how to capture audio - live acoustic guitar

[WhiteOpus]

Hello y'all

trying to get a advice on some audio equipment to rent and maybe a basic crash course on using that equipment. i've been asked to record a "music video" but in the style of a live performance in a cool location. anything i should absolutely avoid? anything to remember? how few mics can i get away with?

not really an audio guy.

 

[sfoster]

I'm no audio guy either, but maybe this will help.
I recorded this using the on-board microphone of a zoom h4n

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpNU8Zm8yP8

 

[Alcove Audio]

how few mics can i get away with?

Zero mics.

When shooting a music video the performers lip, finger & everything else sync to a master audio track to make it appear that they are actually playing.

Shooting multiple live performances, then trying to splice the video AND audio together into a cohesive whole, is next to impossible. Why? The performances will almost never be similar enough in tempo, tone and attitude to match from edit to edit. The alternative solution is to do a "live concert" multi-camera shoot so you can edit together all the angles from one of the live performances (and perhaps visual bits and pieces of the others) into a cohesive music video.

 

[AudioPostExpert]

anything i should absolutely avoid?

That largely depends on what your client wants and to what level of quality. As a broad generalisation though, the main thing to avoid is entrusting the recording to someone who isn't "really an audio guy" and a probable thing to avoid is recording in a cool location.

BTW, Alcove hit the nail on the head with the workflows most likely to provide an acceptable result.

G

 

[gorillaonabike]

Don't do it. For the sake of your own sanity, just don't. Save yourself the time / hassle or turn up with someone who knows how to set this up.

I turned up to one shoot for a music marketing company which I agreed to do on the condition the client provide a sound recordist. I told them 10 times put in writing in the strongest possible way. Anyhow, I turned up and guess what was missing...

So I scrambled some half-decent gear together, managed to mic up the musicians and singer, ran it through a convenient mixer and plugged it all into the only recorder I had on me at the time. A Tascam DR100. I then gave the cans to the producer to monitor and mix because I couldn't do visuals and sound at the same time (cue sniggering from the back from the audio pros).

She spent her time taking them off and not listening. It clipped, the mix was unusable (an 8-year old would've done a better job) and it was a complete waste of time. Unfortunately, they really liked the vid and offered me money to do more stuff with them but I turned them down flat. I told them I wouldn't work with them again and even Film Autre turned them down. In fact, I saw a couple of their other vids and they've since ceased trading.

It can be done but you need to turn up with someone who knows the basics of recording sound. Don't do it otherwise.

 

[FatPenguinSound]

Recording music on-set is a pain in the... everywhere. I've been the sound recordist for this kind of thing before.

What I observed happen was that the musicians would make a mistake in the music, but the shot would look cool and they'd try to play it off thinking it wasn't that bad. Then get frustrated when they had to do it. So they'd concentrate on playing the part right and wouldn't look as cool. This caused conflict between the people who wanted the better audio and the people who wanted the better video (and that's an argument you don't want to get dragged into the middle of) and then people start asking you if all kinds of things are possible in post -- which they aren't because the individual tracks aren't isolated enough because you recorded in a cool room rather than a sound-stage or iso-booth. And -- let's face it -- "cool" places are very rarely acoustically sane for any kind of music.

The better workflow (as mentioned by Alcove and AudioPost) would be to record the music properly beforehand and then show-up on set with a PA system and let the band jam out in time to the recording -- kind of like a reverse ADR (AVR?). Then you have the freedom to get all sorts of cool shots and visuals without having to worry about messing up the audio quality.

Best of luck!

 

[Schwarzenyaeger]

If it's still any help, you'd only need one decent condenser microphone if it's literally just an acoustic guitar, two if there is a vocal as wel.

The sound quality is going to mainly depend on the guitar's quality and the person's technique, as an acoustic guitar is a very dynamic instrument. I've done acoustic guitars by different people with the same mics and some were pristine and some were flubby and muddy. The difference was mainly the technique and also the guitar.

Music videos are usually to pre-recorded tracks.
If you want a live session to sound good and look good, you need a really good performer. A bad performer will suffer without somebody holding their hand.