questions on Recording sound, fx etc

doomedvideos said:

I am going to use my mic condencer to record dialuge on the camcorder, but also use it to record sound effects. How shall i do this?

Click to expand...

You should work on your spelling. It's "condenser" and "dialog".

You may want to check out my blogs and other posts here on IndieFilm, that will give you some idea of where to begin.

doomedvideos said:

Use the camcorder? a laptop? a recording device of some sort.

Click to expand...

First, what type of budget do you have?

If you will be using a laptop you'll need a decent audio interface, the pres and converters on laptops are crap. I assume that you have been using the camera on-board mic; big mistake, they are usually of very poor quality. You should use a decent quality mic on a boom; a shotgun (lobar) mic for outdoors and a cardioid for indoors.

Watch out for the very low end digital recorders; they do some great things but often have substandard mic pres and AD/DA converters and should be used with a quality mixer. The same is true for most camcorders.

doomedvideos said:

Do i record stereo or mono? the mic has both options. Should dialogue be mono or stereo?

Click to expand...

Dialog is ALWAYS recorded in mono. If you are using multiple mics they are either recorded onto individual tracks or mixed on the fly by the production sound mixer.

Sound FX and Foley are usually recorded with several mics, but rarely for a stereo effect. The variety of mics allows for different tonal qualities and perspectives from which to choose. Ambiences are often recorded in stereo, but are used as a basis for a complete ambient construct in post.

doomedvideos said:

should i record room tone even though i am not going to ADR?

Click to expand...

ALWAYS record room tone. It's even more important if you will be using the production dialog.

Alcove audio,

Thanks for the info, yes my spelling isnt that great but to be fair I was quite tiered when I wrote that.

The mic I am using is external, it is a condenser shotgun mic made by Yoga, it was quite cheap off ebay. As you can probably guess buget is low here, so I shall be trying my best to do what i can.


What are the main uses of room tone?

Interesting stuff there, i shall check out the blogs.

There are a number of discussions about room tone and other sound issues. Here's the list:

http://www.indietalk.com/search.php?searchid=1085720

Once you have read your way through it I'll be more than happy to answer questions.

Peace,

Bob

Im afraid that link doesnt work Alcove.

I am shooting on sunday and i just need to get my head round these basic concepts:

I am using Sony Vegas Pro, is this right.

If I have one boom mic, do i record dialogue in mono and then the room tone in stereo, the room tone is there because when i change the dialogue channel the tone is there to fill in the gaps of sound, right?

However if i have a guy talking, and i have recorded in mono, and a car drives past, that would be in mono also,

If im editing three people talking then I guess I have to split the audio into three segments and place them into the correct channels, right?

I am now just reading your blog, also found a interesting site here

http://www.microfilmmaker.com/tipstrick/Issue5/dialogrc.html

Sorry I just need to get things strait into my head, i shall try find more info on this.


cheers.

doomedvideos said:

Im afraid that link doesnt work Alcove.

Click to expand...

Do a search on here on IndieTalk for "Room Tone". Hopefully most of you questions will be answered.

Everything recorded on the set is in mono - the dialog, the room tone, the sound FX. The purpose of the clean room tone is a clean palette on which the individual lines of dialog are placed (checkerboarded).

99% of the time the dialog is in the center when mixing stereo or the center speaker when mixing in 5.1.

You would add the stereo effects (like the car pass) in audio post.

Cheers alcove, I have read for nearly 2 hours!, things are starting to become a bit more clear, I hope I can do somthing good with the equipment I have.