Tips for mixing lavs and onboard mic

scorsesefan

scorsesefan

Veteran
I shot a verite doc with one and sometimes two lav mics on my subjects as well as a shotgun mic on the camera (Rode videomic pro). I occasionally want to use the shotgun mic audio in cases when the subjects interact with random people on the street, etc. That mic obviously has noticeably different qualities than the lav mics. Any tips for mixing the mics so the differences aren't so obvious to the audience? Thanks
 
I'd boom the mic instead of camera mounted but you might not have the budget. I've seen late night and tv news have the reporter hold a dynamic mic for them and the person they're talking to.
 
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See if you can find a frequency response graph for all the microphones, and that will give you a visual reference of where you need to make EQ changes to make them match.
 
Maybe a fixed boom where subjects are directed to stand at a location. You could also mix in the shotgun mic even when there isn't a subject so there isn't such a drastic change.


What's accounting for the difference in sound has more to do with the distance between the subject and mic rather than the type of mic.

If the audio from these randos is important you will need to take some physical steps to get a mic closer. (boom, hand held dynamic, or digital recorder with lav.)
 
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I think that would be the safest most straight forward approach, but I'm actually operating out of theory, as I've been fortunate enough to be on either all lav or all condenser, and never needed to match a lav to a shotgun mic as of yet.

You could try to match the lavs to the shotgun mic, but the quality of the results might vary with different lav models. Alex Knickerbocker has a good tutorial on matching a lav to a condenser mic.
 
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