I'm looking for an external mic for my new Canon XA20 that came handle loud live music /concerts. My Rode NTG-2 just can't handle that kind of volume. I want to record directly to the camera to avoid editing and save time. There are times I can't get a feed off the sound board. Recording locally live music is mostly a hobby but there are times I get hired to record a concert, usually pretty much on the cheap. I just recorded a show, warm up bands for Jackyl,
using my new cam and the audio has too much distortion using the NTG-2 mic. I had the audio settings in manual, AGC off, set the meters from going in the red and turned on the attenuator. I was set up next to the sound board about 50 feet from the stage. I found that I'm better off using the on camera mic than my Rode mic. At least I didn't have clipping with the on camera mic. But I need to improve my audio so that's why I'm here looking for help. My budget is around $300 and will consider buying a used mic.

There is always that "lowest-common-denominator" rock-music standard the Shure SM57. It appears to be impervious to overload and rock-music type abuse.
They can typically be found at a low price on Craigslist, etc.

on the other hand, the SM57 and 58 are almost impervious to physical abuse as well. Though I've had some incidents with drum stick hits on 57s.

Thanks for your help guys! I got a friend that has the SM58 he said I could try out. I read that with the 58 i'd have to be right next to the speakers and that the 57 would pick up better. Not sure when I'll be filming my next loud rock concert though. But when I do I wand to get decent live audio. What about using a Zoom recorder for extremely loud concerts? Can the built in mics handle that situation? And can I use the Zoom to record directly into the cam?

One thing about the SM57/58 is that they are have a limited frequency range. Great for vocals and guitars, not so good for a bass drum or cymbals. (My son once made some interesting recordings with the combination of an SM57 and a nice bass drum mic, which is heavily scooped. He could mix the two channels to taste to get a full, balanced sound.)

There are many condenser mics that have a wider frequency response and can handle over 140 dB. As long as you're not recording too close to the front-of-house speakers, they'll do fine. You'll get a better frequency response, though you might get more harmonic distortion.

Often, concerts are mixed in mono so the audience on both sides of the stage hear the same performance. If that's the case, you could try the SM57 + bass drum mic approach - even very close to the speakers. The ability to capture the mids at one level and the bass (with it's high levels) at another is quite nice. Just make sure that the mics are close to one another to avoid phasing issues.

If you record in stereo with dynamic mics further from the stage, you'll have a stereo result (due to the room, even if the source is mono), but the sound will be muddier due to room reverb. If you record right next to the speakers, you'll have a less muddy sound, but potentially a mono soundstage. Ideally, you'd record all four channels (left, right, mids, bass/treble) and mix to taste. That lets you get a nice frequency balance along with the "space" of the room. You can also mix to the x-y mics between songs to get a good crowd sound. In the past, I've mixed camera audio with audio from the board to get a "live" sound as well as to capture the crowd. Audio from the board alone often sounds too clinical without giving a feel for the live space.

It's gonna be a crapshot no matter how you look at it. It depends first on whether you are shooting in a space with full cooperation from the band and the audio staff.

I would always say str8 from the board would be my number one choice, but as Jon pointed out you miss that live natural sound. It would still be my preference.

This is some audio straight from the board from what was supposed to be my b camera. Camera guy left the iris wide open on th A cam and the audio sucked so save the day with the b cam.

One thing about str8 out of the board is that it will never be objectionable.

Often times the nat sound alone can be not so great.

Alas de Mosca 2 on Vimeo

The problem is almost certainly NOT your microphone. It takes a heck of a lot more than what a concert can deliver to distort a microphone. Where the problem almost certainly sits is with your gain structure. Turn it all the way down and see what you get.

Do you have the camera automatically setting your levels or are you doing it manually? Are you monitoring levels as you record? You should set levels to make sure that you have plenty of headroom in a loud show, even more headroom if the show is very dynamic.

While I haven't used the XA20, I haven't found a camera out there with XLR connectors and a manual level control that doesn't have the ability to deal with just about anything that's thrown at it. The only problems I've had are with cameras that can't handle professional line inputs (which are usually cameras w/out XLRs)

--Ben

Rich,
I shoot bands strictly as a hobby. But I almost always can get a feed from the audio board.

