Live Concert Audio/Video

S

Senor Cactus

New member
Has anyone here ever done a live concert video?

My brother has an annual party at his house with a bunch of bands and I've been in charge of making a video of the thing.
This was my setup this year:
Canon XL1 Digital Camera hooked via SVHS cable to an SVHS tape deck.
The audio was coming from the Tape Out of the soundman's board and going into the SVHS deck. The deck had audio levels and left and right record level knobs to adjust it so we didn't get distortion.

The video turned out great. Basically broadcast quality. The sound turned out really good too. The soundman had sent the audio through a compressor on it's way to the mains to even things out a bit. Since the signal the tape was getting was from the tape out, he said that the tape wouldn't be getting the effects of the compressor. Also the sound was mixed for the mains, not the tape deck, so there is a slight lack of bass on the tape.

Thinking of next year already and looking for ways to make it even better, I was wondering if anyone else has done something like this before. If so, what setup did you use? Anyone do a multiple camera setup? What kinds of problems did you have?
 
Well, I would certainly try to get individual pre-fader outs for each channel of the main board and work with them. House mixes never sound good on tape because of weak bass and cymbals. Those instruments are so loud on their own that the soundman never has to turn them up much, if at all, on his soundboard. So, take the pre-fader outs of each channel and run them into either a second mixing board (so you can make your own mix with the bass and cymbals up where they need to be) or even better send them to a multi track recorder to be mixed later. Since your camera is digital, you could skip the SVHS stage altogether and just record in the digital domain. In fact, record several cameras digitally. Then in a best case senario, you could cut the cameras together and sync it up with the audio on the computer using a movie editing program like Adobe Premiere. At least that's what I would do.

If you can't do all that at least take the pre-fader outs, make your own live mix on a second board, and then send THAT signal to your current SVHS setup.
 
That's about what I figured I might try next year. I've just got to find a board with enough channels, he has 16, I only have 8. I'm a little bit worried about actually being able to mix it in the middle of all the live noise. I guess I'll need a really good set of headphones.

The reasons for going to SVHS was mainly that digital tapes are so expensive. You can get a two hour SVHS tape for less than a one hour digital tape. I was also a little worried about getting the levels wrong on a digital tape. I'm not exactly sure how audio records on a DV tape but I know that digital clipping is like one of the most annoying sounds in existence. I knew that getting the right record level on the tape was going to be kind of difficult and if it's going to distort I would much rather have analog distortion than digital distortion.

I did only one camera because I didn't want to do any editing afterwards. I could have done more than one camera but then you have to put it all together and line up video with audio. A friend of mine has Final Cut Pro on his computer and I've done all that before but it's enough of a hassle just making all the copies for everyone.

What are some thoughts on using a compressor for my tape mix? Are there any other techniques/equipment I should look into?
 
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