Your thoughts please?
 

Hi, i am filming events. I am going to connect my tascam dr40 to record the announcers audio from their mixer then put it on timeline when editing, i also will be using onboard mic to record ambient noise of the event. A problem i have thought about is having the announcers audio track with nice clean audio and the ambient track with goings on in the field BUT the announcer from the PA speakers will also be picked up with the ambient sounds. Would like to hear any possible workarounds. Maybe just have the dr40 level higher than the PA version but if there is a delay between the two, then what.

Events are drag racing, rodeos other equestrian events, motorbike racing etc

Thanks.

Re: Your thoughts please?
 

First, assuming you can select one track with the external input, and the other from the onboard mic. I don't have a DR-40, so I can't confirm that, but presumably you already know you can do this.

The recording levels should ALWAYS be optimized for the particular signal levels, and NEVER based on how they might end up in the mix. Capturing the sound properly at the live event is the order of the day, and whatever mix proportions they will end up are far in the future.

Once you have captured the direct PA sound and the ambient sound properly, THEN you can think about how to use them to best advantage.

You don't mention what computer or software you are using to edit with. I would investigate using some moderate "ducking" to somewhat reduce the ambient sound track when there is something in the PA announce track.
Ducking - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As for the delay, it can be used to your advantage to give a sense of how big the venue is, and/or you could simply slip the PA announce track ahead a bit to match up with the longer path from the acoustic version in the ambient track.

Re: Your thoughts please?
 

God, i really dont know where my head was when i posted these last two threads. The dr40 can record 4 tracks but i will only use one xlr input connected to their mixer or what ever method to tap directly into the announcers audio, the other track will be recorded infield, ie, next to racecars or next to rodeo fence using internal mic of camera, which, will also record the horrible audio from the announcer through their big PA speakers that the crowd hears. I use adobe cs6 suite on pc, i did think of sliding the dr40 track to line up with camera audio after i posted the thread, will see how it turns out and report back if i have trouble. Thank you.

Re: Your thoughts please?
 

In any case, the direct sound from the announcer channel should be panned to center, while the record's internal mics panned hard left/right. If there's a 'silent' channel on the stereo external announcer's track, remove or mute it from the timeline. If you don't have a ducker plug-in (basically a compressor w/ a side-chain input), manually draw the volume envelopes... which is usually better anyway, but more labor intensive.

Re: Your thoughts please?
 

Good advice for him guys. I would add: There is rarely just the PA announcers voice in the house mix. There is music, commercials, PSAs, and whatever other garbage they put in the mix. If possible I would take the announcers feed from an aux send on the board to record just that mic track. Then I would use your other open track to record the whole program mix from the board. That gives you three good tracks to mix in post.

Also, your in camera mic is going to be problematic at times, ie: handling noise, people talking to you, your own start and stop records etc. I would find another device to do that job. For example, if you do not have another recorder, many of us have additional old cameras laying around. You can set one on a tripod and let it roll.....the further away you can get from needing the audio on your main camera the better off you will be, for many reasons.

Steve

Re: Your thoughts please?
 

Hi Gary,

Regarding the editing - when you attempt to adjust the two audio tracks to eliminate echo (delay) the typical time increments in CS6 are FRAMES, so 1/30 of second. That will usually result in the two waveforms not quite matching, always seeming to be a "half frame" off and then you get a weird buzz!

What you can do is there is a little button to push at the upper right corner of the Sequence panel, and in the drop down, select "Audio Units" and this will change the time increments on the timeline to match the audio sample rate. That way, you can really zoom in down to the sample level and exactly match two audio tracks, nudging them in very small increments of thousandths of a second. Once it's good, de-select audio units to get back to normal frames. Note that video cannot be moved partial frames of course, only the audio.

Thanks

Re: Your thoughts please?
 

Thanks everyone, all good input and thought provoking suggestions and comments. Yes, i am always going to get the announcer only on one track. I,m not sure if theybhad music overlayed or not, i guess so. I will have to check the other rodeo i filmed a while ago. I cant be selling copies with a radio station or top 40 hits playing in the background, well, until i sort out copyright permits etc, now THAT is a whole other topic as we all know. Ill hopefully be filming another one in a week or two so will post results.

Cheers.