SMPTE Dang it

guitarfreak12

guitarfreak12

New member
Ok, I've read about smpte till I'm blue. Now how do I apply it? I use Audition 2.0. I am going to record a wedding soon. Here's the problem

I'll have the digital video camera in a separate place than the mixer, say I start recording the video, then the mics picking up the audio are stand alone. Once I get the video onto the computer, what then, how do I sync up the audio and video. Do I create a smpte track before recording audio? And if so, how? Please be very specific if you can in you answer, I am new to smpte.
 
Is your video camera able to sync to smpte?
Can your recorder sync to smpte?

If you don't have smpte I/O on both the audio recorder and the video recorder, you can't use it. You will have to sync it up manually.
 
so you're saying that you're recording video on a camera, and recording audio on a separate device? what is that device? Audition?

what I would do is run all the mics to the mixer and then out the main outs of the mixer into the audio in of the camera. It'd be the easiest way and both audio and video will be together.

Otherwise you'll need to slate it somehow. You ever seen behind the scenes of film making when they use markers and say "Scene 1 take 12...marker." Then they snap the arm shut of the marker? This provides both a visual and aural cue for post production because they are usually recording audio on a separate device than the video. So then when they have to line things up, they just look for that transient.
That'll be the only way you can do it I think. Just press record on camera and the audio recorder then clap your hands together in front of the camera.
 
I do weddings regularly. I typically do a 2- or 3-camera shoot using regular miniDV and tapping audio off the inserts or aux sends of a mixer into a laptop running Audition (if I need more than two tracks) or Sound Forge (if there are only two tracks to get). I then edit and mix all the video and audio together back at the ranch using Vegas.

I frankly have had zero need for SMPTE or any other clocking or synching. Benny is right in concept with the slate board, but often you don't even need that; often all you have to do is line up the audio taken off the mixer with the audio recorded on the camcorder. Once you have it aligned so that they play simultaneously, you can then just discard the camcorder audio and use the mixer audio only.

As far as lining up the video clips, flashbulbs from the photographers are fantastic references to use to line up multiple videos.

G.
 
My guess is that you won't. smpte is something big time professional videographers and film makers use. You won't find those sorts of capabilities on standard consumer cameras
 
yeah, do what Glen said. that way you don't have to remember to make a sync pop at the start
If your camera has a mic on it, just record that at the same time for sync purposes.
Don't worry about SMPTE unless you have the need for advanced editing
 
One caveat I should add regarding the lining up of audio is that sometimes there can be a signifigant delay on the camcorder audio. This is especially true for camera positions that are a signifigant distance from the church PA monitors (e.g. at the back end of the aisle.)

In those cases the audio on the camcorder and the audio off the mixer may not line up with the video just right. In that case you can stilll rough line up the audio and video that way, but then it's just a simple matter of manually sliding the mixer audio in your editor slightly forward in relation to the video until the action and the sound line up (like lip synch, the snap of the camera shutter to the flash, etc.) It really is just that easy.

G.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
One caveat I should add regarding the lining up of audio is that sometimes there can be a signifigant delay on the camcorder audio. This is especially true for camera positions that are a signifigant distance from the church PA monitors (e.g. at the back end of the aisle.)

In those cases the audio on the camcorder and the audio off the mixer may not line up with the video just right. In that case you can stilll rough line up the audio and video that way, but then it's just a simple matter of manually sliding the mixer audio in your editor slightly forward in relation to the video until the action and the sound line up (like lip synch, the snap of the camera shutter to the flash, etc.) It really is just that easy.

G.
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yep, phase delays. happens all the time in the stuff I get. Especially when the location guys use a boom mic and a lav mic. It'll probably be even worse if you're in a large church with close mics and a far away camera.
 
bennychico11 said:
It'll probably be even worse if you're in a large church with close mics and a far away camera.
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Yep, exactly. Not to mention the reflections you're getting all over the place from all that polished wood and stained glass. That's when ya gotta just manually fine-tune the video/line audio sync via a good combo audio/video cue. It's not that hard, it takes just a couple of seconds per clip when you get used to it. But it is something one has to be conscious of.

