Time to learn about whay my mixer does
- Thread starter Peternap
- Start date
Noiz2
Sound Ninja
As a general thing compression is probably not the best thing on a doc. since it will likely bring up the noise level.
I would look to working with a local sound person. I have often done very discounted gigs with doc.s because A) they don't have any money, and B) I like what they are saying.
If nothing else see if someone local would be your "mentor". Again I do (way more than my wife approves ) of this kind of thing.
The concept is that If I help you realize what better sound can do for your doc I may get some paying work or at least a friend out of it.
I would look to working with a local sound person. I have often done very discounted gigs with doc.s because A) they don't have any money, and B) I like what they are saying.
If nothing else see if someone local would be your "mentor". Again I do (way more than my wife approves ) of this kind of thing.
The concept is that If I help you realize what better sound can do for your doc I may get some paying work or at least a friend out of it.
Steve House
Veteran
About the only thing applied in the field would be a limiter, a high-pass filter to block handling noise, and sometimes a smidgen of equalization. Everything else, such as compression, should wait until post.
Thanks Steve!
Michael Carter
Veteran
Depending on the model of mixer you have...
Some mixers are just preamps (which get the trickle of electrons from the mic to a useable level) with phantom power and a summing function (as in, mixing three audio sources down to one channel).
I've seen guys use mixers for video shoots that are really more recording/live sound boxes. Nothing inherently wrong with that if the signal path is clean.
But like the earlier posts - a limiter can be a good thing, especially if nobody is babysitting levels. You can use a full-featured compressor as a limiter, without affecting audio under a certain threshold - you just need to understand what the knobs do (attack, threshold, ratio, release, etc). A compressor with a gain reduction meter show you exactly what level is getting compressed - but I don't know of field mixers that have that much function, that's more of a post type of compressor.
EQ and highpass filtering is handy - but you can generally achieve the same things in post; cutting low-end rumble in the mixer may give your converters more room to work, but bass frequencies generally won't trigger a limter or comp like mids and highs can.
Some mixers allow a lot of routing flexibility, allowing you to send specific mics to different recorders or to a client's headphones, etc. Get out your manual and see what you have in your box.
Some mixers are just preamps (which get the trickle of electrons from the mic to a useable level) with phantom power and a summing function (as in, mixing three audio sources down to one channel).
I've seen guys use mixers for video shoots that are really more recording/live sound boxes. Nothing inherently wrong with that if the signal path is clean.
But like the earlier posts - a limiter can be a good thing, especially if nobody is babysitting levels. You can use a full-featured compressor as a limiter, without affecting audio under a certain threshold - you just need to understand what the knobs do (attack, threshold, ratio, release, etc). A compressor with a gain reduction meter show you exactly what level is getting compressed - but I don't know of field mixers that have that much function, that's more of a post type of compressor.
EQ and highpass filtering is handy - but you can generally achieve the same things in post; cutting low-end rumble in the mixer may give your converters more room to work, but bass frequencies generally won't trigger a limter or comp like mids and highs can.
Some mixers allow a lot of routing flexibility, allowing you to send specific mics to different recorders or to a client's headphones, etc. Get out your manual and see what you have in your box.
It's a Yamaha MG82CX.
It's not fancy. It does have compression but the rest is pretty straight forward. I do have some flexibility routing the signal but most of what I do is mike(s) in (Phantom on or off depending on the mic) to record out and into the line or Mic in on the Zoom H4n.
It has effects but I can't imagine any situation I could possibly use them.
Unfortunately, much of what I do is in incredibly noisy places. I'm going to take it to a Biker Bar on Wednesday and see if I can get the sound usable before I do any interviews.
That should be interesting because I haven't gotten any usable audio from it yet. I've been going there once a week taking video for the last month.
I think I'll use the reporters mic this time instead of the M3 and see if I can cut out some of the background noise.