Setting up audio to record live music

[retog45]

Hi, I am new to this forum and relatively new to filmaking. I have a pretty good understanding of video but am a little behind on my audio needs.

At the moment I am filming a lot of live music and haven't the mney for a sound engineer. I am using a sony FX1 and using a rhodes external mic. I would like advise on setting the audio manually to avoid distortion, a big problem I have had on a lot of my footage. does anyone have some ideas, things on gain setting etc... would be great. also some variants for filming in recording studio's, music and voices again.

I mostly film in small indoor venues though occaionally i do film festivals but these haven't been as much of a problem unless i'm filming on stage where i get a lot of distortion cause i'm so close to the amps
thanks

 

[Oleg 2]

http://www.taperssection.com/
what good for the tappers must be quit good for you
the only problem if you running the fx in hdv mode it does compress your sound to mp-3 what not so good for recording music
external recording device whith preaps would be defenetly something better , syncing music later on computer is apiece of cake if you leave the camera mics open .
if you dont like to record separetly , you can use ext preamp or external recording device and feed it out to you camera

 

[ullanta]

The only way to avoid distortion is to set your levels correctly for the situation at hand. Use manual audio gain control, do a sound check if possible where you can hear the loudest sounds that you will need to record, and even then set your levels conservatively.

If you get distortion even with gain turned all the way down, the mic may be too hot for the camera's inputs; if that's the case, you'll need to use some sort of pad (attenuator) between the mic and the camera.