Chip Thome
Forum Replies Created
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Chuck….. it’s so nice to be chatting with another video guy who has “been there, done that” with regards to dealing with crappy audio guys !!! 🙂
Two gigs ago we were to shoot an hour and half of a friends band for their promo DVD to be sent out to bars etc. We got there, set up, shot it all, although it didn’t sound that “great”. But, critiquing the audio wasn’t my concern at that point, getting the gig shot was. Because this was to be used to send out to bars to try and generate more biz for the band, I didn’t worry too much, as I said earlier, we just wanted decent.
When I got back and into viewing and listening to what we had, it was garbage. Our board feed was all drums with just about everything else buried in the background. My Rode was too far back to get real good audio, so that was out for an option too. End result, I ended up dumping about 80 gig of footage into the recycle bin as it was worthless.
I am sure you can relay similar horror stories too. It has been my experience that audio guys that are CONCERNED about what they give to the video guy, are few and far between. I have found that almost always, I am treated as an after thought.
Another buddy’s girlfriend does a solo act with a karaoke computer. The karaoke is fed into a smaller mixer and out to a pair of speakers. The ABSOLUTE best feed I have ever gotten from anyone, has been off that small mixer, but….. I plugged into the headphone jack to get it.
For what you describe, you probably don’t need a huge audio affair to get some decent audio. Possibly mic up the speakers, maybe the stage a bit, and some ambient from the room. If I were you and this gig was more than a donation of your skills, I think I’d look at getting someone to come in and do your own audio. I ended up eating that ruined shoot of a friend’s band even though it wasn’t our fault. You hate to tell your client “well I got 4 hours of garbage because of your audio guy! Where’s my check and do you want to do this all again another time???” Yet that is exactly what they should hear.
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Chuck, start with what is your output of your work going to be. DVD, online and promo materials ??? If you were hired to do a DVD that is to be professional and salable and has pro quality audio, let whoever hired you know you need to hire your own sound company to provide that audio for you. You need everything mic’d up and mixed for your use, not the house’s, and either fed to you or recorded.
If this is just some ol’ promo material or for online viewing, close now counts, just like in horseshoes and hand grenades.
I have done a lot of bands and have run into varying mixes, and the sound guy always messes with it throughout the show. If you have a festival type mix where everything runs through the board, you are in good shape as you should get something from the house board that is exactly what you hear. If you get a club type of mix where guitars are scaled back and vocals, drums and keyboards are scaled up, because guitars have their own amps and speakers pumping out sound, what you get off that board is going to sound like crap.
In either of those situations, I have taken what the board gave and also took a feed from my Rode Stereo Videomic, to add the missing sound and also the ambient from the room. In post I mixed just enough to get it to sound decent and feel “live”. IMO, if you can see crowd and they are doing something that should have sound associated with it, clapping etc, you oughta be hearing them too.
As far as taking audio from a show, clipped audio equals ruined audio. So, I have attenuated right into the basement, and then boosted gain in post to where it should be. This is not the preferred method of recording, but again, what are you doing with it ??? Those viewing online are not expecting to pull out their headphones so they can critique the audio on Youtube. They just want to hear a decent recording of the song to accent the video they are watching. Same with promo material.
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Client is going another route….. thanks for any considerations.
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I too have wondered this as a friend gave me the scene file settings for my DVX he has used for the weddings he has done. When I set everything including 24p, indoors, it is way too dark to be usable. If I then switch just the 24p back to 60i, it lightens up significantly, enough to be at least good, if not “just fine” to use.
My only experience has been this one scene file group of settings and used indoors in 3.2k light.
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They have not yet received clearance forms, or have no intentions of getting them ???
As you know, you are in hold mode until the releases are secured, at a bare minimum.
If you have a contract that spells out who is responsible for what, you are in good shape.
If you don’t, there’s always a small claims court action you could pursue, if it falls within your state’s limits, to recover what you have coming up until this point in time, if your client won’t pay you without the job being completed.
But as you already know, someone has to choke down those license fees, if this is to be done legally.
You mention they are missing licenses for a good chunk, does that mean they have some, but not all ??? Or are they assuming there is no license required because some is public domain music ??? As I understand it, even if it is public domain music, the actual performance of it could be copywritten to the performers that recorded it.
Because dance is choreographed to the specific piece of music, forget substitution. You will never get something close enough to have it look right.
Good luck.
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When you say BROADCAST Viking, I assume you mean to be broadcast commercially as in being seen on a major TV network or in a Film in the theater.
Why not fill us in more on what this is going to be used for, how and where it will be shown, and who the intended audience is for this project ???
Depending on the answers to these, we could be giving advice that is overkill for what you actually are wanting to accomplish.
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My experience with board feeds, you are at the mercy of the guy running the board and what HE thinks sounds right, for the venue HE is at. The sound guy has one goal, make sure the people who are in front of the speakers RIGHT NOW hear the best quality that fits the occasion, not concerning himself with what might happen with the audio later on. Also in an uncontrolled outside environment you could have unwanted sounds from the audience, nearby roads, wind noise….any number of issues. Not that it couldn’t all be cleaned up and made broadcast quality, but that could become someone’s vocation as far as how long it might take to accomplish.
I think I would have to go along with the broadcast board and give you a 1 in 10 chance of getting something good enough, even after cleaning it up, for broadcast.
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I bought a pair of used DVX100Bs 5 months ago, and love ’em. One had 10 hours, one had 26 hours and I paid 2500 for the pair with Kata bags. Buying a new DVX would be a waste of money, IMO.
The 40, just face it, you need new software and new hardware to go to HD and work with it easily and well. That was one part of my reasoning to go with the DVXs over the 40. I am upgrading my computing on my schedule now, not the cameras.
The next of my reasons, the DVXs were added to existing GS models, as I often shoot 4 cams. I got into both DVXs for less than what 1 HMC150 would have cost. The last of it, the vast differences between the two cameras. The 40 shares a lot with the consumer cam, but nothing with the HMC150. When I tossed in the fact CMOS still has some issues that are slowly being rectified, the DVX just came out on top.
Going with the DVX now and putting an upgrade path together for your software and hardware, and replacing the DVX later on with the next version of the 40 might be a real option worth considering, for you.
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If you have the G2 and are happy with it, going backwards to a Audio Technica, the differences in quality and features will become real apparent to you almost immediately. My largest concern would be a recognizable difference in audio quality, when you have both samples, back to back in your finished video. IMO, you are going to want each wireless feeds to “sound” the same, to keep it from becoming annoying when viewed. You wouldn’t want the groom to be crystal clear and the guy standing right next to him, marrying them, to sound anything but exactly the same. Same gain, same clarity, same, same same. If not, it could easily appear as if one set of audio was dubbed in after the fact, and poorly done at that.
I have a friend who uses the Audio Technicas as a matched pair, and is very happy with them. He also uses a Rode shotgun to grab ambient, to fill out the “sound” he uses.