best audio options

I couldn't decide if this was "cinematography" or "post production", so I apologize if I choose poorly (pop culture reference ).

My church just purchased a BMPCC 4k to record the services. I just did the first test run and I assumed I could take the video recording (with audio) and sync it to the recording from the sound board in post production. I'm using the built-in camera mics. It captures the audio just fine but I think the waveform is too dirty with ambient sound and Davinci didn't sync correctly via waveform.

I think I have two other options and this is my actual question:
1) buy a shotgun mike for the camera, never used them so not sure how that would work.
2) Use an Aux Out from our mixer to the microphone plug in the camera

I would appreciate any thoughts or other suggestions?

Questions like this are often posed in this forum rather than in the Post Production forum.

Why wouldn't you use a slate? Are you shooting the service as one long take or do you stop and start the camera? Would using a slate interfere with the service? If using a slate isn't problematic, it's a simple, cheap, foolproof way to ensure sync, and it's a good idea to use one even if you're taking a feed from the sound board.

Perhaps you or someone else here knows what's involved in setting up timecode with a sound board (I don't), but that is another potential option, especially if using a slate is problematic. What is your sound board recording sound to?

In the final video of the church service, I think that it's preferable to use the sound from the sound board rather than a feed from the sound board to the camera. That said, is there a reason why it's inconvenient to take a feed from the sound board, at least as backup? Do you need to move the camera during the service? Is someone liable to trip over a cable to the camera?

One last question. How far is the camera from the sound that's being recorded?

All great questions. Here's what I can answer:

1) a slate will probably work long term. short term, we're just recording the sermon and getting up and clapping a slate would be distracting. cameras are in the back of a small auditorium.

2) Not sure about the time code either. the sound board feeds to a recorder in an equipment rack. not sure of brand. I still need to look into that.

3) the goal IS to get the sound from the sound board. my only thought with routing the sound through the camera is to give me a good wave form to sync to. Camera is stationary and any cabling would be safe

4) distance is 50-60 ft.

Thanks.

It sounds to me like your options are a feed from the sound board or, depending on what you find out about the recorder, timecode.

You've ruled out a slate, and personally I wouldn't try to record audio from 50'-60', even for waveform sync purposes. Maybe if I had a Telinga dish: https://www.telinga.com

I couldn't decide if this was "cinematography" or "post production", so I apologize if I choose poorly (pop culture reference ).

My church just purchased a BMPCC 4k to record the services. I just did the first test run and I assumed I could take the video recording (with audio) and sync it to the recording from the sound board in post production. I'm using the built-in camera mics. It captures the audio just fine but I think the waveform is too dirty with ambient sound and Davinci didn't sync correctly via waveform.

I think I have two other options and this is my actual question:
1) buy a shotgun mike for the camera, never used them so not sure how that would work.
2) Use an Aux Out from our mixer to the microphone plug in the camera

I would appreciate any thoughts or other suggestions?

Buy a Zoom H4N (or whatever the newer model is) and feed the mixer output into this. One of the best investments I did on any equipment. Its cheap and high enough quality for situations like these. You could even set up a wireless lav so you can remotely clap for sync purposes.

I think the OP's question is not about audio coming out of the audio panel. It is the audio he is getting in
the camera which is not strong enough to be synced with that coming from the panel.

There are so many parameters that needs to be checked, one of which is the distance from the source to the camera (as Rob mentioned). And by that, do you mean from the pulpit? And is this audio the praise/worship or the preaching, the latter usually being the culprit.

The only solution I can think of is to monitor the ambient sound recorded in the camera with a headphone, and adjust the levels accordingly. If the levels are maxed out, and the problem persist, then the speaker's microphone throughput has to be increased to make it loud enough through the speakers.

If syncing is still difficult, then you might have to invest in some syncing software. I use Plural Eyes; and it's been quite effective, even though you might have to scroll in & out a little on the timeline to get it frame accurate.

