Sony PCM-d50 for Marching Band?

[Brett Underberg-davis]

Got some slight improvement by moving the D50 back to the fence in front of the stands and more centered this time (last Friday’s game). Though I still found myself mixing in the on-cam sound to give more sense of space. I did pick up bits of some nearby conversation, though only briefly… but this was one of the reasons I had the recorder midway onto the running track, I think, in a location where few spectators would be likely to casually plant themselves. It’s a big risk putting the recorder anywhere close to the stands, I think, at least if the goal of the closer recording is to minimize crowd noise.

One test recording I did at one of our early games (recording the host team’s halftime show, so I could play with location and levels) seemed to invite two or three teens to camp as close to the recorder as they could, to discuss their sex lives.

I’d considered placing it at the front of the stands, on the raised platform itself, when I was looking for a spot this last time, but I decided against it mostly because I didn’t want to incite someone in the stands to move something that was “blocking” their view or whatever. (Not that the D50 could block anyone’s view, but I could just anticipate the convo with some thicknecked fan of the home team and me in my visitor’s team band chaperone windbreaker).

Anyway, I spent minimal time processing the two tracks (this was also my first time using the D50’s windscreen, though the night was still very calm and there wasn’t enough wind to be a problem anyhow.

I would love to see that mic. But the camera I’d be showing is the XL H1, which sparked a convo on top of the announcer’s stand, where I met the head of Monroe HS’s TV/vid program, who mentioned that Comcast (or another local cable provider) was giving them money for equipment to set up a local access station, and he wanted my comments on using the XL H1, which was on their shortlist. If the XH A1 had been available when I decided to buy the XL H1, though, I might well have gone with that camera, since it is much more affordable, and probably does 98% or better of what I need most of the time. If I were younger, and gas were cheaper, I’d probably be looking to find a stringer gig with area news channels. 😉

[Glenn Fisher]

I apologize for not keeping up with my side of this conversation. I would make some excuse, but the truth is that things just got very busy and I forgot about the CreativeCOW forums for a while.

Anyway, I hope that this post might be useful for you in recording the next marching band season.

As far as the d50 goes for marching band audio, I’m planning to pick up a Manfrotto 004BAC light stand from B&H. It’s a collapsible 13′ stand that comes with a screw on adapter to convert the top thread to a 3/8″ mount, allowing me to mount the d50 on top. I’m also ordering the casters to go along with it, so I’ll keep the d50 set up (and maybe even recording) for the entire football game, and I can simply wheel it around where I need it to go. I think that this will be a great solution for me at football games since it allows me to get a much higher location for the d50 while I’m recording my marching band’s “pep music” in the stands, and then I can simply wheel it on the track over to the 50 yard line (I already talked to the band director and he has no problem with me positioning the stand directly behind the drum major during football games) for their half-time performance. I’m hoping that this solution will give me much better audio, and I’ll let you know how it turns out whenever I try it!

As a side note, I’ve gotten into recording many of my school district’s concerts (orchestra, band, and choir) for broadcast over a local television station. The high school choral director actually hired a professional sound recording guy to come in for his concert, and talking to him (and especially hearing the audio that he got compared to the d50) convinced me that I should look into expanding my audio recording kit. I already have a mixer, so I’m looking into purchasing a stereo pair of Oktava MC012 microphones. I mostly plan to use them for indoor recording, but I’m sure that I will set them up at least once during next summer’s band camp in order to see “what I’m missing” by using only the d50. I don’t think I can use the Oktavas to record football games, since I’m already running two cameras, and can’t manage a mixer at the same time. Not to mention the fact that I don’t really have a proper field mixer and would have to either rely on my laptop and a usb audio interface, or have to purchase another expensive piece of kit. Anyway, I plan to try it, so I’ll be sure to upload some samples once I do!

Best Of Luck To You In The New Year,
Glenn Fisher

[Brett Underberg-davis]

Thanks for getting back to this. I know what you mean about busy, my free time since November was mostly tied up in shooting, capturing or editing band footage, first for my weekly DVDs for the band director, and then assembling the “Season Highlights” DVD for the Band Parents Association. It was a great learning experience, but rather exhausting.

In the end I think my best audio, at least from the D50, came in the end from setting up (usually) very near to where I was shooting from, ideally on top of the announcers’ booth, when I could get there. From that vantage point there might have been a little more “air” and crowd noise than ideal, but at least I could monitor and adjust recording levels from there — which goes to your point about a mixer and quality mics, items that are all on my wish list — and I did get some moderate quality mics along the way, including studio-type mics too delicate (and with pickup patterns inappropriate) for the demands of this particular task.

You mentioned before the quiet levels on my first shot at the Pennridge performance. With experience and some outside reading I came to realize that I was applying some filters (especially compression) in a completely counterproductive way. My more recent versions should be a bit more listenable, preserving enough dynamic range but not taking it to extremes that render much of the track as very quiet — the new mix resembles closely the quality I generally managed to attain for the DVD release, which was pressed through (and delivered) just before the Holiday break.

Since it was already online I decided to repair or replace, where possible, the track you heard. Something about the first try was so bad, apparently, that it may have affected the video frame rate of the original video that remains in place on YouTube — a change that seems to have coincided with their first attempt to present HD video on the site, starting in mid-December. I’ve left the bad track up in part because so many people have been passing it around locally that more and more of the hits on that video have been coming, it seems from family and friends who got the link via email, IMs or whatnot. I decided to link the improved render/mix since YouTube doesn’t allow video replacement, and hope that some people will notice the links and click through to the decent version. 😉

You might be interested to take a glance at or comment on the comparison video I did, taking my on-camera audio and comparing it to both a fairly raw mix of the original D50 PCM track, and a mildly processed and compressed rendition made solely from that track.

Let’s see if this links.

Just in case the link fails again, here’s the raw URL:

https://www.vimeo.com/2655404

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