Sam Mallery
Forum Replies Created
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With little or no budget, there isn’t much you can do. Do you have a friend who also has a video camera? If you can borrow one, set it up on a tripod in the “sweet spot” of the room (the sweet spot is the optimal listening position, i.e. where it sounds best in the room). Go into the menu of the cameras and turn on the automatic gain control. This setting can be good for loud music, it will help keep the audio from clipping. Also, if you use two cameras, one may sound better than the other in post, so you will at least have options.
If you have a little budget, you should upgrade the stereo microphone on the stationary “sweet spot” camera. A great way to go is with the R0DE Stereo Video Mic:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/450170-REG/Rode_STEREO_VIDEO_MIC_Stereo_VideoMic_Camera.html
If you can’t swing $200, then the Sony 908 is pretty decent:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/174982-REG/Sony_ECMMS908C_ECM_MS908C_Stereo_Mic_for.html
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The name of the piece of gear you’re looking for is called a “meter bridge.” They’re not very common because every manufactuer is trying to make gear as inexpensive as possible, and having accurate metering on every channel is expensive and eats up a lot of real estate on the gear itself.
This isn’t a cheap suggestion, but if you ever get a budget to play with you should take a look at the PreSonus Studiolive digital mixer:
It has the meters you seek, it’s around the right size, and a digital mixer like this will allow you to eliminate a lot of the equipment you are currently passing your signals through. The Shark is cheap but it’s likely degrading your overall audio quality more than you think.
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By portable PA system, do you mean Public Address system? Meaning that you have a mic and a speaker that you can amplify your voice with? If so, here’s one:
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Nelson, do you know how your audio ended up with echo? Is it natural echo from recording in a large space with reflective surfaces? Or did the echo occur another way?
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If your wireless system is “frequency agile” – meaning that you can change the channel on the transmitter and receiver, then I would definitely try that out. You should also try to keep the antennas of the transmitter and receiver within eye shot of one another. For example, instead of hiding the transmitter on your subject, move it so the antenna is visible, and the same with the receiver.
If there’s a lot of glass and metal in the room, it can cause the wireless system to drop out. Perhaps you can move things around a bit to avoid the signal bouncing off the glass.
If that fails, see if you can buy an antenna amplification system for your wireless kit. If you don’t want to invest more money into this system that is failing you, consider bumping up to a more robust wireless system with a higher transmission power, like a Lectrosonics system that transmits at 100 mW:
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Agreed. Sound Devices mixer. I have the 302. Love it. You should spring for the AC adapter, because these are battery powered mixers, and if you’re shooting in the studio for the most part it would make sense to use the AC adapter. Sanken COS-11 lavs with a Lectrosonics wireless. I’ve never used Audio Limited or Zaxcom but I know that plenty of big time production people swear by them.
When I bought lavs I got Tram TR50s. They’re good, but I regret not spending the extra cash for Sanken COS11’s. They’re more natural sounding.
Neumann make great mics, but you may want to consider a Sanken shotgun as well. They are considered the best shotgun mics for noisy situations. Tell your boss that you want to give the Sanken CS-3E a try, to see if it improves at reducing the sound of the HVAC system. B&H has a two week return policy that would allow you to try it out. The CS-3E has the best rear rejection of noise, so if it’s up on a pole near the AC duct, it will ignore the noise better than any other shotgun:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/406096-REG/Sanken_CS_3E_CS_3E_Short_Shotgun_Microphone.html
You should also pick up a small diaphragm mic to use for booming in interiors. Small diaphragms microphones sound more natural than shotgun mics. In many situations you can get away with booming with a small diaphragm as opposed to a shotgun. Especially in interior shots. Most pros use the Schoeps CMC6/MK41:
It’s a sweet mic, but it’s really expensive. I recently picked up an Audio Technica 4053a. It’s not a Schoeps, but at a fraction of the cost it comes incredibly close:
The 4053a was just discontinued like two weeks ago, which is a shame, but I’m really glad I picked one up. In the future I’m going to get a Schoeps, and I’ll keep my 4053a in my bag as a back up. If you have to work in humid environments your mics start to fart out, so you need back ups.
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The easiest thing would be to ask your neighbor to switch frequencies so they don’t interfere with your TV reception. Is your neighbor doing this intentionally?
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Sennheiser G2 transmitters and receivers can be adjusted to accept a line level signal. It’s not terribly obvious in the menus on the devices themselves. I believe the selection you want from the menu on the transmitter is Sens (or some abbreviation of “sensitivity”). If you plug into the PA and the signal is distorted sounding in your camera, adjust the sensitivity in the transmitter down. If it’s still too hot and distorted sounding with the sensitivity all the way down, you can adjust the receiver on the camera as well. Except, on the receiver’s menu it’s not called sensitivity, it’s called RF Out, or something like that. Turn it down and see if it sounds better.
Ty’s right. You can’t expect anyone at the venue to know anything. I was at a friend’s wedding recently and the sound of the reception music was dreadful. All they had was a wireless handheld mic pointed at a cheap computer speaker that was playing an iTunes mix from a laptop. I wanted to see if I could take a look at what was going on and perhaps improve things a bit, so I started asking if anyone knew where the guts of sound system was located. None of the staff had any idea. I had to find it myself, and when I found it, it was such a hopeless mess that there was nothing I could do without disrupting the reception, so I didn’t do anything. What’s crazy is that it was a pretty fancy place.
Dmitriy – For the PA are you using the beltpack transmitter with the locking mini-plug input, or the plug-on transmitter with the 3-pin XLR input?
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The Sound Devices 302 rocks. I was lucky enough to be able to finally buy one last year. The thing is, not everyone has $1300 to drop on a mixer.
I bought a camcorder XLR adpater in 2004. I needed it for a student film I was making at the time, and I was so terribly broke back then that the $120 I had to spent on the device was more than I could afford. I put it on a credit card that I didn’t pay off for six months.
But you know what? Now that I have a 302, I still need the camcorder XLR adapter. My video camera only has an 1/8″ mic input. The 302 has XLR master outputs that you can drop down to mic level. It also has an aux output that does not drop down to mic level. I don’t own a y-cable that goes from dual female XLR to 1/8″ stereo mini to plug the masters of the 302 into my camera. So I use my Studio 1 Productions XLRBP camcorder XLR adapter to plug my 302 into my camera. It works really well.
That same company also makes a model that has 3 XLR inputs. You could get by with this for now, and eventually upgrade to a nice mixer when you have the means:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/283321-REG/Studio_1_Productions_XLRBP3P_XLR_BP3_Pro_Belt.html
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Edirol or Behringer? I would choose Edirol.
Edirol or Behringer or Tannoy? I would choose Tannoy.
By using the S/PDIF input on a speaker, all you are really doing is choosing to use the digital to analog converter that’s built into the speaker over the D/A converter you are using currently. Will it sound better? Perhaps. Will budget-friendly speakers with S/PDIF inputs give you a flatter and more reliable frequency response for mixing? Often times the answer is no.