Hi Chris,

I would definitely use the Aux Out myself. I do exactly what you are looking to do except it is a livestream and we have BMPCC and Birddog P200 cameras. I take a feed straight from the desk into the BMPCC. This also eliminates the need for syncing the audio in post. I have a custom XLR to min XLR cable which is long enough to reach the floor regardless of the tripod height. That takes mechanical pressure of the connection into the BMPCC. In this auditorium we have an Allen and Heath SQ7 and one of the Mixes is dedicated to the Streaming output - this would be the equivalent of your Aux Out.

You do need to run a separate mix for this as the FOH mix is for the audience who are also getting sound acoustically off the stage. The recording mix doesn't get that, and it sounds a bit thin unless you remix it to suit. Last thing, make sure your input on the BMPCC is set to "XLR Line" rather than "XLR Mic". The feed from an Aux will be too hot for "XLR Mic". Watch your levels on the BMPCC carefully. We use compressors routinely to mitigate the big swings you get in dynamic range that come off a church stage. If you don't have a compressor, you will probably need to monitor levels very carefully.

Hope this helps,
Darryl

There is a very easy solution to the OPs request. I will assume that he is getting an externally clean audio digitally recorded from the sound board that he will be using in post to sync the video with. If the problem is not getting a good enough scratch audio in camera to sync with, then just feed into the camera's from the aux as line-in so that the audio for the video is also from the board. He may not even have to sync in post since he will be getting clean audio from the board into his camera. That's it... easy as pie.

Hi Chris,

I would definitely use the Aux Out myself. I do exactly what you are looking to do except it is a livestream and we have BMPCC and Birddog P200 cameras. I take a feed straight from the desk into the BMPCC. This also eliminates the need for syncing the audio in post. I have a custom XLR to min XLR cable which is long enough to reach the floor regardless of the tripod height. That takes mechanical pressure of the connection into the BMPCC. In this auditorium we have an Allen and Heath SQ7 and one of the Mixes is dedicated to the Streaming output - this would be the equivalent of your Aux Out.

You do need to run a separate mix for this as the FOH mix is for the audience who are also getting sound acoustically off the stage. The recording mix doesn't get that, and it sounds a bit thin unless you remix it to suit. Last thing, make sure your input on the BMPCC is set to "XLR Line" rather than "XLR Mic". The feed from an Aux will be too hot for "XLR Mic". Watch your levels on the BMPCC carefully. We use compressors routinely to mitigate the big swings you get in dynamic range that come off a church stage. If you don't have a compressor, you will probably need to monitor levels very carefully.

Hope this helps,
Darryl

It's great to se a post from someone who can talk about doing this from concrete experience.

Hi Chris,

I would definitely use the Aux Out myself. I do exactly what you are looking to do except it is a livestream and we have BMPCC and Birddog P200 cameras. I take a feed straight from the desk into the BMPCC. This also eliminates the need for syncing the audio in post. I have a custom XLR to min XLR cable which is long enough to reach the floor regardless of the tripod height. That takes mechanical pressure of the connection into the BMPCC. In this auditorium we have an Allen and Heath SQ7 and one of the Mixes is dedicated to the Streaming output - this would be the equivalent of your Aux Out.

You do need to run a separate mix for this as the FOH mix is for the audience who are also getting sound acoustically off the stage. The recording mix doesn't get that, and it sounds a bit thin unless you remix it to suit. Last thing, make sure your input on the BMPCC is set to "XLR Line" rather than "XLR Mic". The feed from an Aux will be too hot for "XLR Mic". Watch your levels on the BMPCC carefully. We use compressors routinely to mitigate the big swings you get in dynamic range that come off a church stage. If you don't have a compressor, you will probably need to monitor levels very carefully.

Hope this helps,
Darryl

It sounds like the overwhelming vote is for something coming out of the mixer. Darryl, this is great details and will give me something concrete to work from. Thank you! We're moving to a Midas digital mixer in the next couple months which will make it easier than our current analog setup. I appreciate EVERYONE's input.

