Field Mixing Tips for beginner

[David Lee]

Hi,


I'm new to audio and was looking for tips for field mixing.


Our crew was shooting interviews in a high traffic public area. I had the boom on one channel and a lav on the subject on another channel. I had the Lavaliere hitting around -12 to - 6 db and it sounded find - good separation between subject dialogue and background noise. With the shotgun mic, even though it was close to subject as possible without entering frame, it was picking up too much of the background noise if I adjusted gain so it was hitting at -12 and - 6 db. So, unless I brought down the shotgun levels, when I listened to it stereo mixed, the background noise was too overpowering.


Since, these tracks are separate, would I still want the shotgun mic hitting about the same levels as the lavaliere mic and let the editor choose which track they want in post or should I try to bring down the levels of the shotgun mic so that the background noise is minimized. I don't want the producer to look at the footage and think that sound is bad, but at the same time I don't want to leave the editor without an option. What's the general rule of thumb to do in this situation?


Thanks in advance.

 

[Daniel McAllister]

Re: Field Mixing Tips for beginner

I'd bring the shotgun level down - if it's just an interview as you said, then intelligibility is going to be the key aim. All you really want the shotgun track to do is add a bit of natural reverb and a touch of background noise so that the sound doesn't seem massively out of place compared to the visual shot.

You might want to EQ the shotgun track a bit too - play around to see what sounds best, but I'd certainly high-pass it at
least.

Hopefully you can get a perfectly usable mix that way.

 

[Robert Lofgren]

Re: Field Mixing Tips for beginner

Traffic noise is a pain. It seems to bounce of every surface making it hard to point a mic from a distance.

You can try an expander on the boom mic that is keyed of the lav. This way the street noise will become reduced while the interview will stay in level.

I've also had some success in treating the setup as a mid-side, assigning the boom to the side processing.

 

[Bennett Prescott]

Re: Field Mixing Tips for beginner

David, unless you recorded to analog tape you have plenty of headroom to hand to the editor. Not to mention that, if the traffic noise is that bad, a noise floor currently 80dB or so down isn't going to matter if it gets raised by even 20dB. Turn the shotgun down if you feel it will help at an early stage before a real mix can be done.

 

[Kevin Maxwell]

Re: Field Mixing Tips for beginner

Actually the real thing you have to worry about is who will we editing it and how much care will they take with the audio. One location sound person I know has had editors just take the lav and boom track and bring them both up to the same level and leave it like that. You can guess how that will sound. So now he refuses to give them 2 tracks, he mixes it on the fly to sound as good as he can. You need to communicate with the people you are working for to see what they want and will the editor take the time to work with what they are given to make it as good as it can be or do they not spend any editing time on the sound.

I would question the choice of the boom mic and the usage if it sounds that bad compared to an omni directional lav, I assume that it is an omni lav.