Help with my plan for recording 4 performers!
 

All:

Thanks for your advice:

Planning on recording 4 performers (sometimes only 2 or three) for an extensive multi-shoot production.

I have a Canon XL-1 with MA100.

I also have a Mackie 1202 mixer (with phantom power)

I plan to buy 4 Sennheiser Evolution 100 Series wireless mics (with transmitters and receivers).

My plan is to input the 4 mics into the mixer, and output from the 2 mixer "main output" channels to the 2 MA100 inputs.

I also have a Senn ME66 mic. I don't have the budget for a boom operator though.

Anything wrong with this picture? Suggestions? Thanks!

John,
Is everything fixed in place? Do the performers move? What are they performing, music or dialog or both?
You've got the gear, but more info is needed to help advise what you are asking, I think

Good Questions
 

The talent will be stationary, like a TV broadcast of "The View" and the audio will be dialog.

Appreciate your help!

If the talent is stationary, then you could save $2000 and have better sounding audio. Use Wired lavs. Take the extra money and buy a multitrack recorder. Mix the 4 seperate tracks in post, and you'll substantially lower your noise floor. Or you could spend the $2k on an automatic mixer. Same end result (lower noise floor than having 4 mics open all the time) and less time in post.

And if you have a laptop, record straight to that, using a multitrack audio software like Audition, Vegas, Sonar on a PC, or Deck or ProTools Free on a Mac

wired mics and recorder
 

I like your suggestion about the wired mics. Plus I already have one Sony condenser mic, and would only need 3 more.

I will be setting up each shot. I'll only leave mics open as needed.

I have a Panasonic SV-3800 DAT recorder, but I think it only records 2 channels. Any advantage to recording to it from the mixer rather than going to the XL-1?

Stupid question: how do I sync audio from the DAT to the video in post, once both are captured in Media 100?

Without genlock, the easiest thing is to have someone clap their hands, use a clapboard, something that is on camera, that can be seen as a spike or transient in the audio waveform, and can be verified on the camera. If the mic's are within reasonable proximity to the noise source, you'll have sample accurate or near sample accurate sync after lining the waveforms up.