Easiest way to record three people for video?

by philg

Video nerds:

I want to interview two people. Maybe I will be behind the camera since nobody needs to look at me, though generally I am opposed to disembodied voices on video (I’ve got a 5-year-old trained to say “No talking behind the camera!”). A standard stereo lav mic setup is what I have used in the past. One for me and one for the interviewee with the two mics going to the LR channels on the camera (example from a video dating experiment). But what happens with three lav mics? Now the wireless mic receiver also has to be a mixer, right? And what is the right setting to mix three channels to two? Put the two interviewees on the left channel and the interviewer on the right? Does this product even exist? I don’t want to have two boxes in front of the camera if I can possibly avoid it.

Thanks in advance for any ideas!

9 thoughts on “Easiest way to record three people for video?”

  2. The second box just makes things so much easier in the end.

    Just use a digital audio recorder like a Zoom H5 or H6 with mono lav mics to each participant and mapped to separate channels. Mount the recorder using a flash mount adapter to your camera. Decide on the mic mapping in post-production.

    The pre-amps on a digital audio recorder will be much cleaner than your camera and you’ll have a ton of dynamic range for adjustments.

  3. Thanks, Trekker. I would greatly prefer to have the audio in the same file as the video from the start. But I guess this could work though I don’t know how to sync everything. Clapper board? Would it work to put the Zoom H5 up close to subjects, maybe on a bean bag or something? And then let it pick up my voice from behind the camera slightly softer?

  4. Philip, if you want your questions to be intelligible, that may not work. Being far away from a mic seldom sounds good, though some experiments in an authentic environment might be useful. But if you’re using some other device to record the subjects, you have your camera’s audio free to record you on your own mic, right?

    Re mics to channels: Having your original recording on separate channels is a big plus for fixing problems afterwards. Depends on your application, but for most purposes, mixing all mics to both channels (in your editor app) gives the most natural and reliable result, IMHO (I’m an old-timey TV production guy). You could pan them slightly differently left right, just a bit. Or save some bandwidth and just distribute with a mono audio track.

    As to the disembodied voice, what if you shoot an intro of you talking to camera (possibly ending in “I asked her about ___”), then do the interview behind the camera. Then you can even zoom in to the person talking once in a while (medium shot: http://tinyurl.com/nejkraw)

    Clapper: hands.

  5. You might want to look at the Tascam DR-40 or DR-60DmkII. I think they can record enough channels to do what you want.

  7. Run the audio output from the Zoom into the mic in on your camera. That’ll give you easy synchronization. Premiere Pro will sync the files automatically.

  8. If I wanted to mix three audio channels in real time going straight to the camera, I would look at running the three microphones into a separate mixer, and then the output from the mixer into the camera. Use the mixer to get the three mic levels reasonably balanced (or, even better, have someone sit there listening to the incoming audio through headphones and mix while you’re recording — though that would admittedly require yet another person).

    Something like this should suffice, though of course you could spend lots more: http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/802VLZ4

    Details would depend on your microphone output and your camera audio input.

    I would agree with previous comments, though, that if you can capture all microphones on separate audio tracks, that would give the most flexibility in getting the desired sound.

  9. Phil I would make this very simple. Put the Lav mic on the two people who are going to be onscreen. one to the left the other to the right. Since you are going to be off screen just ask your questions and speak loud enough so they would be heard over the two lavs on the people on screen. Remind them not to talk over you. And if you want to hear the off screen voice more clearly just record it separately and edit it in. You don’t need to buy anything for this set up and this is how it’s done in the real world!

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