AUDIO setup

[Daniel Paquin]

I would like to know what would be my best option for setting up the audio on my camera.I soon have a huge event to film and would like to get the best audio as possible.

The show will be in an arena and their will be closed to 10,000 people attending.

I will be provided with an XLR feed which will carry both the music and the narrations.

However, as the show will progress the crowd will be cheerring for their favorite.

The audio coming from the XLR will be of better quality, however, the crowd will not be recorded.

How could I set up my camera to get both at the same time, XLR with earring the crowd in the background. The focus has to be the XLR with having a bit of an ambiant sound would be great.

Has anyone done that ? If so, what would be the correct audio camera setup.

Can I use both the XLR mic that I'Ve got when buying the camera and the XLR feed ?

thanks in advance!

[Don Bloom]

yes you can pull the feed from the board for all of the audio that's coming thru the board AND run another mic to capture the ambient noise to the othef channel. Frankly I don't do it too often at seminars since most of the ambient room sound does get picked up but the lavs and handhelds on the stage however for big groups like your I wonder if the audio guys might be setting up mics soley to capture the room noise.
In any case yoou can use either a shotgun or hypercaroid on the camera and you'll get what you wan t.

[Daniel Paquin]

Thanks Don,

If I understand correctly, I would run an XLR cable coming from the board to channel 1 on my camera. On channel 2 of the camera I would also use another microphone which would capture the ambiant sound (crowd). For both channels I would use the button (knob) on my camera to set which one is to be louder than the other. Is this correct ?

Since I've never used XLR connectors on my camera. I supposed channel 1 and 2 on my camera are stereo. Am I right ?

[Don Bloom]

One way to set it up...
XLR from board to channel 1---on camera mic (shotgun or hyper) to channel 2.
Depending on your camera 1) don't forget to separate the sound to the individual channels and 2) yes you can or should be able to adjust the levels on the individual channels.
What camera are you using?

[Daniel Paquin]

I am using an HDR-NX5U.

How do you separate the sound to the individual channel?

I really appreciate your help.

[Don Bloom]

I'm not entirely familiar with your camera but in the manual there is a diagram of all the switches that will tell you how to achieve your needs.

IF it's anything like the PD series there is a switch somewhere probably near the XLR inputs that will allow you to switch the audio from channels 1 and 2 (that sound coming from the front XLR input sending the signal to both channels Left and Right) to 1 mic going to channel 1 and 1 input going to channel 2. One would be Left and one would be to the right channel. The switch would be labeled something like this;
channel 1/2 (top position) and channel 2 (bottom position). that would be how you switch the audio to 2 separate channels.
As for being able to adjust the levels separately that is probably in the audio menu and might read something like this; AGC, Separate.
Again I don't use the NX5 so I'm going off of memory of the PD series.
Check the manual for the exact details OR check in the forum here that is dedicated to the NX5 camera.

It's really pretty easy to do and you shouldn't have any problems doing it.