G.
 
now what about miking. Should I get the pastor lavied up and the bride and groom should come out ok on that too, or something else. I've got all kinds of LDC's, SDC's and lavaliers.
 
lavs will be the easiest. At least for the pastor, and he'll probably already have one on him for the house. However, I'm sure the bride and groom will not want to be wearing lavs, espcially the bride. She won't want anything touching that dress and being forced to hold a wireless transmitter.

You could throw up a couple of stands behind the pastor. One pointed at the groom and the other at the bride. Behind the pastor would make them a little out of the way. Anyway of hanging mics from the ceiling? Maybe a two feet in front of the bride/groom and a few feet above their heads pointed at them. That would be ideal.
 
guitarfreak12 said:
now what about miking. Should I get the pastor lavied up and the bride and groom should come out ok on that too, or something else. I've got all kinds of LDC's, SDC's and lavaliers.
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Yeah, lav on the minister can be good. Don't count on that to pick up the bride and groom with that, though. You *might* be able to get away with a wireless lav on the groom, but don't count on being able to clip one on the wedding gown ;).

Other options include setting the minister up with a decent cardioid on a mic stand. Either set the stand up with a T that would allow you to have one mic facing the minister and one facing the condemmed...er...happy couple. Or have the minister with a lav and set up a small hypercardioid on a small floor stand at the pastor's feet facing up towards the couple.

A third strategy that can sometimes work depending on your camera setup and the church layout would go like this (I've done this before to quite decent results.) On my 3-camera setup I had two handhelds (sometimes mounted on homemade steadycams) with the third camera set up unmanned on a tripod at the back of the altar, a few feet off the centerline and pointing back towards the bride and groom. This camera would be pre-zoomed to get a good look at the couple as they are facing the minister without having to have a distracting cameraman wandering around in everybody's field of view. If the altar is shallow enough (it's not Notre Dame :) ) or you can get an unobtrusive camera position close enough (like 15' or so), mount a decent shotgun mic on the camera to get the bride and groom and just record that shotgun to the videotape. The lav on the minister will go to the mixer. Then just mix that all in with the rest of your audio during the vows.

Ambient room mics can be used, but frankly aren't really necessary. All you need is the minister, bride/groom and father of the bride. Also you'll need to mic (or tap off the church FOH) any singers/musicians/podium speakers during the ceremony.

If they are playing any recorded music during the ceremony (which is fairly common, at least around these parts), get the playlist ahead of time from whoever you're working with in the bridal party and get legal copies of those WAVs or MP3s for yourself to overdub into the soundtrack during post. It'll sound a hell of a lot better than tapping off the FOH and depending on that guy's levels and sound.

EDIT: Oh yeah, often times the FOH provides the minister with a handheld mic for feeding the PA. Usually if you just tap that off the FOH, you don't even need to mic the minister.

G.
 
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ok, great, all great. Do you think it would be too bold to ask the bride to agree to have a mic stand with a tee and three mics in front of the pastor at about stomach high? It would work, I can set up some 58's on the outside facing them, and one facing the pastor. Or, have a lav on him.
 
guitarfreak12 said:
ok, great, all great. Do you think it would be too bold to ask the bride to agree to have a mic stand with a tee and three mics in front of the pastor at about stomach high? It would work, I can set up some 58's on the outside facing them, and one facing the pastor. Or, have a lav on him.
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It's not necessarily too much to ask. However, you really only need a single mic on the stand. The pastor may already have a hand mic or a mic on a stand for PA purposes; this is fairly common. in that case you can just grab that off the mixer already. If he doesn't have anything there for FOH, then you can probably lav him up.

Then for the bride and groom you really only need a single omni at that position or a single hyper or shotgun from a distance. There is no need for stereo or two-tracking them if they are not lav'd. First, they will never be talking at the same time, and second, a stereo sound for them from an audience viewing perspective is unnatural. You'll have them either center panned or panned L-R to match their group position on screen. If you really wanted a stereo sound if you had a closeup during vows, all you have to do is automate the pan on the single mic so that it's here for his "I do" and there for her "I do". It's better than throwing a huge Christmas tree between the couple and the pastor, and the printed results still sound great.

G.
 
ok, well, I should have mentioned I have full control over the sound, I'm doing that too, but I'll have to ask someone to help me. I'll just lav up the pastor, and set a an omni condensor in front of the pair. Thanks.
 
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