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Need some Guidance…Concert type shoot coming up.
I am shooting an event next week that will be much like a concert. Various dance groups performing on stage. The place has hired a full audio crew and also hired me to shoot the event. I did an event in this same arena back in April and I used my Lectrosonic wireless to capture my audio but noticed drops and hits throughout that shoot when I watched the footage back. Yes I monitored the audio with headphones. I did have a 2nd camera and used the audio from that instead of the one I was monitoring.
So this time around I wanted to do without the wireless if I could and go with a portable Audio Recorder like the Zoom H4N. I contacted the Audio Engineer today and he told me to reconsider using that to capture audio out of his board because he will be doing the mix for the house (arena the event is being held). So there is no telling what kind of audio I could get from that board if it’s not mixed right. He said it could come out “muddy” or whatever. He also said it depends on what board he will have that night if he could mix it a certain way for my recorder to get a good mix. I figured I could just hook up the recorder to the board and get a good audio mix out of the board but I guess its deeper than that.
My camera will not be close enough to run a hard line cable from the board and the folks at the arena do not want any cables on the floor even if they are taped down, they still won’t allow it. That is why I used wireless the first time. The audio guys usually set up their boards right at the stage off to the side and I will be back in the house on the floor which is a great distance between me and then.
So what are my options? I need to get a good mix!
Although its not perfect, I thought about getting a shotgun mic and placing it on a stand next to where my camera will be (or attach it to the camera) and run that into a small field mixer and then run that audio into the camera. It won’t be perfect but is that an option?
If push comes to a shove, I can use my wireless again but I want to stand clear of the drops and hits of static from interference with other signals in the arena.
This arena I am shooting in is on a college campus where the basketball team plays their games, just to give you an idea of what I am talking about.
Thanks for any help or suggestions you can give me.
__________________Cre8tive Minds Entertainment, LLC
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4 Replies
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Hello Chuck and welcome to the Cow Audio Forum.
The sound guy sound a bit unfriendly. If the music will be prerecorded, you should be fine. As long as you don’t have any sources – singing or instruments, you should be golden.
You could also ask for CDs or digital audio files of the dance music and use your camera audio as a guide track in post.
Regards,
Ty Ford
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Don’t forget to record some ambience: sounds of crowd and applause will help to give your video ‘that live feel’.
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If there is track playback, id concentrate on getting good mixed ambience from his board by means of a sub group, and syncing up the playback files later.
To a degree you have to decide if you trust this guy to
1) get it right
2) Understand your needs and put them high enough up the pick listIf not then youve got a much bigger sound job to do and id be looking to record all key “live” elements as direct feed (ie not affected by his faders) such as live mics and audience
Nb Dont be tempted to try to run your inputs too hot. Theres little to be gained by risking distortion. a live auditorium mix is very forgiving with natural verb etc, but a recording clipped is awful. keep inputs a little cool so theres space for the peaks to go into, and smooth in post
Peter
Peter
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How did the sound person come off as unfriendly? It sounded like good advice to me. The engineer didn’t want a portable stereo recorder placed in the back of a basketball arena to represent what the show sounded like on TV. They offered to do a dedicated mix for you off of the mixing console. That’s exactly what you want an audio engineer to tell you.
Mixing consoles have these things called Aux sends. They’re used to do many things (control stage monitors, send audio to effects, etc.). One thing that professional sound people will do is to create a separate mix of the audio in the console for video people. This mix will be different than the house mix. The mix they will create for you will be the closest they can get to the way the show is supposed to sound.
I would take the sound engineer up on their offer, but also have a back up plan in case they don’t have enough aux sends to create a mix for you. Perhaps you should ask this person what the best back-up plan would be in case they don’t get the board they need.
Also, I would use the mics on your camera to supply the ambient sounds (the crowd applause/reactions, etc.). Use the mix you get on the recorder as the main sound track, and your camera audio as a supplement you can bring in where it’s needed.
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