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house audio from conference
So my team went to an event to record the sessions at a conference. They used a p2 card hvx panasonic camera but since the event was 3 days long with 8 hour sessions a day they couldn’t record everything on the p2 card. they used onlocation from their PC to capture everything.
for the audio they took the house xlr and put it in the hvx. the house mics were not being monitored. they just went straight from mics, lavs into the rooms speakers and from there we took the house speakers and plugged it into channel 2 of our camera and made sure to have channel 1 a little lower. i was not there for the event. Otherwise i wouldve listened to everything through headphones to hear if they were HOT.
the audio did come out very hot and distorted at times. How can we make sure this doesn’t happen again. Could we have taken the house audio put it through a mixer although it is already gone through the speakers and tweaked it before putting it through the camera? any advice or tips on how to better record audio at big conferences. we did not sponsor the event, otherwise we would’ve had a professional sound guy. but we did promise our viewers on our site that we would have their sessions online. any advice would be great!!! thank you!!!
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4 Replies
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If the equipment is not being monitored (or operated by inexperienced people), it may be time to just settle for auto-level. You could make the argument that this is only for speech and intelligibility is more important than 2nd-order effect aesthetics.
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Hello Goinaz and welcome to the Cow Audio Forum.
As I say in my book, “When do you listen? Always!”
House XLR levels may vary from mic to line level or anywhere in between. The operator may not know. As you suggest, yes, you can run the audio from the house through a mixer before the camera. I do that a lot at event where I take a house feed so I can make sure Of what’s actually going to the camera and can adjust on the fly, but……….you need someone from you team looking at levels and actually listening to that audio….always.
Regards,
Ty Ford
Audio Forum Leader
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“Recording audio without metering and monitoring is exactly like framing and focusing without looking at the viewfinder.”
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Did you advance the show with the event production personnel? That’s something I wish companies would do more because it makes life easier and keeps everyone on the same page.
I operate similar shows to the one you described all the time – it’s what I do for a living. If the client tells me that there’s going to be someone filming, I’ll do my best to follow-up with that person.
I come from a broadcasting background of sorts, so I have certain expectations regarding audio feeds. I know how I want it if I’m going into a venue to shoot something, so I try to give that to whoever comes into where I work.
Here’s what I try to provide:
1. Personally verified hum- and buzz-free mono audio from and independent mix bus (Aux send, matrix out, etc.).
2. XLR connection(s) with the option for Mic or Line level and, possibly, a pad.
3. 1kHz tone referenced to +4dBu or -20dBFS that’s piped through the feed until a few minutes before the event starts.
4. A wye cable for splitting the audio to a safe channel (for screaming, etc.).
Wolf
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