I have been using a Rode Stereo VideoMic Pro going into the second channel on my Ex1R.

I will mix it in just a little at times if it's good. It's at it's best when your'e real close to the stage.

If your Rode mic is distorting it sounds like a sensitivity setting in your camera or on your mic.
Sometimes if the audio board is far from where I want to be I use a butt plug out of a senny wireless to get a feed from the board.

But I almost always prefer one channel from the board.

***This first video below is 100% Rode Stereo VideoMic Pro all by itself. It gets the job done but it's lacking.

Triple Crown of Zydeco @ Gator By The Bay 2013 on Vimeo


This is a 90% board and 10 percent Rodes stereo Video Mic Pro

Michele Lundeen Performing at Gator By The Bay 2013 San Diego CA. on Vimeo

The problem is almost certainly NOT your microphone. It takes a heck of a lot more than what a concert can deliver to distort a microphone.)

--Ben

With all respect intended to your experience, a colleague with a NTG2 found that it overloaded badly at loud sporting events, regardless of the settings on the camera, or use of attenuators. Perhaps it is a characteristic of the particular model.

That said, I know of a couple of people who use the AKG Perception 170 at loud venues with good success. With its dB pad engaged it can handle 158bB. Price is around $100US.

I guess what really needs to be said is that a shotgun mic is not the best choice for this type of job to begin with.

I have a Sennheiser MD431 II that I'm looking to sell in your price range. Like new and if It can handle Dave Groll vocals they can handle anything.

Thanks for for all your input. Ill let you know what mic I get and how it works. Tapping into the soundboardis the way to go but its not always possible.

With all respect intended to your experience, a colleague with a NTG2 found that it overloaded badly at loud sporting events, regardless of the settings on the camera, or use of attenuators. Perhaps it is a characteristic of the particular model.

That said, I know of a couple of people who use the AKG Perception 170 at loud venues with good success. With its dB pad engaged it can handle 158bB. Price is around $100US.

I don't doubt that your colleague had issues with distortion. My point is that the distortion is usually somewhere else in the chain.

The specs (according to Rode) aren't that dissimilar to many condenser microphones: 131dB SPL (@ 1kHz, 1% THD into 1KΩ load) It is rare that you'll find a rock concert that is pushing more than 115dB (which is above the pain threshold for most people). That is still giving you another 15 dB before the microphone is distorting. Even in the loudest loud football and basketball stadiums, I've rarely measured more than about 120 dB. (still giving you another 10dB of headroom)

Now, there are plenty of other places in the signal chain that an overload can happen. Most often, you'll find it either in the preamp of the camera or in the Analog to Digital converter. Careful gain structure will get you around both of those. I find that these days, there are way too many cameras that don't really have control of input gain. DSLRs are the worst, but there are plenty of other cameras with a lack of control or line inputs that are really mic inputs with a pad. Another place that is very easy to overload is a wireless transmitter. I see problems with wireless (especially the cheap ones) all the time. Even with a great quality rig (say Sennheiser 5000 series in the music/live sound world), you can still overload the transmitters easily without overloading either the element (mic) or the receiver or input. In the original poster's note, he mentioned using a camera that has XLR inputs. While these inputs are almost certainly a mic pre with a pad for line it, you should be able to get a clean input with any source, mic or line, if you set the gain structure properly.

At the end of the day, if you really care about your audio, you should be going into a real audio recorder where you can adjust your settings. Just like you wouldn't want to leave your camera on full auto to shoot something, you probably don't want to leave your audio on full auto either. Correct gain structure is critical to any audio recording.

--Ben

Amen to "Gain Staging". I was very lucky to have two very knowledgeable Audio Engineers take pity on me and help me understand 'Gain Staging' and it's still a subject that requires my constant attention. It all begins with the mic. Each 'stage' in the audio string has to be adjusted to provide listening experience we all hope for. Each 'Stage' building upon the last.

