Re: Thought Problem: micing and mixing a panel discussion for recording
You know Dick, sometimes the Shure's are completely transparent and sometimes they are very obvious, even with "last mic on". It depends on a few factors. If you think about it, those units are pretty much designed for conference rooms with the Shure mics. If all the mics are the same and the gains are pretty much the same and the room noise is consistent down the conference table, they work pretty seamlessly. But if one guy has a lav on and the next guy swallows his mic (so you have it turned way down) and the next mic down is a pzm, then the ambience is going to change as each mic is added/subtracted from the mix. Of course, in this situation you can't win except turn everything up. Manual or Auto it's going to be messy.
Your room mic idea is a good one and can definitely save the day in a couple of ways. You could also go crazy and take some IR's of the room and do convolution reverb in post
The thing about ambient sounding audio for video is that it's often the hallmark of a budget production. I hear video guys all the time saying that the entire production is only as good as the audio. It could look awesome but if the sound is bad then the whole thing seems cheap.
ymmv.
