Sound board at live event....asked for line....seemed to get mic level

Z

ZKSTUDIO

Member
Morning guys...at least on the west coast....did a live event the other night that I shot on my Sony PD170 (I know its not HD, but this project was straight to DVD anyways). The sound board guy swore up and down that he was sending me line level, but when I switched the setting to line level I lost all audio...I double checked the settings in the camera and on the mic input and I am positive I was good. Was the sound guy jerking my chain? I ended up recording in mic level and everything seems fine, but from time to time the singers would really peak out...but it sounded ok in the theater, but my headphones were telling me a different story. Anyways thought I would throw that out there and see what your opinions are.

Thanks!
 
depending on the board "line level" might not be true line level but just a hotter mic level. how does the recording sound on playback?
 
Always verify where the engineer plugs you into. I have caught mixers giving me an aux out rather than a mix. And slapped their hands for it.
 
It's extremely common just as mangler mentions about even though it's coming out of their mixer on a line out jack
they are more than likely so quiet on their outputs it's acting more like a mic level out.

Live sound guys tend to ride their individual channel faders hot, and their main levels extremely low.
Take a peak next time at their output meters. 20bux says the meters will be barely bouncing.

What that means to you is a noisy low output feed.
Sometimes you have no choice but to take it, but if you can (and they have 1 open)
use one of their aux sends to create a post fader mix. You can then crank up the master aux send output as hot as it should be.
This will work well if they are riding channel faders like they should. (and of course their wireless receivers are set to full output and not padded down)


Live sound and sound for video are 2 different things. Personally I find most live sound mixers pretty clueless compared to studio/video sound guys
when it comes to levels and s/n.

It definitely can be a tricky situation having to rely on a feed. Have as many solutions as you can
to fix the issues in your bag of tricks. Most likely eventually you'll end up using all of them.

The good thing if you were recording music, even though the output level was low the music probably masked a decent amount of
the noise issues.
 
You got off easy. It could have been a lot worse. The FOH guy would have been well within his authority to just refuse completely.

Whenever I do something like that, four prime directives are in effect.
1) Take a good selection of connectors, adapters, isolation transformers, pads, cable, etc to interface to whatever they have, and be prepared to handle most any level they end up giving you.
2) Arrive early and ask nicely to give them a decent chance accommodating you without jeopardizing their prime directive (which doesn't include you).
3) Have a viable Plan B if you can't get a house feed (for whatever of dozens of reasons).
4) Always record ambient as well as the house mix. At least for anything musical. And absolutely if the ensemble includes acoustic (or separately amped) instruments.

This from years of experience on BOTH sides of this connection.
 
Richard Crowley said:
The FOH guy would have been well within his authority to just refuse completely.
Click to expand...
Just my own experiences but I've never once had a situation where a FOH mixer refused a feed.
Then again, Ive never just shown up without SOMEONE knowing we were coming.

Lots of times we/I have shown up somewhere where the house guy didn't have any clue someone was coming to tap in
but because there are usually overlapping clients involved refusal wouldn't be a wise move on their side of things either.

I will say if I show up at an event where the house system has zero to do with the project I'm on.
I wouldn't even think about asking for a feed. If the client didn't bother figuring this stuff out ahead of time
it's not my issue.

What's the saying again? Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.

Another important factor. You are much more likely to get what you need from a live mixer if just by your
language and manner in the first couple sentences he quickly understands you know what you're talking about.
 
Great info guys, I looked at the back of his board and I couldn't tell what he was sending me, the labels were faded...The music sounded fine...it sounds like what you said, he had the wireless amped all the way. I will for sure refer back to this before my next live event...very helpful!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top