Recording Sunday school class

rjmarshall17

New member
Hi,

I just purchased a Mevo Plus, and I'm looking to use it to record a Sunday school class I'll be teaching. It looks like the built-in mic is on the front of the camera. Since the camera will be positioned near the front pointing at me and my flip chart, I need a way to record the "classroom" participation. Since the Mevo does allow for external audio, what I was thinking was:

A small mixer board of some sort
One, or possibly two, microphones to record the "room", in particular everything behind the camera since the class participants won't, generally speaking, be in front of the camera.
Possibly also a lapel mic for me to ensure there's good quality audio of my "wonderful" :-) voice

But I have no clue what to look for or what would be the best options. Any suggestions?

I was also thinking that it might be best to keep a separate recording of the audio, so I would need some way to output the sound to a second digital recorder. Is something like that possible?

The room may also have a bit of an echo, is there a way to minimize that?

Thanks,

Rob
 
Without treating a room, you'll find the echo is the hardest thing to tackle.

In the room itself, if it has windows, drapes, or blinds angled to present something not hard and flat, can help. Full bookcases and acoustic ceiling treatment (hoping those things are already there) will benefit. More than that and you'll be carting a lot of stuff in that may or may not help, so I'd try hard to work with what you've got, unless you're planning to sell your results!

So, given the room, the best way to minimize it (IMO) is to close mic everything. I haven't looked at the Mevo Plus, but if you can actually connect a mixer, then the lapel/lavalier mic for yourself and a couple/few boundary microphones in the room might be a way to keep the mics closer to what you want to record.

But, I'd certainly try the recorder by itself first to identify the biggest problems and tackle those first. If you go the mixer route, I'd want recommendations from someone that's done it with that device, or perhaps Mevo support.
 
I guess I'll have to give it a try to see how bad the echo is in that room.

Assuming that I did (Mevo does allow for connecting external audio, they even have a video on their YouTube channel showing how to connect a small board (Mackie 402 VLZ3 - although when showing the connections, it's a 1202). When you say "boundary microphones" what do you mean? I have no idea which microphones would be best for something like this. I'm assuming omnidirectional, but beyond that I haven't got a clue.

If I assume that I have a classroom with 2 "sides" and I'm in the front sort of in the middle, would I want one microphone per side (i.e. two, my guess is yes) and then a lavalier on me?

Thanks,

Rob
 
Boundary mics are the things you see sitting around a table on a big conference call (my most common experience). It depends on the size of the room, number of people and distance they'll be from the mic, or mics, how many is best. At least one behind the camera, I'd guess if it will be in front of most of them. And, yes, they're omnis.

boundary microphone | Sweetwater

I'd imagine a wireless lavalier is going to be the easiest to work with, so if you need more than 2 boundary mics you'll need a mixer with more than 2 mic inputs. The Behringer 1202s are pretty cheap and work IME (I have a 1202FX), though there are a lot of affordable options. Just read reviews. (I'd probably look at 4 mic pres if you think you'll be doing this a lot, in case you have to expand later, even if 2 mic inputs will work for now.)
 
Hi,

OK, I had the first class and I'm going to have to spend more time with the mevo to turn off the auto-pilot feature, it kept selecting different camera angles that weren't always correct. But the real issue is the audio.

I have an old Zoom H2 and my thought was that I could use it to record everything, but the audio ended up really choppy (probably due to peaking, even though I didn't think it was particularly loud). So I'm going to have to do something else. If I use a boundary microphone, is it possible to "ensure" that it only picks up the audio from one direction?

I can use a lavalier for me, but for the classroom I would need a mic that picks up everything except me and I'm not real sure how to do that. I assume that mixing the audio from the lavalier and a boundary mic would mean that the lavalier would "override" my voice if it is picked up by the boundary mic, but I'm not sure how that works. I would want to mount the "classroom" microphone on a stand rather than place it on a table (there isn't a table) and point it such that it picks up everything toward the class participants but nothing from up front. Is that possible?

Thanks,

Rob
 
Boundaries are either omnidirectional (the cheap ones) or PCC - phase coherent cardioid on more expensive ones. If you have no table, then you n' use boundaries as they must go on a large surface - which could of course, be the wall of the room. You're trying to do a very common job, that is never simple, despite appearing to be. In universities and colleges where they have to record lectures, large hard walled rooms with parallel surfaces are the very worst - and very often they resort to using all kinds of tricks - some work well, others don't. One of the favourites is a radio mic in a football sized inflatable or foam ball, that participants throw to each other - hold the ball, and you can speak. If you want to mic up the entire room, you have a big, big problem. A boundary mic on one wall removes about 15% of the reverb in the room, but that's rarely enough. The only real secret is reducing distance. Signal to noise. As much wanted sound and the minimum of unwanted sound - so getting the mic closer to their mouth is the only effective solution.
 
