GH2 Audio query,best route?

[Foggy]

Hi folks,

First the basics,audio wise I don't have much of a set up at the moment.My kit currently consists of a rode videomic and one of the popular,cheap audio technica lav mics.

I am looking to pad this out and improve my setup, I begin shooting a documentary next week that involves a lot of filmed interviews both in the street and planned interviews where by I can setup the audio properly,it will also feature in car discussions whilst travelling(we are driving across europe).

My thoughts are: buy another lav mic for the chap I am doing the documentary with, that way we can use the lav mics both in the car on ourselves, and on the interviewee when doing set up interviews.

However I am not sure what to plug the lavs into,I can plug one of them straight into the GH2 if needs be but it only has the one input.The other option is to get a cheap H1 and plug one lav into that and one into the GH2 but that involves a lot of faffing in post for not very good results. I am edging towards picking up a H4n and plugging both lavs into that.I have read that you can then plug the zoom into the gh2 and won't have to sync in post as the GH2 will use the zooms pre-amps but record on the cameras card,is that correct?If so I assume I will need a sescom cable, but then how do you monitor audio with only one input? You could monitor from the H4n I guess but that is assuming the audio going into the gh2 is the same as the audio coming out of the zoom which isn't neccersarily the case.


I don't want to buy twice so I need a best possible solution and then I can build a shopping list.

Cheers.

 

[brunerww]

Happy Christmas, Foggy! If you get the H4N, you should get a £35 Sescom LN2MIC-ZMH4-MON (with a built-in monitoring jack) to go with it.

It won't monitor what you're actually recording in-camera, but it's better than nothing - and the GH2's meters will help too.

You'll also need some way to get from the Sescom's 3.5mm output jack to your camera's 2.5mm input. I use the £2.42 Hosa GMP-467 right angle adapter to make this connection.

With this setup, you can plug two decent lavs into the H4N and mix them down to a single input to your GH2.

Hope this is helpful and best of the New Year!

Bill

 

[Foggy]

Thankyou very much Bill and a merry christmas to you. Looks like that is the way to go then,I already have the hosa adapter for using my rode and the lav directly into the gh2 so thats one purchase saved.

I am guessing I would need a 3.5mm to xlr adapter to hook the lavs up to the H4N too?I might also look at the tascam DR40 as it is a little cheaper.

Thanks again,

Luke.

 

[AcousticAl]

I'd take TASCAM over Zoom any day. The DR-40 is a great, little field recorder. You may also look at the DR-60D since it is designed to interface with DSLR.

There's a larger issue here, though. If you don't have an experienced sound recordist dedicated to getting your sound recording right, you need to put a lot of thought and planning into your approach to sound, and even then you may or may not get what you need.

Cheap lavs are cheap lavs. If you are looking to make a serious go at your documentary, sound should be a huge concern, and just to give you some perspective a major motion picture camera rig may cost $50k but you can bet that the sound mixer has three times that tied up in his rig.

So the first questions that you should address before figuring out which kit will work best for you:
What are you trying to accomplish?
What are your immediate needs in regard to sound sources? (Host stand-ups? Seated interviews? Walk-and-talks? Ambient sound sources?)
How much are you actually willing to invest in making your kit viable?

 

[Alcove Audio]

No matter what you do, you will not be able to bypass the substandard audio implementation of your DSLR. You can spend $1,600 on the wonderful audio quality of a Sound Devices mixer and plug it into your GH2, but in the end you are still using the $3.85 pre-amps of your DSLR.

BTW, using the Sescom adapter only allows you to hear the audio going into the camera, not what is actually being recorded. So you will have no way of knowing what the audio truly sounds like until you audition it after it has been recorded.

A Tascam DR-100 or DR-40 are probably better choices than the Zoom. They have marginally better pre-amps, and a more robust build.

As long as the interviewer and the interviewee are stationary a hard-wired lav is an okay choice. You haven't mentioned which Audio Technica lav, so I can't comment on the quality.

I would use two omni lavs into an audio recorder that is separate from the camera, and plug the the RVM into the camera as a back-up and for sync. I would also have someone who's sole job is to monitor the audio.

 

[Foggy]

Thanks for the advice folks.Sadly my budget doesn't stretch to hiring a sound man or spending thousands on sound equipment.I fully understand that sound is half the experience and I know my documentary won't sound as good as it looks even with these purchases, but I would much rather get it done then wait around for the money to put into sound.

I believe the lav is an ATR-350 mic Alcove,I will scrap hooking up the tascam to the GH2 and use the better pre-amps on the tascam as a stand alone unit.Will I need to get XLR to jack adapters in order to hook the lavs up to the recorder?


As far as my immediate need for sound goes, the 3 most frequent scenarios will be sit down interviews, in car discussions and finally walking around sites of interest with the camera on a shoulder rig.

Thanks again for all the help, off to look into the tascam stuff.

 

[brunerww]

Hi Foggy - sorry it's taken so long to get back to you. I have the £200 Tascam DR-40 and I love it, but I recommended the £219 H4N because you mentioned it in your original post and because the Sescom cable with the monitoring jack is only available for the Zoom.

That said, you can get a Sescom LN2MIC-TASD100 cable for the Tascam, but you'll have to figure out another way to monitor the output, because Sescom doesn't offer a monitoring option for this cable.

As to your question on input from the £20 ATR-3350 to the DR-40 or the H4N, both of these recorders have combination XLR/6.35mm TRS inputs, which will allow you to use an inexpensive 3.5mm to 6.35mm mono to mono adapter to connect your lav to your recorder.

Again, hope this is helpful and Happy New Year!

Bill