Q: re dynamic to condenser mixing for Canon HG20

im4peace

New member
I need to do some studio videos with well-balanced stereo sound using my Canon Vixia HG20. The situation is singer and grand piano and I need to get the balance between the two and the recording level correct. (Too often the piano will overpower the singer!)
One way would be to purchase an optional "boom" stereo mike that mounts to the shoe on the camera. The optional mikes are condenser and I can potentially control level (not sure about balance) using the not-so-user-friendly camera controls and maybe control balance by "masking" one side of the stereo mike.
Another possibility - which I'd like to do if possible - is to use my two Shure SM58 mikes through a simple mixer and run the input into the Aux Mic camera input. Potentially I could use one of the inexpensive mixers from Behringer ($30-$50). They have a XEYNX 502 that is claimed to accept both dynamic and condenser mike inputs but I'm not sure about the output.
Does anybody have any experience with this type of mixer - or have a better suggestion??
 
Bsg gave you the best suggestion. It will always be better to Mic the piano and singer separately and then mix them in post.
 
The 502 in any case only has one mic input. The X 802 is pretty good but a mixer from Allen & Heath or Soundcraft would be better. Their new USB range are 24bit and get some good rep'.

Dave.
 
The first post to your question, [MENTION=103008]bouldersoundguy[/MENTION] is the best and only answer you should consider. Or, you could waste your time and $$$ trying to come up with a second best solution.
 
And by separately, I mean on separate tracks so you can balance them appropriately at your leisure later on.

Capturing audio direct to the camera has substantial drawbacks. For one, you're stuck with the mix you get on location. Second, cameras aren't very good audio recorders.

The best solution is a dedicated audio recording setup, preferably with some separation of sources. Since you've got only voice and piano, there are a lot of 2-channel options available. A basic 2-channel USB interface and a laptop is one good solution.

Something like a Zoom H5 portable recorder would also be an excellent choice. That Zoom can record up to four separate tracks at once, two from its on board mics and two from its mic/line inputs. Zoom (and Tascam etc.) recorders like this are almost the standard audio solution for small video productions.

You'll need to spend some time with postproduction, balancing the two mics for optimum audio, then syncing the audio to your video. Some sort of basic audio and video editing software will be necessary. I use Vegas Pro for both audio and video, but there are simpler and less expensive programs that will get it done.

Here's a project I'm working on right now. I used the on board mics to capture the stage sound (drums amps) and audience and the two mic/line inputs to capture a mono feed from the PA and a direct from the bass. I had two cameras, one clamped to a shelf at the back of the room with a set wide shot and one for pan/zoom work. I use the camera audio as a reference to get things approximately in sync, then fine tune the sync by eye.

Vegas Pro project.png
 
[MENTION=103008]bouldersoundguy[/MENTION] has a great solution - an H5, using the built-in mics for the piano/room and a single mic on the singer. Mix in a DAW, and sync to the video, eliminating the camera mic. I do this all the time anymore.

Way back when, I had to do this using a Zoom H2 on the piano and a single mic going through an interface into my MacBook Pro. Mixed in GarageBand (updated project pic attached). The results were more than good enough and I didn't have any significant clock drift, but using a single device would eliminate that concern entirely. Very short, highly compressed clip from that project also attached.
 

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Capturing audio direct to the camera has substantial drawbacks. For one, you're stuck with the mix you get on location. Second, cameras aren't very good audio recorders.

The best solution is a dedicated audio recording setup, preferably with some separation of sources. Since you've got only voice and piano, there are a lot of 2-channel options available. A basic 2-channel USB interface and a laptop is one good solution.

Something like a Zoom H5 portable recorder would also be an excellent choice. ...

You'll need to spend some time with postproduction, balancing the two mics for optimum audio, then syncing the audio to your video. Some sort of basic audio and video editing software will be necessary. I use Vegas Pro for both audio and video, but there are simpler and less expensive programs that will get it done.

.... I use the camera audio as a reference to get things approximately in sync, then fine tune the sync by eye.
Just to follow up on this workflow, what I do is a little simpler, at least in my mind!
  • Use a DAW (e.g., GarageBand, Reaper, whatever) and mix the audio you've recorded.
  • Create the entire movie with titles, fade-in/out effects, etc, using the audio from the camera mic.
  • Export (aka Share) just the audio from the movie project and import that as a new track into the audio project.
  • Move the imported track until it syncs exactly with your mixed audio.
  • Trim the project audio mix to the exact length of the movie audio.
  • Mute the movie audio track (or optionally lower the volume significantly if some ambience from the camera angle is desired).
  • Adjust any FX & final levels as necessary (e.g., fade in/out, compression, reverb) and export the trimmed audio project.
  • Replace the movie audio track with the exported one from the audio project. It should sync to the video exactly.
I used Audacity and Windows Movie Maker (IIRC) the first times I did this, switched to GarageBand and iMovie with my move to Macs in 2011. Still use iMovie sometimes, or Final Cut Pro ($$), but use Logic Pro for audio now.
 
Just to follow up on this workflow, what I do is a little simpler, at least in my mind!
  • Use a DAW (e.g., GarageBand, Reaper, whatever) and mix the audio you've recorded.
  • Create the entire movie with titles, fade-in/out effects, etc, using the audio from the camera mic.
  • Export (aka Share) just the audio from the movie project and import that as a new track into the audio project.
  • Move the imported track until it syncs exactly with your mixed audio.
  • Trim the project audio mix to the exact length of the movie audio.
  • Mute the movie audio track (or optionally lower the volume significantly if some ambience from the camera angle is desired).
  • Adjust any FX & final levels as necessary (e.g., fade in/out, compression, reverb) and export the trimmed audio project.
  • Replace the movie audio track with the exported one from the audio project. It should sync to the video exactly.
I used Audacity and Windows Movie Maker (IIRC) the first times I did this, switched to GarageBand and iMovie with my move to Macs in 2011. Still use iMovie sometimes, or Final Cut Pro ($$), but use Logic Pro for audio now.

I do it something like that when the audio and/or video is more involved. On a recent video I had 16 tracks of audio and 3 camera angles, so I did the audio mix in a separate project and imported it into the video edit project as a stereo audio file. But with only 7 audio and video tracks on this project I decided to do it all in one. Vegas Pro is about as good a DAW as any, and it's a full featured video editor as well.

I've found that the camera audio sync isn't always quite on, so I only use it to rough in the sync and then I fine tune it by eye/ear/hand.
 
Agree with all the above - video cameras very often have AGC (program dependent compression) that does really bad things to music.

When you record the audio be sure to use 48KHz sample rate if possible to make it possible to avoid sample rate conversion when you join the audio to the video later.
 
whaddya know - I intuited it right back in 2010 and synched my wife's camera recording of a nice outdoor jam session with some guys pretty good multiple microphone sound recorded on a mac pro.
I don't know, but suspect he used garage band with a multiple port interface. I received a CD of the jam as I was the drummer.
I uploaded to video windows movie maker, muted the sound track, and took quite a long time nudging the Mac sound to a guy's strumming guitar.

Thank You all you much more knowledgeable ones for confirming that I had not really wasted time.
 
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