If you're taking a house feed it's a matter of time before somebody plugs in the wrong device and the mix starts buzzing. Better to be prepared before it happens. Sesscom makes a variety of isolation transformers (IL-19s) for various configurations. If you've got some extra dough check out the same from Lundahl or Jensen.

https://www.sescom.com/products/view/ca ... tor-series

Good Luck

If you're taking a house feed it's a matter of time before somebody plugs in the wrong device and the mix starts buzzing. Better to be prepared before it happens. Sesscom makes a variety of isolation transformers (IL-19s) for various configurations. If you've got some extra dough check out the same from Lundahl or Jensen.

https://www.sescom.com/products/view/ca ... tor-series

Good Luck

Although this can happen, I have never experienced it. In 90% of my shoots, I take the feed from a mixing board into the camera. The sound guy I worked with knows what he is doing and provides the right line. I, or the cam op, on the other end knows how to take the feed into the camera. That really is the key - people needs to know what they are doing and test, test, test! The isolation device is a good recommendation.

Hi Howard

That is exactly what happened to me shooting in a concert hall I was not familiar with and an isolation trasformer saved the day.

Rob

He may not even have to sync in post since he will be getting clean audio from the board into his camera. That's it... easy as pie.

Question about audio quality captured by the BMPCC internally from an external preamp versus captured to an external audio recorder entirely:

I just bought the BMPCC 6K Pro and would prefer to capture good audio directly to the camera if possible versus recording to a separate recorder (Tascam DR-70D Audio Recorder or whatever, though I wouldn't use more than 2 channels of audio.) Will the 6K Pro capture audio well from an external preamp versus recording it separately? IE:

- If I ran the Beachtek DXA-MICRO PRO Audio Adapter preamp into the 6K Pro (from my Shure NTG2) would audio be significantly improved?

- If I got a recorder like Tascam DR-70D and ran that feed into the 6K Pro directly would it be virtually as good as what was captured to the Tascam DR-70D itself? Or would the the "scratch audio" track fed into the 6K Pro be significantly inferior to what the Tascam recorded itself?

I'd only be capturing 2 channels of audio max so the 70D would be overkill to some degree, but once I'm in $150 for a good XLR preamp (if it's a good improvement over running a mic directly into the internal preamp) I may as well be in $300 for the ability to record separately as well.

Thanks in advance, I'm very confused about the above.

Another device you might want to educate yourself about is the Tentacle Sync E and/or the Tentacle Track E. If you cannot get a clean feed to your camera you could just record it on the Track E and if you have a Sync E attached to the camera your time-code will be recorded making syncing a sync.

That's a lot of s's.

Audio from mixer is a good way in my opinion.
One thing thought, I usually when possible record all tracks separately from mixers to my multi track recorder jammed to cameras or to my recorder using multi channel audio splitter before the mixer to get clean audio from all sources and then do the mix my self because mix for a hall or church is not always ideal for video or other media.
This is not always possible or even sometimes needed thought, just ideal. Then I just take a line from the mixer.
The other workaround is doing your own closeup miking to reduce room in the audio, shotgun mic does not solve anything regarding that, cardioid microphone and lavalier microphones are more suitable for speech.

Thanks, will look into that at a later time when I'm able to come up for air. This is *all* new to me so I'm crash-coursing myself on multiple fronts... I'll learn about syncing and how to use time-code once I've gotten some other challenges worked out, will check out that Tentacle E you mentioned.

Another device you might want to educate yourself about is the Tentacle Sync E and/or the Tentacle Track E. If you cannot get a clean feed to your camera you could just record it on the Track E and if you have a Sync E attached to the camera your time-code will be recorded making syncing a sync.

That's a lot of s's.

I do have an audio mixer I can test out, thanks for the suggestion. And I do have a couple of good lavaliers that I've barely ever used; I think the room noise that was bumming me out was definitely because the shotgun wasn't super close, so I've got some experimenting to do. Thanks again for the suggestions.