A good Mixer will help with your audio capture enormously, of course at the price ($$, too) of more equipment to carry, set-up, breakdown, etc. Since I own it, I feel comfortable recommending the Sound Devices SD-302 Mixer. There are many out there and most are excellent products. If, you do a search on 'Mixers' you'll get a multitude of recommendations and opinions.

As you've discovered, DVInfo has some of the most knowledgeable Video and Audio folks available, their council should be considered carefully.

One final recommendation and that is to obtain a copy of "Ty Ford's Audio Boot-camp Field Guide". I've made this same recommendation several times, people are probably tired of hearing it. However, I find myself referring to it quite often when I have an audio question. And, I might add, Mr. Ford will occasionally chime-in on these discussions.

Best regards,

J.

Thanks for for all your input. Ill let you know what mic I get and how it works.

So Rich, what mic did you end up going with? I would be interested as i plan to start doing a similar thing, possibly with the same camera you use

That said, I know of a couple of people who use the AKG Perception 170 at loud venues with good success. With its dB pad engaged it can handle 158bB. Price is around $100US.

158dB is what you will find behind a jet fighter taking off from an aircraft carrier, or under a multi-stage space rocket launch pad. One is very unlikely to encounter 158 dB unless you are working for the military or NASA. And working in that kind of SPL will turn you deaf unless you conscientiously wear severe-service hearing protection. Rock musicians have lost their hearing from SPL many orders of magnitude less than that.

so far I have tried the Shure SM 58. a musician friend loaned it to me. I haven't got a chance to get back to a loud music venue to do any testing. I did get to test it out at a bar he was playing at. for a $100 Mic. I think it did a good job. When I get to my computer I will post the video I took.
This video was shot with my canon xa20 and the Shure sm58 mic. Just playing around with my new cam and testing the mic. Sounds pretty flat to me but I'm sure I could improve the audio in editing. This video was straight off the cam to youtube. After buying 2 batteries for the canon and a charger I kind of blew my spending money for right now. The $100 price range is probably gonna have to do for now. Would love to try out a Rode videomic to see how it would sound.

http://youtu.be/2VfS61WLKjc

This is the problem I had using the Rode NTG-2 mic. This show was very loud but sounded good. The sound man wouldn't let me get a feed from the board which I was really planning on getting. I had the attn. set to on. I need to learn the audio settings better.
I did try to remove some of the distortion in post. This was shot on my xa20.

http://youtu.be/9YEtbp0CDY8

Is the shure sm 58 just a vocal mic?

The Shure SM58 is *the* classic vocal mic. It's like the SM57 (the classic amp mic) with a vocal pop filter attached.

Both mics sound flat (i.e. a strong mid-range) when recording full bandwidth music. They are tuned with a limited bass and high treble response. But they handle very high SPLs, and well known, and can be used in a pinch to hammer nails. :)

The SM57 or SM58 is a good choice for a natural, documentary type of presentation. It's not a great choice for making a band sound great. But sometimes, it's about getting the job done reliably, on time, and on budget.

158dB is what you will find behind a jet fighter taking off from an aircraft carrier, or under a multi-stage space rocket launch pad. One is very unlikely to encounter 158 dB unless you are working for the military or NASA. And working in that kind of SPL will turn you deaf unless you conscientiously wear severe-service hearing protection. Rock musicians have lost their hearing from SPL many orders of magnitude less than that.

Jeez, Richard, I'm not advocating the sound level, just quoting the specs the mike is capable of....! I know of a couple of people who have purchased these for, for example, those over-amped wedding receptions that leave one's head ringing, and found it eliminated the overload distortion of the mikes they had been using.

For indoor events , I use a AT8022 Stereo mic mounted above the room crowd, pointing at a down angle at center stage, xlr cables back to my asx2000. (about 1/2 or more of the crowd are behind the AT8022) Audio levels are manually adjusted at the camera to eliminate clipping. AGC is off. I also use a h4n to record the board mix, using a 25 db pad to reduce the board line levels to mic levels. In post I sync and mix the two until I get a stereo image I like.

