Using 8 wireless microphones with my blackmagic

Dear readers,

I make a lot of Church Mass video recordings. There are speakers at several places and a choir. I'm now working with 2 sets of Boya wireless Lavalier microphoons (4), connected to the mini jack of the camera, but that is not working properly.

I like to have a small mixer where I can connect about 8 wireless small microphones and the mixer can connect wireless with my camera, so that I can adjust every channel in the stereo field. For instance: choir in stereo and speakers in mono.

Is there any solution for what I want?

Regards,
Pete

Hello,
I think at 2 solutions:
– Enter all the differnet sound source to a mixer, like a Mackie one, where you can adjust level of each source and decide to pan the source. You output the right level to your camera and voilà.
– My solution (I do mostly theater and dance) is to use a Zoom H8, I record each voice to a track, plus a stereo track for ambiant sound and another one (if needed) from the console deck for music and sound effect. I send a 2 channels signal to each camera, by wire or HF, one with TimeCode, another with premix. If you have only one camera, you can send a direct stereo mix with the possibility to redo the mix in case of need.

or maybe a Sound Devices Mix-Pre-10
https://www.sounddevices.com/product/mixpre-10-ii/
You can also take an output from the recorder to send to the camera by a transmitter (line signal.)

… I like to have a small mixer where I can connect about 8 wireless small microphones and the mixer can connect wireless with my camera, so that I can adjust every channel in the stereo field. For instance: choir in stereo and speakers in mono.

Is there any solution for what I want?

Regards,
Pete

With the Sound Devices MixPre-10 II, you can have 8 full-size XLR 3-pin connectors with total control re gain and pan and record 24bit or 32bit audio. So the XLR wireless receivers plug into the small MixPre and the transmitters reside where you place them, but they should have clear line of-sight to the receivers.

Rather than record to the camera, you could record 8 ISO tracks and two Left-Right mix tracks. In post, you would match the audio to the camera video via Timecode on the cameras and the MixPre such as the generated by the Tentacle Sync. You can monitor all channels on the MixPre via the Wingman app.

Thank you for your advices!

I will use the Zoom H5 for recording the choir and the Boya's for the speakers.

I have done that before but I was not able to synchronise the choir sound of the Zoom H5 with the sound recorded on the Blackmagic. Maybe the problem is that I let the H5 record for 2 hours non stop and after editing the video, I will place the sound of the H5 under it in the time line and then try to synchronise, but that is not working.

How can I do this?

Regards,
Pete

You can always sync by waveform if you’re not going to use a timecode on the cameras and an external recorder. It may not always be reliable though for reasons unknown. In that situation you can sync manually by looking for a spike in volume or the start of music across all audio tracks.

If the sync doesn’t work, are you sure the frame rate is identical on all cameras and audio track. 29.976 fps and 30 fps can cause you to lose sync. If a camera has HFR On setting while others are running on Project Frame Rate, the tracks may not sync.

Do I have to cut the audio file of the Zoom H5 in pieces before I can sync it?

Regards,
Pete