Solution for recording ambient and foley

I

isle

Carbonite Member
I need a solution to record ambient sound on the set and foley sounds in post for my short films. Cheaper the better, but has to give "ok" result. Doesn't need to have any fancy things. Stereo recording is fine. My camera is 5D.
 
That sounds pretty good from the videos I watched. Not that much of a difference to H4n which seems to be the most popular model.

Can I plug the H1 into 5D and use the H1 mics to record the audio instead of 5D's built in mics?
 
isle said:
Can I plug the H1 into 5D and use the H1 mics to record the audio instead of 5D's built in mics?
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The short answer is, "Yes." However, this may not be the better solution for what you're wanting.

Ambient sounds (i.e. sound beds) are always recorded separately from primary production and are edited in with the picture in post. Foley is also recorded separately, albeit while watching playback of the picture, and then edited in post. Whether recording ambients or Foley, there's no need to go into the camera. Especially in the case of the 5D, why record through a better recorder into a device with lesser quality audio circuits?

Also, it should be noted that Foley is not usually (if ever) recorded in stereo.

And if you're looking at mounting the H1 to the camera and using it to feed the camera, remember also that on-camera is the last/worst place for a microphone to be.
 
isle said:
I need a solution to record ambient sound on the set and foley sounds in post for my short films. Cheaper the better, but has to give "ok" result. Doesn't need to have any fancy things. Stereo recording is fine. My camera is 5D.
Click to expand...

A couple of things. First it's Foley not foley. It's always capitalized because it's someone's name. Second I think you are confusing Foley with FX recording. By definition Foley is performed live to picture and recorded. If your recording sounds that you will cut in afterwards that's FX.

When you say "ambient sound on set", I'm not sure what you mean. Your not going to get any useful "ambience" on a set. So maybe you mean production audio i.e. the dialog. Stereo is a bad choice for that. So a good hyper cardioid would be decent for both, maybe. You would generally use wider for FX and outdoors anyway a tighter mic for dialog.

Not sure if you can send an out to the 5D but you probably don't want to. The out is going to be a line level and the in on the Canon is mic, so that is not a good combo. If your recording to the (whatever external recorder) you don't need to send that to the 5D.

What I am tempted to recommend is a Rode VideoMic Pro and an inexpensive recorder. But that depends a LOT on what your shooting and what you are aiming at ending up with.

The closer your goal is to student film and or goofing around the more flexible/cheap your options are.
 
Thanks for the replies. I'm not looking to record into 5D when doing anything serious, just thought if it was an option for fast homevideo stuff recordings to get a bit better sound than 5D's own crappy mics give.

Music videos and shorts with only music tracks are a bit easier on the audio side hehe. From quality of the sound I'm looking to get something between ok to good and Zoom's seem to fit into that range. No student or goofing around stuff.

I try to make the use a bit more clear; I will record the shorts using the 5D's mic only so I can time the other sounds with the film. Then I will make a list for the sounds I want to hear in the video and record them sepetarely afterwards, after editing the film. For example ambient noise like wind, sounds near the shore etc, you know something to fill the silence... and then all the other important sounds. Not looking to record dialog at the moment.
 
In that case I would just get a recorder like the Zoom and use it's mics. You will probably be recording mostly stereo and you can always point one of the mics more directly at what your recording for mono things. I would also look at the Tascam recorders since Zoom is getting a lot of mixed reviews at the moment. Don't know if it's a drop in quality or a boost in expectations. I would still use the Rode VMP for connecting to the 5D and make sure you have the latest firmware so you can turn off the AGC and set levels manually.
 
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