Using two mics with 100b...advice please.

R

Ralph nixon

Well-known member
Doing a docu and so far for interviews I've been using one lav mic into channel one and two. Tonight we will be filming a group and I plan to hide an omni present and go into mic input one and shotgun mic into input two. Will this mean that I have stereo interviews but this other footage will be in mono. Can I turn it into "fake" stereo in post. If so how? Should I just go with one mic like I did the interviews? Which is best?

Thanks.
 
Ralph,

It depends on the editor/DAW you are using as to how to make this happen. Almost all dialogue recorded is recorded mono and then "converted to stereo" in post. What you will end up with if you boom on one channel and lav on the other is two discreet channels of audio that happen to import into your NLE together. This may be a bit over-simplified, but never, ever consider two different mics like this a stereo recording. To get a stereo recording, you need a matched pair of the same mic, or a stereo mic.

Phil
 
ptalsky said:
Ralph,

It depends on the editor/DAW you are using as to how to make this happen. Almost all dialogue recorded is recorded mono and then "converted to stereo" in post. What you will end up with if you boom on one channel and lav on the other is two discreet channels of audio that happen to import into your NLE together. This may be a bit over-simplified, but never, ever consider two different mics like this a stereo recording. To get a stereo recording, you need a matched pair of the same mic, or a stereo mic.

Phil
Click to expand...

Thanks Phil. So just to get it straight in my novice head. Even though I had been using one lav mic for my interviews and had it inputted into channel one and two this is still considered mono. What I just recorded last night in a group setting where I had two mics is also mono and I have a choice between which one I use.

Just as an aside is it common practice to mix stereo elements and mono elements together?
 
I'm going to leave it to the post guys to define what is truly stereo and what is not, but if you recorded to two tracks using the same mic, that is basically stereo (at least it gives you the same results as taking a mono track and copying into left/right). But, this is only true if they were both recorded at the same exact level. If you used the DVX trick of recording one at "normal" level, and the other at 25% less (to cover blow outs) then you do not have stereo. You essentially have the equivalent of two different mics recorded. You will have to pick and choose which track you want to use, and purge the rest, then remix it back to "stereo".

My general rule of thumb is-if you use two different recording settings (whether it is levels or mics) you do not have stereo, you have two mono tracks that probably need to be selectively culled into one track that can then be copied into a stereo mix.

I hope I haven't succeeded in confusing you more. ;-)

Phil
 
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