I just looked over
the manual for the camera and I'm not sure that this is even possible. It talks about dubbing extra audio (?voiceover?) onto tracks 3-4 after the video is originally recorded; it talks about recording a/v info off of another device while in VCR mode; and it talks about using an expander to get an external mic input. Nowhere does it mention using an external audio source for the primary recording. In my mind, that's the #1 reason to have any sort of audio input, and their not mentioning this configuration makes me wonder if the camera will even grab audio from the a/v inputs when not in vcr mode.
The AV jack is some custom mini jack that connects to a special cable that came with the camera, which fans out to 3 RCA's (L, R, & Composite Video). IF this works, you'd need a cable with a female RCA connector on one end and a female XLR on the other for EACH side (i.e. one for the left, one for the right). Ideally, you'd have some sort of isolator in the middle to prevent ground loops and impedance mismatches. Additionally, you need to figure out how the input gain is set on your camera. As long as there's respectable level, I wouldn't worry about it not being very loud as soon as it hits the camera - you can increase the volume later. I'd be more concerned about sending it too much signal and it hitting what are likely rather poor limiters.
^ That's true. Lots of soundboards/soundguys have a separately controlled output, so they can give you a good mix regardless of how they have to mix for the room sound. That said, I'm not really a fan of SBD recordings...they're dry and stale. But a well balanced SBD is bound to sound better than anything you can get though the air at 500 feet away in the back of the venue.
I'm pretty sure the OP meant 50', not 500'. The only shows where anyone in the audience is 500' from the stage are the largest open-field festivals. A regular football field is less than 400' long including the end zones and the working/buffer area around the field. (looking at his video, my suspicions are confirmed)
Another thought. What about doing something for the soundguy to help convince him to start working with you. I think the problem with most soundguys is that they have a job to do before the gig so they can't become too distracted by other stuff. But if he knows that you'll be doing this alot, there could be a good motivation for him to help out. He probably just needs to know that he can trust you and that you're a partner and not someone that will be a distraction to him doing his job.
Looking at Pete's videos and the web site for the venue, it's not the evening's sound guy that he wants to work with, since these acts are big enough (Vince Neil, Sevendust, etc) that they'll likely be bringing their own engineers. Not to sound like a jerk, but if I was getting paid to mix a $20,000+/night band on a $250K+ sound system, I wouldn't be too interested in helping out a guy who shows up to record the concert with a $200 handicam with no idea of how to even connect his gear to mine. The last thing I, as that band engineer, need is some kind of extraneous noise from his rig bleeding back into mine (be it RF interference, ground hum, bad loading from some weird impedance mismatch, etc). Showing up with cheap gear and no idea how to use it would scream "amateur" to me, and no matter how many beers you buy me, I wouldn't trust you to not screw something up. Even if you don't screw something up at the show, releasing poor quality material after-the-fact has the potential to reflect poorly on me.
If the venue is really the one asking you to do this, call up the house production manager (according to the web site, a guy named Brit Bursh) and sort it out with him on an off-day, when there's no added pressure of getting a show going. But before you do that, you ought to be able to get most of this figured out at home with just an ipod and the correct adapters, assuming your camera can even do what you want it to do. If you figure out how to record some video of you walking around your house, with the audio feed coming from your ipod instead of the camera mic, then you'll be half-way there. After that, you'll just need to get the proper adapters to interface with the house console (going by the pictures, a Yamaha M7CL), a proper line-level isolator to isolate your equipment from theirs, and have the house PM set you up with a mult off the stereo FOH feed.
In 2 months i am getting the Canon Rebel T2i so i am hoping that might help out with better video quality, but can't record the whole show with it because i will need to for pics for the first 3 songs or more. So the Elura would still be used 50% plus of the time.
Before you run off and buy a DSLR and expect it to do everything you hope it will, I suggest that you take some time to learn about recording audio for video and what capabilities these cameras do (and more importantly, DON'T) have. I don't think I've talked to anyone who shoots video on a DSLR that uses it as their primary audio deck. Typically, they record their primary audio to a real recorder and just record scratch audio to the camera, so it's easier to sync up in post.
-Dan.
Topic: Need some advice/help with recording at a small venue (Read 8483 times)