was clean, as you can hear. The client loved it, but wished they had paid for multicam.
So spend the money on high quality field mixers rather than go buy some other camera. Good preamps will help. The ultimate is to simply get a $2000 edirol or SD to record to. That fixes the hiss and gives a much better quality than any camera change will ever give you.
shot live with HMC 150 recorded with AT897. Lots of great bands here.
Shot live with HMC150 fed from the board. A wonderfully balanced concert feed from acoustic instruments well mic'ed and mixed by a pro. I'm not embedding this one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtI-uq8R1yo
Shot live with HMC150 fed off the board...this was too loud a concert. I'm not embedding this, it's 10 minutes long, no need to watch the whole thing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bI0rsUztwi0
The issue that we are facing is the VOLUME of the concerts in general. They are uniformly too loud, some would say, unnecessarily too loud. I did add and do add external mics, like the AT shotgun I got for about $150. With it on the camera, I shot the following video last Feb with just the 150 and the AT shotgun off the live sound from the speakers. It's not perfect, but we were recording live on the boards in the back, the client just decided not to pay to have it added, since they thought the sound was fine! I have also bought a Sound D. Mixpre to mix live and that helps a lot. If you follow the Youtube link to 8stringthing, you can see near the bottom of the list a couple of videos shot at a Brazilian dance concert. This concert was ear splitting, way too loud, and on that, I could not get the camera to properly record the sound. But I don't think any camera could! I decided to have a board feed to the camera, and shot it with that. That worked fine! The sound guy can tweek the output much better than I could and the feed was clean, as you can hear. The client loved it, but wished they had paid for multicam.
So spend the money on high quality field mixers rather than go buy some other camera. Good preamps will help. The ultimate is to simply get a $2000 edirol or SD to record to. That fixes the hiss and gives a much better quality than any camera change will ever give you.
shot live with HMC 150 recorded with AT897. Lots of great bands here.
Shot live with HMC150 fed from the board. A wonderfully balanced concert feed from acoustic instruments well mic'ed and mixed by a pro. I'm not embedding this one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtI-uq8R1yo
Shot live with HMC150 fed off the board...this was too loud a concert. I'm not embedding this, it's 10 minutes long, no need to watch the whole thing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bI0rsUztwi0
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Hi all,
I did some more experimentation on the sound of the 151 and like to correct the statements from my previous post, at least somehow.
Often I'm shooting pyromusicals, which means a highly dynamic audio situation - music going from soft to hard overlayed by the firework
explosions.
Alarmed from the discussions here, I started to record our first shows with very conservative input level settings _and_ ALC set to ON to
avoid any of the nasty popping/crackling sounds, mentioned before. I use an 20dB pads to avoid overloading the input stage, the knobs
were adjusted, that the level meters did _never_ show the red clipping indicators.
This resulted in a really poor, muffeled sound with a lot of hiss, when level-adjusted and compressed in the post, due to the really low level,
besides the high peaks inside the audio.
I got the feeling, that one reason could be that the signal is really "under-leveled". So, backup up by an external recorder for
our last show, I turned up the signal a good deal. Having the music around -12dB ... -6dB and the explosions continuosly driving the level into
the red bars. (ALC on again) - I expected distorted audio.
What I got: Quite good audio from the camera with no clipping at all. Not as good as from the ext. recorder or from the Canon XM2,
but quite reasonable.
So this means for me, with ALC ON it seems to be ok to go into "clipping" levels without having distortion and it seems for me
that the level meter is showing the level before the limiter. ALC is no AGC only a limiter as Barry already stated.
I would have expected, that the meter shows the level after the limiter.
Any experience with this - could this be true ?
So this experience makes the situation better, but let's you in the dark how high levels are allowed to be, since the meter gets
a little worthless with that behaviour, at least more explanation in the manual for this would be a high want.
Markus
I did some more experimentation on the sound of the 151 and like to correct the statements from my previous post, at least somehow.
Often I'm shooting pyromusicals, which means a highly dynamic audio situation - music going from soft to hard overlayed by the firework
explosions.
Alarmed from the discussions here, I started to record our first shows with very conservative input level settings _and_ ALC set to ON to
avoid any of the nasty popping/crackling sounds, mentioned before. I use an 20dB pads to avoid overloading the input stage, the knobs
were adjusted, that the level meters did _never_ show the red clipping indicators.
This resulted in a really poor, muffeled sound with a lot of hiss, when level-adjusted and compressed in the post, due to the really low level,
besides the high peaks inside the audio.
