Recording setup for filmmaking & instruments?

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bentrinh102

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I'm looking for a set up that I can use for some hobby filmmaking, and for recording instruments (such as the violin). I think I'll might end up becoming more serious about recording in the future, so I want something that would be versatile enough to grow with my needs. Right now I'm thinking of getting a portable digital recorder, like the Zoom H4n or Tascam DR-40/DR-60D/DR-40 (mostly due to their cost and XLR jacks), and one or two decent microphones. I'm a typical college student though, so I'd like to keep costs down.

  • During filmmaking, I'll probably record on a boom, and occasionally I'll need it for a voiceover.
  • For recording music, I'm particuarlly concerned with picking up all of a violin's tones - often times I end up with this scratchy, empty sound.
 
Do you intend to edit the videos? If so you will need a computer so why not use a decent Audio Interface upfront?
If you have access to a laptop of even modest performance it will be good for quite a few tracks. I would suggest the Native Instruments KA6 for an AI because, among other nice bits, it is completely bus powered and can take 2 mics and a mixer on two line inputs.

Reaper can be used I understand to fit sounds to pictures?

Dave.
 
Recording a violin is trickier than a lot of instruments, but you will find out is that a large part of the recorded sound is the room you are recording in.
If you've got a laptop, like Dave mentions, a USB-powered audio interface with separate mics is going to give you a lot more ability and options than a stand-alone recorder.
 
mjbphotos said:
Recording a violin is trickier than a lot of instruments, but you will find out is that a large part of the recorded sound is the room you are recording in.
If you've got a laptop, like Dave mentions, a USB-powered audio interface with separate mics is going to give you a lot more ability and options than a stand-alone recorder.
Click to expand...

There is another guy in these pages recording violin. Compare notes? (b'boom-tsk!) .
I have looked at the price of the two recorders mentioned and you would get a decent chunk of change if you bought the KA6 instead, certainly enough for a mic cable or maybe a modest set of cans?

Dave.
 
Wow, I didn't know audio interfaces could be USB-powered. I'm a bit concerned a laptop and AI might be unwieldy - nowadays my film crew consists of me, and whichever of my friends are free, so I'm usually very understaffed (or even alone). I figure a portable recorder would work better for this.

I didn't notice the other page on recording violin until later - I'll be sure to read up on it :)

Also, I have a pair of Audio-Technica ATH-M30's - would that work well?
 
bentrinh102 said:
Wow, I didn't know audio interfaces could be USB-powered. I'm a bit concerned a laptop and AI might be unwieldy - nowadays my film crew consists of me, and whichever of my friends are free, so I'm usually very understaffed (or even alone). I figure a portable recorder would work better for this.

I didn't notice the other page on recording violin until later - I'll be sure to read up on it :)

Also, I have a pair of Audio-Technica ATH-M30's - would that work well?
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Hmm? You will, need mics, boom, stands, cables, video kit (lights?) will a laptop and an AI little bigger than the proposed recorders really make a difference? You can put the KA6 in a mac pocket!

Dave.
 
I am not big into video, but when I watch the pros, they record the audio separately and add it to the video later. But they also use some kind of time code embedded in both to make sure the sync is right.

In my limited case, I needed to record some video interviews and the org had NO video cameras that accepted mics other than on the cameras themselves. Waaaaay too roomy sounding.

So I put a digital recorder near the subjects, made a "clapper" noise and never, ever turned anything off or paused it.

When I added the audio track and muted the camera crummy audio track, I could see the spike in the waveform of the clapper, so I could match the audio with the moving lips.
 
the standard for sample rate for sync purposes with audio for video is 48k. check to see if your intended recording device has that sample rate as an option. the use of other sample rates will cause you sync issues.
 
Tom Hicks said:
the standard for sample rate for sync purposes with audio for video is 48k. check to see if your intended recording device has that sample rate as an option. the use of other sample rates will cause you sync issues.
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Not necessarily. Three minutes of audio is three minutes of audio regardless of the sample rate. I'd be more worried about variations between clocks on the recording devices, or the way 30fps is often substituted for 29.97fps in some cheaper video editing software.

The NLE I use will resample audio on the fly so I could mix and match at will. But I still use 48k for all my recording because that's the video standard and I don't want any more resampling than necessary, and because on the Alesis HD24 the clock is known to be off at 44.1k but correct at 48k.
 
I'm sure someone will bite my head off for suggesting this, but you could go all ITB and possibly have better results.
Use whatever DAW you want (Reaper is popular on here) and invest in Komplete 9 ($500 new). That will give you some great string and orchestral patches to work with. Then Native Instruments also has some great things called I think Action Hits ($300) and one other one that's $150 for suspenseful sounding tricks, but it's name eludes me.

All that totals to about a grand, but the quality of all of those plugins is sublime. I had to use them to create a movie trailer type of sound and it worked out great. But don't take my word for it, go ahead and check out the Native Instruments site. The Action Hits and Session Strings will probably be the ones you'll want to hear most!

Of course there are other considerations such as monitors and probably just a cheap interface to use them with, but that's honestly my suggestion.
 
MrWrenchey said:
I'm sure someone will bite my head off for suggesting this, but you could go all ITB and possibly have better results.
Use whatever DAW you want (Reaper is popular on here) and invest in Komplete 9 ($500 new). That will give you some great string and orchestral patches to work with. Then Native Instruments also has some great things called I think Action Hits ($300) and one other one that's $150 for suspenseful sounding tricks, but it's name eludes me.

All that totals to about a grand, but the quality of all of those plugins is sublime. I had to use them to create a movie trailer type of sound and it worked out great. But don't take my word for it, go ahead and check out the Native Instruments site. The Action Hits and Session Strings will probably be the ones you'll want to hear most!

Of course there are other considerations such as monitors and probably just a cheap interface to use them with, but that's honestly my suggestion.
Click to expand...

I think film sound and music recording are two separate uses. I don't think he's necessarily recording the music for film scores.
 
Hey everyone, sorry for the slow response (studies have picked up lately).

I appreciate the suggestions, but I think it's been assumed this is for a far more professional thing than I need - I apologize if that wasn't clear before. My filmmaking group consists of a bunch of friends who go out and shoot on location (so, in and out without a lot of equipment). We don't have the time or money to set up a formal shot - at least without disturbing the owners and our boom mic is literary a rigged PVC rod, our "steadycam" made in a borrowed machine shop. We don't have any plans outside of a Youtube channel - mainly because it's just a fun hobby to us. As such I need something portable, relatively easy to operate (since I end up being both the cameraman and sound guy most of the time), but something that records decently and won't lock me down too much in the future, if I do become more serious in it.

As for the instruments - currently I just want to record myself playing. But thank you for showing me that software - looks really nice, since I've mainly done my purely compositions in Sibelius so far :).
 
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