I record my wife's band... three singers, 2 with acoustic guitars at small venues. All my videos are pretty limited.

How can I get better videos without blowing the budget. These are really for youtube so I just need ok video and great sound. someone recommended the Sennheiser MKE300 directional mic.

any suggestions on a non pro camcorder? or other suggestions for mic. I really don't want to do the soundboard thing (record from) because I am tethered to their board or have to use wireless... or a cd because then I have to sync it up which is never perfect?

someone out there must be in my boat.. any suggestions?

You say you want "great sound" but then refuse to consider the two best ways to get it. I'm not sure there's much more that can help you, then. You'll never get decent sound from any mic mounted on a camera.

This single most important thing you can do for sound is to get the mic off the camera and closer to the source. Anything other than that gives you two choices: crappy and slightly less crappy.

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Adam
Proud owner of 8 Sony HDV cams. Checking into rehab next week.
"There are no experimental failures. There's only more data."

ok. I have hooked to the soundboard in the past (actually, got a cd and synched it. It was very hard to get a good synch and the sound was so incredibly sterile without the crowd noise that it seemed artificial. I tried to mix it with the camcorder mic sound and it really was hard to synch and was not great.

I don't need perfection but I need something better than the camcorder mic or the sterility of the board.

I just figure there are lots of people out there with the same issue...particularly in this Youtube era... I don't need perfection but I would like a nice recording as a keepsake. We aren't doing this for a living so to spend thousands of dollars and hours probably isn't worth it...

in that vein, has anyone had good results with the sennheiser or other directional speaker? a wireless mic?

The wireless mic would be "closer" to the source... but what kind... seems like most are the type that you mount to the performer. I guess I could put one in front of one of the speakers but it would miss out on what is going to the other one.......


any other suggestion?

thx

You could record crowd noise on a separate recorder like an iRiver or minidisc then mix with the board audio. Or just mix some stock crowd sound with your board sound. There's nothing that says the audio must be from the same venue. That's what editing is all about; remember, it doesn't have to be real, it just has to look and sound real.

Good luck.

Dennis

love it!! I have done just that.. great for crowd clapping etc. I was referring more to the ambiance of the hall. Just cranking up the reverb on the soundboard music doesn't seem to do it ...


I bought a Zoom H2 today. It has 4 mics that allow me to mix a good directional recording of the band from a position right in front of the speakers with separate tracks of the crowd recorded from the back of the device... I will try to sync that with my video....

Good purchase. i have a friend who has one and he gets really pretty good sound on it with live bands. Positioning is key - you will have to experiment to get the right position.

I record off the sound desk too for live bands, and I do agree that it can sound a bit "dry". Make no mistake its THE best way to record the musicians best, but since musicians generally use dynamic mics like Shure SM58 you won't get any crowd noise (or v v little) on the recording via the mix desk as these dynamic stage vocal mics are specifically designed to only pick up close sounds. So, record via mix desk and then also on a Zoom H2 or an iriver or a MiniDisk recorder (and there are others) record crowd noise, applause etc and mix it in.

This was my mistake on my first semi-serious DVD. I used the mix-desk sound only, and whilst it sounds excellent with the recorded acoustic guitar and vocals, some people when they watched the DVD commented that it sounded almost like a studio recording and thats the downside to using only the mix-desk at a live event.

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I was hoping the little zoom device would take care of it all. If I have to use the sound mix board recording too, that means I have to sync not only with the mouth but the sound board mix...

sounds daunting.

Not really. I use Sony Vegas to sync multiple sources. Find a point at the beginning of the recording visually to give yourself a starting point. Zoom in and slide one source left or right until that single point matches exactly. Under "options" make sure "Quantize to frames" is unchecked. You will almost always have a timing difference. With digital recording devices of any kind the difference will be constant and easily fixed. Go to the end of the waveform on your second source that is being matched to the original. Hold you mouse over the end and press the "Ctrl" key. You'll see the "~" symbol appear. Now move the mouse left or right. You are now shrinking/stretching your audio track. Find points at the end of the recording where it doesn't match up and adjust the one waveform until it matches the other. You can zoom in and move it in tiny increments until you get it right.

For mic recordings you want to stay away from shotgun style mics. Use either higher quality single point stereo mics mounted off the camera or a pair of stereo mics. The Zoom is a good unit and mixing the recording from that with a recording from the mixer can give stellar results. Once you have the tracks synced you can go to town with adjusting levels, stereo imaging, etc...

I've thought of doing that, as I have another portable audio recorder, the M-Audio Microtrack 24/96.

I would think it would be difficult to syncronize the audio and video afterwards, no? Who has done this?

Not hard to sync if you have control over what is going on. Easiest and cheapest way is to simply record a hand clap on cam. You should be able to match up the transient audio waveform with the video in your editor. (That's what the clapboards were used for in movies when sound was recorded separate from the video.)

If you can't get a hand clap recorded on multiple cams or audio recorders you'll have to look for a transient of some kind in the performance you are recording to use as your sync point.

Good luck.

Dennis