I got the feeling, that one reason could be that the signal is really "under-leveled". So, backup up by an external recorder for
our last show, I turned up the signal a good deal. Having the music around -12dB ... -6dB and the explosions continuosly driving the level into
the red bars. (ALC on again) - I expected distorted audio.
What I got: Quite good audio from the camera with no clipping at all. Not as good as from the ext. recorder or from the Canon XM2,
but quite reasonable.
So this means for me, with ALC ON it seems to be ok to go into "clipping" levels without having distortion and it seems for me
that the level meter is showing the level before the limiter. ALC is no AGC only a limiter as Barry already stated.
I would have expected, that the meter shows the level after the limiter.
Any experience with this - could this be true ?
So this experience makes the situation better, but let's you in the dark how high levels are allowed to be, since the meter gets
a little worthless with that behaviour, at least more explanation in the manual for this would be a high want.
Markus
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Hi 8string,
hey ... some real great music !
I went through your clips and from what I hear, I must say it's compareable to my experience now after recognizing, I had the levels way too low.
Sound is ok, but it is missing some brilliance, same for yours as mine recordings compared e.g. to my old XM2. Probably this is a result of compressed
audio the 150/151 records.
One question, how do you record live shows by microphone - ALC on or off ? How far do you turn up the levels (on the internal meter) ?
Markus
hey ... some real great music !
I went through your clips and from what I hear, I must say it's compareable to my experience now after recognizing, I had the levels way too low.
Sound is ok, but it is missing some brilliance, same for yours as mine recordings compared e.g. to my old XM2. Probably this is a result of compressed
audio the 150/151 records.
One question, how do you record live shows by microphone - ALC on or off ? How far do you turn up the levels (on the internal meter) ?
Markus
8string
Well-known member
Hey Markus, thanks. I don't use ALC, as I've read in pro audio books that it is an imperfect tool and that you want to avoid the ceiling at all costs. None of these clips were recorded "too low" so I don't think that any problems are because of trying to boost the audio to hear it at all. I quote Jay Rose, Page 169 Producing Great Sound for Film and Video", "Turn ALC off for any professional shooting...Limiting which protects the recording from sudden very loud peaks, is often available on professional cameras...it's faster and only triggers on the loudest sounds...if you have this feature, leave it on." (I highly recommend Jay's books)
Which clips in particular do you feel are 'not brilliant' in sound?
Lately, I've been working in a three camera shoot with a budget large enough to hire a sound engineer with his own gear. The results are dramatically better than the best controlled situation shot through the 150/151 that I've ever encountered. I think it's a bit unfair to expect any sub $5k camera to have great audio, even with decent mics (and my mics are only $200 or less). I've lately been using $1k mics along with Edirol and other high end recording equipment. Maybe the $20k broadcast quality cameras have preamps that are of that level, I've never compared them. Barry? You out there? Any thoughts on that?
As to the specific clips, here's some of the rundown.
The bluegrass band sampler, was all a $150 mic on the HMC150. I was the B camera but the A camera never got me any video (sigh), and we needed to get something out. The sound quality was fine for the client, as we did this specifically for Youtube. It was, as they say, good enough. Budget was, minimal. No pre shoot meetings, no client involvement. They liked the output. Levels, if I remember, were about just shy of midpoint to a little under.
The Cafe Con Lece stuff was my first attempt at shooting live with the 150. It was deafening, so I went through the board to get decent sound. Yes, it's a bit muffled, and I'm unclear whether it was me or the sound guy. I literally had ear damage after that, and had my ears plugged for the whole 2 hours. I will never put myself through that again. It was literally, too loud. I wouldn't use that as an example, other than it's what's possible at 140 decibels and up out of the camera, if you can go through the board. Believe me, this sounds way better than they do live because of their volume. Levels coming off the board were normal, mid point to lower. without the board, the levels would have been just above the bottom.
The Brazilian Choro music was off the board and into the 150 by a real pro sound engineer. I think it has fine sound, though I didn't get paid to remix and some of the musicians felt that they would have liked the guitar a little 'hotter' and maybe a little more brilliancy overall. They didn't want to pay for a few hours of my time, so what you hear is what you get. But I think it's about as good as the 150 can do without any post. Levels were mid point.
Lastly, I have added a Mixpre, which is great, and gives me much more control. I don't work without it, if I can help it. I intend to get a S.D. recorder later this year if the money continues flowing in. I think it will make a huge difference. Don't forget mics. There's a reason some $1k.
Don't discount that your and my ears could be to blame. Ear damage for those of us who have lived around loud music most of our lives has taken off a lot of high end. My wife, a medical pro, has warned me that earplugs do not stop ear damage from loud lows. I now will not record extremely loud music. It's not worth it.
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