-
Audio Compression for Two Camera Live Band Shoot
I shot a live band at a small bar using my Sony HXR-NX5U mounted on a tripod and used my little Cannon VIXIA HF21 as a roving hand held. Due to the small space I was forced to set the tripod off to the side and the audio, while quite clear, is off balance because it was closer to the bass and rhythm guitar. The hand held was generally center front stage and has a much better balance of the entire band including the lead singer. Occasionally, the audio on the hand held would vary slightly as I moved around but not bad.
By itself, the Sony’s audio is incomplete as it loses much of the lead singer. Things sound best if I keep both audio tracks as the Sony’s track sort of smooths over any slight variations I might get by moving the camera around and pointing it in different directions. But with both tracks together I’m running into the red zone quite a bit. So my believe is that I need to add compression and set a threshold.
My question is what is the best approach? Should I just set up the Track Compressor on the Master? or is it better to set up Track Compressor on each individual track? or both? My thought is to set it up on both seeing that the levels on the Sony are much lower. I played around with setting the master with the preset “[Sys] Limit levels to -6 dB (hard limiter” then set each individual track with the same preset but bumped the threshold to -1 db.
I also played around with the smoothing and autogain check boxes. Can’t tell any difference with smoother, and autogain pushes the levels into the red.
I’m really just guessing as I don’t have any audio background but my thinking is I want to preserve as much of the original two tracks as I can and use the master as a end gate. Because if I only compress the two original tracks when I combine them they enter the red zone.
I’d appreciate any advice you guys might have. And if you please, explain it to me like I’m 5 years old – you won’t be insulting me! LOL. Sorry for the long winded post. Thanks!
—————
My Hardware:
Core i7-5960X 3GHz; Nvidia GTX980, 16 gig RAM Win7 64bit.My Software:
Vegas Pro V11 with Boris Continuum Complete 8, VASST Ultimate S; Bluff Titler; AE5; PhotoPaint and other stuff. -
3 Replies
-
Ugh…. Nasty. First thoughts? Yah gonna need to ride the vols, or something. Been waiting for one of our Audio Gurus to step in, but in their absence check out the Waves “Audio Rider”.
* Grazie
Video Content Creator and Potter
PC 7 64-bit 16gb * Intel® Core™i7-2600k Quad Core 3.40GHz * 2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 Ti
Cameras: Canon XF300 + PowerShot SX50HS Bridge -
[Graham Bernard] “Waves “Audio Rider””
Thanks Graham. But I’m not sure what you mean? What’s this? (remember, like I’m 5) 🙂
—————
My Hardware:
Core i7-5960X 3GHz; Nvidia GTX980, 16 gig RAM Win7 64bit.My Software:
Vegas Pro V11 with Boris Continuum Complete 8, VASST Ultimate S; Bluff Titler; AE5; PhotoPaint and other stuff. -
Sorry James, wrong suggestion from me.
* Grazie
Video Content Creator and Potter
PC 7 64-bit 16gb * Intel® Core™i7-2600k Quad Core 3.40GHz * 2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 Ti
Cameras: Canon XF300 + PowerShot SX50HS Bridge
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up