Audio from mixer is a good way in my opinion.
One thing thought, I usually when possible record all tracks separately from mixers to my multi track recorder jammed to cameras or to my recorder using multi channel audio splitter before the mixer to get clean audio from all sources and then do the mix my self because mix for a hall or church is not always ideal for video or other media.
This is not always possible or even sometimes needed thought, just ideal. Then I just take a line from the mixer.
The other workaround is doing your own closeup miking to reduce room in the audio, shotgun mic does not solve anything regarding that, cardioid microphone and lavalier microphones are more suitable for speech.

I do have an audio mixer I can test out, thanks for the suggestion. And I do have a couple of good lavaliers that I've barely ever used; I think the room noise that was bumming me out was definitely because the shotgun wasn't super close, so I've got some experimenting to do. Thanks again for the suggestions.

Audio from mixer is a good way in my opinion.
One thing thought, I usually when possible record all tracks separately from mixers to my multi track recorder jammed to cameras or to my recorder using multi channel audio splitter before the mixer to get clean audio from all sources and then do the mix my self because mix for a hall or church is not always ideal for video or other media.
This is not always possible or even sometimes needed thought, just ideal. Then I just take a line from the mixer.
The other workaround is doing your own closeup miking to reduce room in the audio, shotgun mic does not solve anything regarding that, cardioid microphone and lavalier microphones are more suitable for speech.

Shotgun mics are not a good choice shooting indoor sermon because of their pickup patern, cardioid and super cardioid mikes are much suitable because they have much better pickup patern for rejecting surrounding sounds, much less pickup range.
That you have lavaliers you can use you should really give them a try.

Johannes makes a good point for using super cardioid mics that are properly placed. Remember you can use them with the same wireless systems that lavalieres use.

As noted A good super cardiod will give you much nicer off axis sound if the room is an issue. You will need to get pretty close with a cardiod to get decent sound.

May not be an appropriate solution but you might be able to use your existing mic if it’s mounted close to the speaker. The shotgun can work wonders when it’s very close to the speaker and you’d swear it was a different mic entirely. I discovered this when doing voiceover and held the Sennheiser 416 MKH mic close to me rather than use my lavalier.

I've done something similar a few times to record plays being put on at my church; I always ran audio from the mixer to the main camera. I actually had 2-3 cameras recording for those and used audio from the built-in mics on the other cameras for sync (to set up a multicam shot for editing); it worked for me, but with it being a play, there would obviously be much longer stretches with relatively little crowd noise, so your scenario may be somewhat different in that regard?

In any case, I definitely agree with what others have indicated, that running audio from the mixer to the camera is 100% your best choice if you have that option.

I’m coming very late to this (found the thread whilst searching for info on the bmpcc 6kG2 mic amps).

I make weekly church service recordings and take sound from the board to a Tascam DR100mkii (a slightly different mix to FOH). I have two cameras: my 6kG2 at the back (focused on the pulpit), and a Mevo Start* at the front (covering the whole platform - for everything not from the pulpit).

I put the video and audio files in a timeline and let Resolve auto align all three via the audio. I then link the tracks together and edit (deleting the upper video clip whenever I need the lower one).
For the audio, I suppress the camera tracks for all sections when the Tascam audio has all I need (basically all the spoken parts) and mix in the two camera audio tracks back in during the singing. I used to have extra mics to record the congregation, but find the two cameras have good enough audio when mixed this way, and it makes the job easier for whoever is on the sound board during the service.
I’m experimenting with Resolve’s multi camera mode, but I’ve not found a way (yet) to then have the three audio tracks available to mix for the singing. That might become clear as I work through more of the Blackmagic training videos.
The longest part of editing is often preparing and superimposing the slides projected during the service (hymn words, reading and talk illustrations)…

*I initially used the Mevo Start on its own - it is very wide angle but corrects verticals, etc onboard, so the HD recording it makes needs no further adjustment. I could crop in quite far and still have a good enough picture for YouTube (especially as most people watch on a small screen); besides, if the audio is good, the picture is secondary. It’s only recently I’ve added the 6k into the setup - efforts to continually improve…