Making a band DVD.

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BEERBELLY
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Joined: Jun 13 2006

I have a Z1E and as a musician myself plan to make DVD's for bands to sell at their gigs. So, what I'm after are some tips and guidance. I have a recording studio so I was planning on either have the band mime to their own CD or record a CD and use that as the soundtrack which would be great quality. I must say these bands will be mostly local country bands who play Country, 60's and M.O.T.R. music so no great lighting effects or huge stages. I have watched a few Irish DVD's where they use the beautiful Irish scenery as their backdrop but the DVD it'self is usually the singer sitting on a rock or walking on the beach/forest etc. Also when recording "live" I can take the sound straight out from the mixing desk and either have the xlr's going straight into the camera or to an external recording device where I can mix it later. The latter is better but it's trying to sync the audio with the video that's difficult. If anyone has experience of doing this sort of thing any help would be appreciated. Also tips on lighting.
Thanks.
George.

:eek: Don't look into his eyes....Oh Oh too late !!!

DAVE M
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Joined: May 17 1999

As you have a studio I assume that you're familiar with the concept that a live performance relies on the accoustic of the room so any recording of the desk is going to be =light on the louder instruments.

Best to record on a multitrack and fix it in post if you can.

Syncing shouldn't be a problem although I had a nightmare recently with a mixdown (done by someone else) that didn't fit the gig we recorded. (him - audio/me - video)

If you don't have timecode then the method to try is to run the CD from the beginning each time and syc up that way.

BEERBELLY
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Joined: Jun 13 2006

Thanks Dave. That was my concern. What if I record them on my ADAT's on 16 seperate tracks, mix it in the studio, then find that even if I find the starting point of audio/video, they go out of sync as the track plays. I've had this before when you get a difference in voltages and the audio runs slightly faster than the video. The ADAT's have timecodes down to 100th. sec. but I have no idea how to sync it with the video using that timecode.

:eek: Don't look into his eyes....Oh Oh too late !!!

DAVE M
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Joined: May 17 1999

I've done stuff recorded on several cameras and also on Sadie and it all syced up fine.

Last january I recorded a metal gig and the audio was recorded on Protools. We had a nightmare syncing and never found out what the problem was.

In the end I split the audio into about 10 numbers and resynced every time the singer spoke to the punters. It looks fine but I know it drifts a bit.

The drift was not constant so we couldn't fix it. Mind you, the audio guy was in London and I'm in Reading so we found communication hard.

The way I do it is to get a desk feed for the edit, do that, using the other cameras on board sound as a guide for sycning, then I add the mixed audio afterwards.

Rob James
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Joined: Jun 26 2001

TimeCode wouldn't necessarily help. The issue is clock masters. The camera has a clock from which it derives the 48kHz audio. So does the ADAT or whatever digital recorder. In each machine the same source is used to derive the TimeCode. Point being, if the fundamental clocks in each machine are running at slightly different speeds then the TimeCode will be 'wrong' with respect to the other machine anyway. If the Z1E has an S/PDIF digital audio output which is live when recording then I'd use that to sync the ADAT. If you do that then syncing up becomes a matter of 'mod-matching', assuming you also record a guide track on the camera. If this isn't an option then you could try using the camera composite outand some sort of box to derive word-clock from that. If neither of these is an option then the maximum drift between 'wild' camera and ADAT machine should be of the order of + - 1 frame in 10 minutes. If you follow the dictum "better late than early" for sound then this should not pose insurmountable problems. FWIW the BBC worked for years with 'wild' DAT without problems.

Rob The picture is only there to keep the sound in sync

Graham Risdon
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Joined: Dec 29 2004

As you have a studio, I'm assuming you know the sound side pretty well...

The non-live stuff should be fairly straightforward - get them to mime to a studio-recorded CD played out through their monitor system. I've done this several times and haven't had any sync problems. Use the camera mic to record live so you have a guide track. If the music starts softly, put a short beep on the audio track 5 seconds before the music starts to help sync when editing.

Live is more of a problem... what I've done in the past is to use 3 cameras - one takes a stereo feed from the desk (preferably a separate mix to FOH using a sub or aux bus) and the other two take live feeds from atmos mics (or camera top mics). You then have a 3 x stereo tracks which can be exported from the NLE to an audio multitrack program for mixing. The band could also do some overdubs if necessary. Of course, this does mean that everything needs to go into the desk. I've never had sync problems across cameras doing it this way.

I also did a couple of gigs where the (music) producer recorded a multitrack from the desk on his mac and provided me with a final stereo mix. This too was in sync without any need to lock up the audio/video electronically.

My guess is that the ADATs are getting on a bit(!) and that they're causing the drift.

I wonder if you could use one of the video's audio channels for SMTPE and on of the ADATs and then slave the ADAT to the video SMPTE as you play the audio in to the computer for mixing. I used to stripe one audio channel of VHS copies for composers to sync to a while ago...

Hope this helps