Recording a choral concert

[Raimo Repo]

My career as a DV film maker started with my GS400 purchase last July but I am well into my first project- a biographical documentary of an important regional Canadian musical personality. So far, my Videomic has been all of my audio equipment and it has served me well since most of the project has been closeups. Now I need to record a portion of a choral concert as part of this project in a church where I can get a feed from the sound board. The church has Shure M58's but that's all. Is there any way I can combine the Videomic with the 58's? If not, how good a quality of stereo sound could I get from a pair of 58's? I am not quite ready yet to invest in serious sound equipment beyond an XLR adapter and borrowed mics until I gain more experience. Finally, which XLR adapter would serve my needs for the near future?

[Steve House]

Originally Posted by Raimo Repo

My career as a DV film maker started with my GS400 purchase last July but I am well into my first project- a biographical documentary of an important regional Canadian musical personality. So far, my Videomic has been all of my audio equipment and it has served me well since most of the project has been closeups. Now I need to record a portion of a choral concert as part of this project in a church where I can get a feed from the sound board. The church has Shure M58's but that's all. Is there any way I can combine the Videomic with the 58's? If not, how good a quality of stereo sound could I get from a pair of 58's? I am not quite ready yet to invest in serious sound equipment beyond an XLR adapter and borrowed mics until I gain more experience. Finally, which XLR adapter would serve my needs for the near future?

If you can get a feed from the sound board why bother with the Videomic in the choir shots? The house SM58s would feed to their soundboard while you take a stereo feed off the board and send it to the camera's L & R channels.

[James Emory]

You definitely need to get a board feed for great audio.

[Sam Gates]

Sm58s are great for solo performances. They are not good if the person or people are more than about a foot away.

Do the have a condenser podium mic? When pressed I have used one to record with fair results. A desent solution is probably a pair of crossed cariod condersers about the same height as lhe back row and a foot or two in front of the first row. You can move them up, down and around for the best blend. It works with a minimum number of mics and still captures some of the room sound.

Sam

[Albert Rodgers]

Be careful when receiving feeds directly from the main board. Sometimes the signal may be to strong/weak for recording. I would recommend that you send the audio from the main board into a smaller mixer with 6-12 channels. This will give you some control of the sound. You can get a signal from the main out (from main board); or better yet, receive a feed from Aux 1,2,or 3 from the main board (with aux. levels adjusted properly on each channel for your video recording) into the secondary mixer and then to your camera or deck; or lastly and maybe bestly :) receive a feed from each channel being used from the main board to go into the various channels on your secondary board so that you can have even greater control. You may want to have someone monitor the audio for the third option. REMEMBER: Most audio engineers are adjusting the levels for the house and not recording. Some sound rooms have a seperate board for recording.

I hope this helps.