quick question about audio

domart

domart

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i am primarily a photographer, twice a week I shoot stills of comedians at a comedy club, but they also asked me to do video- just a camera on a tripod at the back of the room filming it with a 70-200, canon 5d3. Initially I was using the onboard mic, which wasn't terrible but I got an external mic and audio quality is improved but not by much, still sounds a bit tinny and also picking up a lot of room noise (some good, like laughing, some bad, like the kitchen washing dishes...)

not really sure what the best (and not to mention cheapest) solution to this is

wireless sending from the mixing desk to the camera? record audio from the mixer into a recorder like a zoom? get the mic closer to the commedian and wirelessly send that to the camera?

in an ideal world I wouldnt want to record sound separately and sync, because that's extra work and i dont know how reliably the sync would be given theres no clap? I do have premiere pro cs6 and I also recently downloaded resolve, but i've not really spent much time in either of them, but if it's going to be the best solution then I can do it, at the moment, for convenience, I just start and stop the recording for each act, so there's not wasted footage of the changeover, but i'm not adverse to letting the camera run the whole time- in the future I might shoot with 2 cameras so having external audio and syncing to 2 camera angles might up the production value considerably

the other problem is that often the commedians go 'off mic', so if i'm recording from the mixer that wouldn't work for that- also I want to get some room noise otherwise there wont be any laughing at the jokes and i'm sure that will sound crap
 
Could you get a wireless lavalier mic to try? You'd probably want an unlicensed frequency band one. You would have to mic up each performer.
 
The easiest way would be to record off the desk, and then sync in post. I've done this and provided the software you use is up to the job it's not difficult. I don't use Premier , I use Final Cut, this does have an audio syncing facility which compares waveforms. It really works well. Alternatively you could get Red GIants Pluraleyes Software which does the same job ( I think they have trial versions available ). Or you could take a feed from the desk and send that over a wireless link to your camera. Finally you could try getting a mic close to one of the PA spaekers and taking that as your audio feed
 
If you at the back of the room there is no way can you cut out audience noise sufficiently even with a directional mike. A radio mike would not pick up the act if they moved around the stage if in a fixed position. .The only thing i can think of is where you position yourself say at the front of the audience. I would explain to the organisers the problem and come to some compromise like for example at the side of the room.closer to the stage. for sound quality I can't fault the Sennheiser MKE400 mike sound reproduction is spot on.

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Shown spacer to hold mike away from camera noise on my DSLR. I also used a Guttmann dead cat to cut down wind noise outside a it has the longest hair of any I have found. Extn leads 15FT are also available if you want the mike well away from the camera
 
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Thanks, will look into this

Should clarify that I want to pick up some room noise, the laughing mainly, as I’m sure a straight feed off the desk won’t have any room noise
But maybe it would sound okwithout the ‘laugh track’
 
Run two mics into the desk; one for the performer and one for the ambience. We use a room mic when we use in-ear monitors in order to create a bit of vibe in the in-ear mix and also when recording a live set.
Doesn't have to be a great mic for the ambient but it would be better if it's an omni-directional mic as it will mic up more ambient sound.
 
You could simply use a inexpensive recorder near the camera to pick up room noise and mix it on the fly with your quality feed in post.
 
Premiere Pro will sync for you in most cases. I'd be tempted to try a more directional microphone first though, as dealing with extra recordings soon becomes tedious.
 
I was going to use my phone to record from the mixer but realised that you need a special cable,a trrs cable, so ended up using my second camera to record off the mixer just recording the audience and then synced the audio to the clips shot with the camera on a tripod focussed on the comedian, it sounded better but still not perfect, not sure if the levels are too high on the mixer/camera, or if it's because i'm trying to put a line level signal into the mic input on the camera.
I was using the tape output on the mixer, when I have more time and i'm not working in the dark i'll try one of the other output instead (if there are any)

I was actually really surprised how well the mic on stage picked up room noise, audience heckling, and the comedian if he went 'off mic', I suppose since the venue is quite small, all the audience noise is actually closer to the front stage mic than it is to my mic at the back of the room, i never felt a need to add in any more room noise back in

this is a sample clip recorded using mic on top of the camera
https://www.dropbox.com/s/yjhm63k0l30krck/0X5A9910.m4v?dl=0

and a sample using audio sync (first 5 seconds of the clip is nothing btw)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qa18vnhd0mk9wl8/9.3.1800009.m4v?dl=0

so, my next task is to figure out whether to use a line to mic converter cable, just turn down the levels in camera/on the mixer, or whether I have to get a recorder with line level input. I dont really mind syncing in post but, it might get old quickly so I was looking at a wireless mic setup where I can feed from the mixer, into the transmitter and pick that up on the camera, but if that cuts out i'm screwed
 
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