Cheap Audio Options?

[Seth Fisher]

Hi all,

I'm shooting a short on a RED and will not have a mixer on set.

1. Aside from a few extra wires coming out of the camera, would running 2 wireless lavs and 1 boom mic into the camera serve up decent sound?
2. Do I even need the lavs or shuold i just get a great boom mic?
3. Can I set the input levels on the camera?


Thanks in advance for any advice!

 

[Roberto Lequeux]

Go to a film school and find a student who wants to become a mixer. Let him help you out. Make sure he researches sound on Red before you let him handle such an important aspect of your production.

Sound is 50% of your project!

Good luck.

 

[Seth Fisher]

aha

aha

Thanks for the tip. But hiring a kid who doesn't know the RED doesn't help me determine whether or not I should be running the sound through the camera/through a mixer first/whether or not I require lavs in addition to a boom mic.

Anything else, guys? Thanks!

 

[Noah Kadner]

You could do either. Personally I'd at least go with an outboard mixer. There are no hardware pots on the RED so setting levels using the onboard menus alone is fairly challenging. And forget about riding levels during a shot with the camera alone.

But I'd also strongly recommend as Roberto does- get a sound person. Someone from film school as a last resort, but better to scrap up a few bucks and find someone experienced. Unless this is a silent movie you are boning yourself with just 'a couple of wireless lavs and a boom.' Those don't operate themselves, at least not in a usable sounding way. If you find someone with their own sound cart they'll handle all of this stuff for you. I mean what's the point of shooting 4K imagery if you have tin can telephone audio to go with it?

And it really doesn't matter whether they know the RED all that well or not. All they need to know is to get the mini-XLR adapter cables, assuming they advise you to shoot audio directly into the camera. But any pro sound person would suggest double-system sound using a nice timecode slate and a Sound Devices or similar digital audio recorder- the way it's done on every Hollywood set. In which case, even less familiarity with the RED's workings would be needed by the sound person.

I'm actually watching a friend's RED movie right now. The imagery is amazing, but the production audio completely sucks. And as a result there's not much he's going to be able to do with this thing other than re-ADR the whole show. Which can cost a fortune to get right and still sounds like ADR. Which pretty much means the movie is ruined at least as far as the original intent was concerned. All because he didn't spend a little extra thought or money up front on a good sound recordist. Such a shame.

Noah

 

[Roberto Lequeux]

I heard you can get very decent sound out of two channels of the Red with the audio board upgraded. But that is as far as I know. There are however 4 channels of audio in Red One, I think.

The best audio is always from a boom, but you can't always use a boom by itself. The room is just as important as your audio gear, and while with proper mic placement you could make a horrible sounding room sound much better you won't always be able to position the mic where you need it depending on the framing of the shot.

If you have two lavs and a boom can provide you great audio, if they are good lava and a good boom, but more importantly if they are properly operated.

Even if the red gives you three solid channels, you would not be able to mix on the fly. This would not be much of a problem if you have ample setup time where you can also set the levels accordingly to the rehearsal performances but it is an other thing to do which slows you down and gets you a little closer to having to rent everything for an other day. It really depends on your schedule, crew size... a ton of other variables... then people might be able to give you proper advice as to what may be the best way to spend your audio budget, or if you need to get real and triple it.

So, like I said, keep in mind that audio is 50% of your project. Not 49% and not 51%, but an equal part that can ruin or save your imagery at any given moment. It may be a bit more subliminal, but the effect is still there.

A simple one man crew way to get good sound would be to get a sound student (or better as Noah points out) and rend a bag with a Sound Devices 744T, a 15ft carbon fiber boom, a hypercardioid and a medium shotgun, and three (or two) good lavaliers. And trust him! If he asks for a frame line, give it to him, every single time. If he needs thirty seconds, or needs to replace a lavalier battery, give him the time. Just make sure he knows how to sync up to the Red One (which I don't). You might be able to have him transmit a mixed channel out of the 744T at the same time with an additional wireless transmitter and receiver, if so, then make sure and get one so you can cut with the mixed sound. Once you are done with your cut you can go back and get the higher quality individual tracks with the boom, and up to three lavaliers, and fine tune the mix.

I hope you understand why we are talking about options that may not sound as affordable as you might have hoped. Just to clarify it one more time, like Noah said, there is no logic in filming 4k images without decent sound. I'd rather film on an HPX-170, even a Canon XH A1, perhaps with an adapter, but lower the camera cost and use the left over rental money for proper sound.

 

[Alex Donkle]

...hiring a kid who doesn't know the RED doesn't help me determine whether or not I should be running the sound through the camera/through a mixer first/whether or not I require lavs in addition to a boom mic.

Actually it does. Any decent sound mixer can handle the sound without knowing the RED specifically. Setting tone through a mixer at -20dB is more or less the same on most cameras I've seen (and the DIT or DP will usually know how as well). Generally you'll always want to run line level off a mixer to the RED, as no camera's audio section can match pro audio gear like Sound Devices, plus it makes life more challenging.

The questions of whether you need lavs, if you want to record double system with a SD 7xx recorder, what mics are needed.... are going to be best answered by a mixer that you can take to locations and go through the script with. There's a lot of variables and every mixer works his own way.

I don't think anyone would enjoy getting hired to handle location sound and being told when they show up "this is was the internet guys said to rent, so use this stuff".

And the only "RED specific" audio trick I came across when I shot with it was needing mini-xlr to regular-xlr cables (which was supplied by the RED owner anyway).

 

[Roberto Lequeux]

There's a lot of variables and every mixer works his own way.

I don't think anyone would enjoy getting hired to handle location sound and being told when they show up "this is was the internet guys said to rent, so use this stuff".

What he said.

If you do hire a sound guy, especially if it is a good one, trust him. The best thing you can do for your audio is to respect your sound department. They get mistreated all to often and they sure appreciate when someone realizes that they have your balls in their hands. (didn't mean to make it sound bad, you know what I mean)