SOUNDCRAFT GB2R outputs

[Brian Reynolds]

What is the mixer ALREADY feeding and what connections are being used?
What sort of function are you doing? ie;Music (stereo or mono) or spoken voice etc.
Do you need a Mono or Stereo feed?
Is there any audience participation like applause?
How far from the mixer is your camera?…x meters (approx)

[Craig Alan]

All the ports in the stereo returns are open.

The xlr right and left outputs are taken.

The aux 6 ¼ inch is taken.

Aux 1 xlr is taken.

There are preamps next to the mixer and they are feeding 5 monitors.

Small auditorium; our 100 foot xlr easily covers it. The cams will be about 75 feet from the mixer. We could also put a third one 25 feet from the mixer and kept on fairly wide center toward the stage.

It’s a student talent show with a laptop feeding the mixer recorded music and the acts include dancing, singing, bands and talking hosts.

We’re using a 302 mixer into our cams which can take line or mike level but I also have Shure A15AS – In-Line Pads with 15, 20 or 25 db of Selectable Mic Attenuation – XLR Barrel.

No tech rehearsal or anyone who knows the mixer well. No time to experiment so I can either aim a Hypercardioid on a mike stand mike at one of the powered speakers or get a line out. If I can use a cordless kit out the mixer to our mixer that would be better to avoid dealing with the 100 ft xlr through a crowed auditorium. But either way is ok. We’ll do a 2 cam shoot with a still cam as well.

Though the mixer and speakers can easily do a decent stereo mix it sounds to me like dual mono – if that’s the right word for a live mix sent to four speakers – all sounding identical. I could also connect our KiPro to the rca L R out record ports.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Brian Reynolds]

This is probably how I would do it, but others may do it differently.

Take the MONO XLR o/p of the theatre mixer feed that to the main camera position and into the 302 mixer input set to LINE level and the signal panned centre. Take the L o/p of the 302 set to line level and feed it to channel 1 of your main camera (at line level).

Take the R o/p of the 302 mixer and feed it to channel 1 of the 2nd camera set to line level.

Set an FX mic on a stand near EACH camera (rather than on top of the camera as it will pick up zoom / focus handling noise).

So each camera will have MONO audio on channel 1 and FX on channel 2.

You need the FX tracks in a job like you are doing as just a theatre mixer o/p has no atmosphere.

Be more concerned about a nice MONO mix rather than POOR stereo mix.

[Ty Ford]

“No tech rehearsal or anyone who knows the mixer well. No time to experiment”

This is a stupid way to approach a job. (Not saying you’re stupid. Whoever put you in this box is stupid.)
I’d walk away from any offer like this (and have in the past).

Brian’s advice is good if everything is as it should be. Be prepared for it not to be. I’d want a prefader send because if someone’s mixing and they move the faders (and you can bet they will) your levels will also change. If you use Brian’s setup you need eyes on that first 302 to adjust levels if (when) they do something at the board.

Regards,

Ty Ford
Cow Audio Forum Leader

Want better production audio?: Ty Ford’s Audio Bootcamp Field Guide
Ty Ford Blog: Ty Ford’s Blog

[Craig Alan]

Thank you so much Brian and Ty. The advice is spot on and in the near further we will get a chance to experiment with the set-up. For now, We will shoot one cam aimed at the house speaker and I will set up a camera just to experiment and assume I’m wasting my time except for the experience it gives me.

The P2 cams do not like line level and seem to prefer mike level so I’ll keep that in mind.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Brian Reynolds]

If your P2 prefer mic level then follow the setup I have described and just switch the o/p of the 302 to mic level everything else will be the same..

[Craig Alan]

Thanks Brian. I had been told that some of the outputs might be dead. Further the entire rear panel was assembled for rack mounting but put flat into a console so I had to crawl under the table face up with a flash light to see what was what. In any case I used the MONO XLR o/p with a 50 foot xlr cord to one 302 mixer. I set the 302 xlr outputs to -40. I then set the sensitivity of the G2 transmitter to -10 and the G2 receiver AF out to -24. Camcorder was set to mic level. Cam was calibrated to -20 with 0 tone from mixer.

All this worked well.

Now for the second part of your original post: I get picking up house sound using a mic on a stand into the other channel of the mixer. I’d have to set up a second G2 cordless kit for the other channel to keep the camera untethered. When I’ve used a mike on a stand to capture live performances, we’ve pointed them toward the house PA. With some adjustments to the angle we captured pretty much what the audience heard. Far from good audio but served to document the event. I assume for this combination your intent is to simply pick up house noise, audience response and the like. This would be mixed in post at a lower level than the house mixer channel. What mike would you recommend for this? We usually use a Hypercardioid on our stands, but for this use would an omni dynamic be better? What exactly is a FX mike? Also we discovered watching the first of three performances of the talent show that some of the acts used their own speakers and didn’t go through the house mixer. So I’m thinking the mike on stand should be near these acts.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Brian Reynolds]

The acts with their own speakers is a problem….

Fx mics normally face the audience and away from the PA speakers, they are there to get the audience reactions and not to pick up the PA .

The ideal audience mic would be a cardioid condenser mic but in reality for small shows any mic (except omni) would do, the omni would get to much spill from the PA.

[Craig Alan]

Thanks again. We did the best we could given no tech rehearsals. We aimed the mike on the stand (hyper cardioid) toward the acts with their own systems. We’ll learn more from the experience when we go to edit. We shot this 2 hour show three times so we have a lot of media to ingest and sort through. Though I love to give other programs a good video of their work, my primary job is to teach production skills to students and I think the team learned a lot about the work flow regardless of the results. Things like setting up the cordless kits and running xlr wires and finding breaks to exchange to batteries and checking calibration levels and getting a mix of wide and close ups, etc. I also have the other stake holders coming to me and telling me we need to get together and sort out the technical issues in this environment. You think?

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Ty Ford]

About these of mics. I’ve worked it so that I have a board feed on one track and a mic in the audience (a camera mic actually) on the other track. The camera mic captures some of the audience but is there mainly to get the combined sound of the PA and the spill from the amps on stage, the drums and other percussion.

You have to time align the two tracks in post to account for the distance of the camera mic from the stage. You can do that by zooming in on waveforms and slipping the camera mic tracks to the left to match the console feed. As a thumb rule, since sound travels about 1 foot per millisecond, you can get close with simple math if your timeline supports that. How many feet from the stage was that mic? That’s roughly how many milliseconds you need to pull the two tracks together.

Then you add just enough mic sound in to make the mix feel like it did when you heard it. You might also want to add some reverb from a good plugin. Maybe not.

Regards,

Ty Ford
Cow Audio Forum Leader

Want better production audio?: Ty Ford’s Audio Bootcamp Field Guide
Ty Ford Blog: Ty Ford’s Blog