Hi,

OK, I had the first class and I'm going to have to spend more time with the mevo to turn off the auto-pilot feature, it kept selecting different camera angles that weren't always correct. But the real issue is the audio.

I have an old Zoom H2 and my thought was that I could use it to record everything, but the audio ended up really choppy (probably due to peaking, even though I didn't think it was particularly loud). So I'm going to have to do something else. If I use a boundary microphone, is it possible to "ensure" that it only picks up the audio from one direction?
...
Did you try the Zoom in 4-channel mode? I'd at least try that, with one stereo pair facing forward, in front of the camera, even, if it can be kept out of the frame, and the 2nd pair aimed back at the classroom.

If you record in 24-bit mode, you can set the level pretty low, so the peaks are well below zero. Post up a short audio file here if you are still having problems with levels. (Just import one of the files from the H2 into Audacity, trim to a bad spot, and export without normalizing.)

Make sure to disable auto start/stop in the Zoom, and you should probably enable the limiting feature on all tracks.
 
Hi,

On Sunday I tried the 2ch surround, and perhaps that was the problem. Plus I probably should have set up the H2 so that the front was on me and the back on the room. My current thinking is to get a mixer, use a lavalier for me and the H2 (the "rear" is 120 degrees) for the room. I will need to do some more testing once I get all of the stuff I ordered...I may also want to get either another H2, or something similar, to connect to the mixer to record a separate audio file. I'll have to see since I hate videos where the audio is just a little bit off...i.e. if I had to replace the audio on the video with the separately recorded audio file.

In order to get a sample of the audio I'd have to export it from the movie, for some reason (I probably screwed up) it didn't record the audio. But that may have been because I was using the USB and had put it into audio I/F mode which may cause it to act as a pass-through device instead of a recorder. I guess "live and learn..."

Thanks for all the help,

Rob
 
Hi,

On Sunday I tried the 2ch surround, and perhaps that was the problem. Plus I probably should have set up the H2 so that the front was on me and the back on the room. My current thinking is to get a mixer, use a lavalier for me and the H2 (the "rear" is 120 degrees) for the room. I will need to do some more testing once I get all of the stuff I ordered...I may also want to get either another H2, or something similar, to connect to the mixer to record a separate audio file. I'll have to see since I hate videos where the audio is just a little bit off...i.e. if I had to replace the audio on the video with the separately recorded audio file.

In order to get a sample of the audio I'd have to export it from the movie, for some reason (I probably screwed up) it didn't record the audio. But that may have been because I was using the USB and had put it into audio I/F mode which may cause it to act as a pass-through device instead of a recorder. I guess "live and learn..."
I wouldn't get another H2, but get something that can take the lavalier and also record the room, either with built-in mics or a boundary, or combination. Something like the H4n could do that. (There are other brands, of course.) Just be sure the power requirement of the lavalier, if not wireless, is supplied by battery or 48v phantom, and not expecting "plug-in power" (more typical of headset mics, but just be sure you know how it's getting its juice).

You don't want to have your audio recorded on more than one device, and IME it's always easier to mix the various audio sources afterwards, and maybe even automate in post-production, e.g., raise the room mic when someone is speaking and take it down when it's just you. You should even be able to do that a bit with the H2 in 4-channel mode, and practice syncing to the video.
 
Hi,

So I did end up purchasing another H2, the H2n. I was concerned that my old one was having issues, although I haven't taken the time to test it thoroughly. What I ended up doing last Sunday was I connected the H2n and a lavalier mic to the Mackie 802VLZ4. I then used a iRig2 to connect the Left Main out to my iPad which I used to control the Mevo. I set the audio input to "iPad". I did have some issues with the balance and the fact that the "room," i.e. the sound from the H2n (which I put into XY mode) was quieter than the lavalier, but beyond that the recording seemed to work well. In iMovie I increased the overall volume of the audio and I could clearly hear both everyone in the room who participated as well as myself without any noticeable problems. I think I'm going to stay with this setup for now.

Thanks for all the help,

Rob
 
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