[Mike Gee]

That’s a great a video, really shows the differences in mic types.

In the instances where people in the group say things individually, I’ve been operating the boom with the shotgun and going from person to person making sure it is pointed at the person talking (or at least as best as I can within the shot). Sorry I didn’t specify.

When the entire group responds to the speaker and talks, I’ve just bumped up the levels on it in post if needed, and it’s sort of a “better then nothing” scenario. Which is kind of what we had before, in the past we would use the audio from the lavalier on the speaker that barely got picked up on the group. We learned from that mistake :D.

[Mike Gee]

> As I said before, someone has to actively mix that as it’s being recorded. You can’t do that and run >camera.

I guess I should have mentioned, I don’t run the camera. I work with a small crew, and we are all kind of new to the game. But there’s a director, 1-2 camera operators, script supervisor, assistant producer (exec producer is off set) all on set. What do you mean by “actively mix”? I can’t just plug everything in, set the levels, and listen?

> Not anywhere as good as the Sound Devices 302. You can shoot with a VHS camcorder, if you get >my drift.

I don’t really get your drift. We are using a Panasonic AG-HMC150P AVCCAM for the main camera and it has a two channel XLR input. The original budget for a mixer was 150-300. Which was laughable, so a Sound 302 would be out of the question. I think I’ve got them convinced for at least 550 for the Sign ENG-44. It at least has 4 channels, a tone, a moderate UV meter, etc.

>Don’t know. How good are you?

Considering I’ve never done anything like that before, probably not very good. I don’t know what that would even entail. But I’m a youngster, and learn quick :D. And could practice. I just need some direction on what and how to do it. Kind of what I was looking for here.

But is it even worth it? Should I not waste the time/money on a mixer and just send the mics to the camera ch 1 and 2 like I’ve been doing? And do all mixing in post? I guess the only thing that would be limited here is the fact that I’m limited to two mics. Which so far, is all we have needed.

Thanks so much for your replies! You’re awesome. Been lurking for a while now and searching the forums as needed. Really helped me out. Still learning.

[Mike Gee]

>Yes, but you need a person and a device to do this well. This is what they call “Mix live to tape.” The >intention is to create a stereo master as you’re shooting.

Right, I was hoping to save time in post production by mixing live to the camera. So have person A mic on ch 1 on the mixer and person B mic on ch 2 to the mixer (both set to stereo), and then the output both channels mixed as stereo to the camera. Instead of having mono channels go to the camera and then having to mix in post. But it seams like I would have less control in the end.

As far as the equipment goes, I was thinking of going with the Sign Video ENG-44. That way I could plug my 2 lavs, the boom, and even a hypercardioid placed somewhere else if needed in the shot.

>Import it as two tracks and simply go through and pull down A when B is talking and vice versa. I do it >all the time.

Sounds like a necessary evil. I was hoping to get around this issue as well by mixing live. Is it possible?

[Mike Gee]

The SECOND scenario is two people talking to each other. I’ve used my two mic lav system for this before. Person A has a lav mic and is on CH1 on the camera, and the other mic is CH2 on person B. But this again requires me to mix the audio in post (I’ve been turning CH1 channel into mono, back into stereo, replacing it in Final Cut as a stereo track, and doing the same for CH2 as a second track in FCP).

Even worse when I do this, the people are so close together, that CH1 mic is picking up the person B as they talk, and vise versa. So I have to manually silence when person B is talking, on the first channel, and vise versa. Hope that makes sense.

So again, thinking of getting a mixer so that I would get both person A and person B recored to the same stereo audio track on the camera. But I’m not sure how I would work the mixer effectively.

I can’t separate the people any more. I’ve used my boom with a shotgun once in this scenario, but holding a boom for hours and hours is less fun then mixing in post, and directing the shotgun mic back and forth, anticipating when the person is going to speak, and sometimes they have a tendency to talk over each other also makes it difficult.