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Poor Sound with Sennheiser EW112
Hey there. Up to now I picked up all of the sound of the event with an on-camera mike. I recently decided to purchase the Sennheiser EW112 kit in order to pick up the sound directly from the musicians.
In my last shoot, I used the EW112 by asking the musician to hook up the transmitter to his switch board and then hooking up the reciever to my Canon XL1S.
I tested the quality of the sound through the audiophones. It appeared normal, but it had a bit of static.
I manually lowered the sound input in the camera.
At the intermission, I asked the musician to lower his sound output that fed to my transmitter.
I came home to check the quality of the footage. The first half is completely inaudible. It’s too loud and crackling.
The second half is fine.
In the future, how do I prevent this from occuring? How do I make sure that the sound feed is not too hot? Can I lower the sound output in the transmitter/receiver itself, so I don’t have to depend on the musicians?
Finally, what can I do in post-production to somehow fix the sound of the first half?
Thank you. -
8 Replies
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[armogadan23] “In the future, how do I prevent this from occuring? How do I make sure that the sound feed is not too hot? “
A. More careful pre-show checking under more “show-like” conditions.
B. (better solutuion) Bring your own sound technician to monitor these things.[armogadan23] “…what can I do in post-production to somehow fix the sound of the first half?”
Sorry, but this kind of over-modulation clipping is generally not correctable once its recorded.
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more careful prechecking definitely.
For music (especially loud music) you need some good isolating headphones and a waveform monitor. Most NLEs have WFMs built in so a laptop works well. In this case the level problem would have been obvious if you had checked the meters on your cam.
You cannot rely on DJ/sound mixers to give you the levels you need. Many times you will get a line-level feed from a board – you can control the levels using pads and the settings on your transmitter and/or XLR adapter.
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See this link for basic tutorial (hope I’m not breaking a COW rule).
https://www.dvcreators.net/products/sennheiser_wireless_movieframe.htm
When recording anything, I ask the subject to perform at full volume/they’re loudest. People and musicians will tend to test for you quiet and then blast away or talk much louder when “live.” Adjust the transmitter’s sensitivity first. Then the receiver to make sure it and the recording device/camera input is not being overloaded. Don’t confuse volume control on the last stage with pading down input at an earlier stage. You can get distortion if preamp is overloaded even if you lower the volume after that stage.
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Thanks everyone. Peter, you mention a waveform monitor on a NLE. Can one purchase a stand-alone monitor to plug the receiver in, in order to see if the levels are good.
Also, what do you mean by controlling the levels using pads? What are pads? -
Please read the manual for your Canon XL1s. There should be something that describes a switch to pad the mic inputs.
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A pad (or “attenuator”) is a device (or a built-in circuit in your camcorder) that reduces the level of a signal.
A pad with a selectable attenuation is like this one:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=68600&is=REG
These pads fit between the output of a mic, audio player, or mixer and the input of a camcorder.
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standalone waveform monitors are expensive. Most of the time a WFM is unnecessary – you can rely on the levels meter and headphones. But with a loud band a WFM can help to identify problems you might otherwise miss.
a laptop and an inexpensive usb pre-amp also give you extra recording channels – which is what you need. The mix from the sound board is used to reinforce the sound from the stage not substitute for it. In a small venue the drummer is often not miced at all.
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I record many preformances. We almost always get a board mix to DAT or CD these days. We mix in camera audio for the reasons that Peter Ralph mentions above.
There are times when we can set up for a stereo field recording with two mics close to the stage or speaker stacks (close enough for direct sound without mic distortion added).
Keep in mind distortion/overloaded circuitry can happen at several points when using wireless mics. There’s the transmitter sensitivity that must be set, the receiver sensitivity, pre amp into camera or other recording device. You can have a level on the “final” meter well below peaking and still get heavy distortion.
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