I have a home made mic mounting bracket that I use to hang the mic from rafters and such. If I can not hang the mic then I' ll use a microphone stand center forward as an alternative setup.

I can go wireless to the AT8022 but then i don't have control of the mic input levels - I must guess the gain settings before the event starts - and hope the batteries will last as the wireless mic will be turned on for a long time. I found out the hard way that most wireless systems are designed for voice and are not as dynamic as xlr, so I go xlr whenever possible. If wireless and xlr are not practical then i mount the AT8022 on the camera.

For outdoor events I am much more reliant on the board mix and the camera mics. ( I do a 3 or 4 camera shoot for most live events)

Lots of trial an error on my part but getting to the event early so I can set up is key.

I also have asked if the drummer can play quieter => as the rest of the band has to amp up to balance out the drummer => which overpowers a small venue. The answer has always been: Impossible! :)

Not sure if this might help, but the Tascam DR-40 recorder has a mode you can set to record 2 tracks at one level and 2 tracks at a different level in order to provide a safety track in the event of an overload. I record some events where it can be very quiet for a long time and then someone starts blasting a PA and that feature comes in handy.

How would something like the Rode NT4 go in situations like these?

RDE Microphones - NT4 (http://www.rodemic.com/mics/NT4)

Not sure if this might help, but the Tascam DR-40 recorder has a mode you can set to record 2 tracks at one level and 2 tracks at a different level in order to provide a safety track in the event of an overload.

This is also a feature of the new Zoom H6 which has a -12dB backup track facility from the main L/R mic module inputs. I just need to hear that it is done as an analogue gain process before the A-D converter for it to be really useful.

I have one thing to add about mics:

If you buy a SM57 or 58 (and other mics) get them from a vender you can trust. That is NOT eBay! There are tons of fakes out there and some of them are very hard to tell from the originals - visually that is. Early on I got burned on two SM57s, I still find it hard to believe that people would counterfeit a $100 mic but they do.

The trade price on a knock off 57 or 58 is about $12. In fairness, they're not rubbish, but they are NOT going to match a real one. You can eq these counterfeits so they sound fine - BUT - their frequency response has weird spikes in it, and the polar pattern is a bit odd too, so you can't get monitors so loud before feedback.

If you use a dynamic of any price you will get an OK recording, a condenser will be much cleaner and brighter - but one with a pad can be very useful.

One dynamic mic I accidentally used in a loud venue and discovered was excellent was the AKG D202 - the two capsules seemed to work really well, and the usual bassiness was missing!

The Rode NTG-2 specs say that it can handle131 dB SPL, which is louder than a rock concert, so it's unlikely that the mic itself is distorting. It can be powered by 48V phantom or a single AA battery. Rode does not supply an SPL spec for battery operation, so it's possible that the mic cannot handle rock-concert levels with the battery in use. You could ask Rode tech support about that.

Probably the mic's strong output signal is overloading the mic preamp in your camera. I'd recommend putting a pad (in-line attenuator) between the mic and the camera such as the Dayton XATT20 or
Shure A15AS. Good luck!

Bruce Bartlett
Bartlett Audio

I'm looking for an external mic for my new Canon XA20 that came handle loud live music /concerts. My Rode NTG-2 just can't handle that kind of volume. I want to record directly to the camera to avoid editing and save time. There are times I can't get a feed off the sound board. Recording locally live music is mostly a hobby but there are times I get hired to record a concert, usually pretty much on the cheap. I just recorded a show, warm up bands for Jackyl,
using my new cam and the audio has too much distortion using the NTG-2 mic. I had the audio settings in manual, AGC off, set the meters from going in the red and turned on the attenuator. I was set up next to the sound board about 50 feet from the stage. I found that I'm better off using the on camera mic than my Rode mic. At least I didn't have clipping with the on camera mic. But I need to improve my audio so that's why I'm here looking for help. My budget is around $300 and will consider buying a used mic.

Many cameras have an amplifier section *before* the level control.

So it's likely the mic. is fine, but the camera is overloading the first stage.

I would use an external audio section.