Advice on shooting live music

[Richard Gooderick]

Many thanks Jerome and Martin for your advice.

I will try the Shure 58A for the vocals and a cardoid condenser for the guitar. May try a DPA 4061 inside the guitar too as I own one of these mics.

And I will take another look at the audio forum too. I must have missed the relevant postings.

[Jeremiah Rickert]

I got to the venue early enough for soundcheck, and was able to get a proper line level from their board. I was happy how the sound turned out. I still had to dial it down a little, but no clipping and I can hear all the parts.

My b-camera had a shotgun on it and captured sound as well. I also am going to get a CD copy of the sound-board recording jusssst in case.

I might still use some of the B-camera audio to pipe in some crowd noise into the rear of the mix.

Thanks for all the tips in this thread.

JR

[Mark Harmer]

I'm glad it worked out - and it's great to have extra mics for rear ambience.

In my experience, using a feed from a sound mixer isn't always going to work. Although you can't go too far wrong for simple performance setups, such as a singer / guitarist, if you ever get into doing recordings with bigger bands, do remember that a pa mix is different to a recording mix - for the following reasons:

- for PA you usually want tight / close sound (because it's then going to go through speakers in the room)
- the mics will be close (to prevent too much room sound coming back into the mics and feeding back)
- if there are any really loud instruments (we have bagpipes in our celtic band) they are not going to be as loud in a PA mix because the thing's already contributing quite a lot of acoustic sound and doesn't need much help from the PA. Therefore you get a situation where loud instruments are unnaturally quiet when you listen to the PA feed afterwards, even though it sounded fine in the room, live.

So a PA mix and a recording mix is different. Probably better to do your own mix, or preferably (as others have suggested) use your own mics - and having several camcorders can be really useful extra mic channels provided you don't stop them during a take!

I just finished a shoot where we used a DAT machine (yes, I still have one of those knocking about) to do the audio, and left it running. This was just for a couple of harpists and a nyckelharpa in a formal concert. If you have mics in the right place you will capture a nice sound mix (provided it's not too noisy in the room) which is correctly balanced between performers (after all, acoustic performers adjust their playing to get the right balance between each other, so why not just make use of that).

I think it's a bit like lighting - keep it as simple as possible. The more mics you have, the more issues you start to run into. Although having lots of gear might make you look professional, it doesn't always end up helping.

[Jerome Marot]

Maybe I'll explain how I use the room mixer, since I have done that relatively often.

Using the mixer output to feed a 2-track recorder could work, but is going to be very tricky. The room mix is not designed to sound nice anywhere else than in the live room. The main problem is usually the overuse of reverb and bass: that sounds nice on the spot, less so at home. But if you only have a 2-track recorder, it may be your only choice. Fortunately many mixers can produce 2 different mixes, one for the room and one for you. Ask the sound man.

The best way is, of course, to directly record multitrack. It is more expensive, but Alesis makes HD recorders with 24 channels for a decent price, or you could use a firewire multitrack interface and a computer. Then, you remix in post. Most decent mixers have outputs for a multitrack recorder. Caveats: make sure you tap the signals BEFORE effects, and check microphone placement (but the sound engineer will usually not want to move them for you). In post, your main problem will be lack of separation (it's a live gig after all), so if any instrument has a pick up output try to record that.

[Jeremiah Rickert]

Here are the results:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xURrSVQJVs

It's not perfect, but I can't complain. I have to say, I'm happy without the video turned out. Shot 24F with my XH-A1 using the low-light preset from the XH-A1 forum. I rendered out to WMV before uploading to YouTube.

Eventually I'll edit in footage from the second camera...

JR

[Peter Ralph]

I would recommend getting rid of as many of the distracting light fixtures as you can. Crop the image from the edge of the stage to just beyond the top of the drummers head.

if you color grade the clip you will bump the gain - this will cause those globes to glow hot yellow. Yellow pulls at the eye more than any other color - so try desaturating the highlights. FCP has a built-in filter that does a great job

[Jeremiah Rickert]

If this were a paying gig, I'd probably be more worried about color correction what-not. I'm probably not going to do a lot of post on this project. I did import the footage from the other camera. I had a Sennheiser strapped to that, and I added some of that sound into the mix and it added a lot of warmth and more bass. The board feed was a little "thin"

Either way, nobody's ever bothered to video these guys and I think fans will be happy even if it doesn't look/sound like Eagles: Hell Freezes Over or something.

Thanks again for the thread...

JR

[Peter Ralph]

oh no Jeremiah don't let the band hear you say "if this were a paying gig I would care more" -

amongst musicians that is what is known as a Bad Attitude: i.e. an attitude that helps ensure you never get any paying gigs.

[Martin Pauly]

Originally Posted by Jerome Marot

The best way is, of course, to directly record multitrack. It is more expensive, but Alesis makes HD recorders with 24 channels for a decent price, or you could use a firewire multitrack interface and a computer. Then, you remix in post. Most decent mixers have outputs for a multitrack recorder. Caveats: make sure you tap the signals BEFORE effects, and check microphone placement (but the sound engineer will usually not want to move them for you).

That's great advise. I have one of those Alesis HD24 recorders, hooked up to my own recording mixer, and I can't say enough good things about this setup. I always also record ambience mics to capture the atmosphere in the room, but I leave all my options open for getting the best mix in post!

- Martin

[Peter Ralph]

I should clarify - I don't mean you should pull out all the stops fro a free gig. I would not attend a sound check or take along multiple cameras and mics unless it was family or close friends. But I would want to do a professional job given the resources I had decided to commit.

- 1 minute of my time and 5 minutes of rendering I would be happy to throw in especially if it makes my work look better.

[Will Mahoney]

Man, I don't think Ralph meant anything bad by it. Just, you know, you're obviously still trying to learn, and you're asking questions and trying to figure stuff out. It might be worth your time to attempt the little crop and color work that Ralph suggested. That way when "an actualy paying gig" does come along, you've already practiced and can pull off some color correction.

But, good video. The audio was fine and the video looked good. Keep it up.

[Jeremiah Rickert]

Yeah, I'm still going to deliver the best that I can in the time that I can. I'll give the crop a shot. That youtube clip was without any adjustments at all. I did experiment with doing a little adjusting and was happy with the results.

The sound on that clip was the direct board feed, but when I mixed in the XL2 audio slightly, it added a bit of warmth to the lower end and sounded a little fuller.

My next task is to try to figure out where to cut between the two video streams. :P Makes me wish I had a live switcher.

JR

[Jerome Marot]

Originally Posted by Jeremiah Rickert

The sound on that clip was the direct board feed, but when I mixed in the XL2 audio slightly, it added a bit of warmth to the lower end and sounded a little fuller.

What you are doing by mixing in a bit of the XL2 track is equivalent to adding a bit of reverb. Indeed, the positive effect is that it sounds a little fuller and warmer. The negative effects is that it makes the stereo image less clear.

(But I can't tell from the youtube clip, because youtube converts everything to mono)

Originally Posted by Jeremiah Rickert

My next task is to try to figure out where to cut between the two video streams. :P Makes me wish I had a live switcher.

FWIW, I find that final cut's multiclips are the best approximation of a live switcher. Other people have different opinions.