Getting Audio at a live music event
 

Hows it going,
Im going to try to do a 3 cam shoot at a local club where I am 1 of the house sound engineers. Im using a JVC DV500 and two handy cams. Im wondering how and where I should send the audio. I was thinkingeither taking a board feed and an ambient room mic feed, but I recosidered. I can just put the room mic in another channel of the board and send the board mix out of the alt main out to my cam. Which brings me to my next question, at editing time how do I sync the other cams video with the audio (editing in Premiere pro)? And #3: this club has about a 40 par 64 500watt light show with an additional 600 watts of white effects lighting. I will not be any farther than about 15" from the stage to right up on it. Should this be shot in full auto?
Thanks in advance
Shaun

The easiest way to sync is run all cams continuously and chance tapes at different times. Just put the full clips on video tracks 1, 2 and 3 and sync them to track 1, which has also the sound. When editing just clip away the video on tracks 3 and 2 where you want the lower tracks to show thru. This way you need to sync each take/tape only once to master 1 track.

If the show runs for more than an hour you have the problem of not having continuous audio. I did a 2-cam shot like this a few weeks ago and took the board sound to a separate recorder (SD722), which gave a continuous 1:35h soundtrack to lay video tracks on.

Make sure you pad your +4 outs from the mixer, or that your camera(s) can handle the level, otherwise you'll get a lot of distortion.

You can use a pair of resistors to build a pad into an XLR cable (I did one two weeks ago, soldered one resistor into each end of it), or go with a Beachtek or Sign Video XLR and 1/8" mic/line to mic level converter for $150 or so.

Here's the circuit I used. I did the 50dB pad, which also works nicely with my Sennheiser G2 XLR transmitter for wireless audio (comes in really handy at live events).
http://www.epanorama.net/circuits/line_to_mic.html

Eric

Shaun,

if at all possible, I'd use a separate recorder for audio. That way, the cameras can move around and there is no audio problem when tapes are changed. Rent a multitrack recorder if you don't have one available, and record the board mix separately from the room mics. This gives you more options in post to adjust the relative levels of the board mix and the room mics.

Also, if you use the search function in this forum and type in the words "live" and "music", you will find a tons of helpful information on this topic.

As for the "full auto" question, I assume you are asking about the exposure/iris control of your camera? I guess it depends on how the lights are used - fast changes, and the camera's auto mechanism might desperately try to chase the constantly changing light. With slow changes, it might work. Is this something you can try out during a rehearsal?

- Martin

If the show is over an hour:
Start the cameras on 2-minute intervals so they aren't changing tape at the same time.

Put a clock somewhere inconspicuous to the audience, but visible to the cameras.

At the start of the show, and any time camera changes tape, or, if they stop for any other reason, shoot a closeup of the clock.

As mentioned above, it is very helpful to post sync if cameras roll continuously.

Let's say your first camera rolls at 9pm. Depending on your NLE, you may be able to define the start of the timeline as 9pm. Now, you can look at the first frame (the clock!) of captured video from any camera and get loose sync just by dragging it to that point on the timeline.

Fine sync - it is *very* helpful if all cameras record reference audio, which can be used for fine sync. Due to sound delay through air, figure that an on-camera mic is about 1 frame behind for every 30 foot distance from the mains.

If you can send board audio to all cams so much the better, that eliminates sound delay through air.

Done lots of this with cam mics, room mics, mono board feed, multitrack on direct channel outs from the board - it's a lot of fun. Not at all a bad idea to start with a mono board feed and a single room mic (which could be preamped through the board, as you suggest - done that too!).

Then, pull out your stereo simulator filters in post, and mix in a little room mic to taste. Camera audio can also be used to help create stereo spread.