26 Sound recordist operation: balancing

The balancing act

Once you're satisfied with your mixing ability, you must ensure that you're able to operate without having to constantly look down at the mixer panel. Obviously, watching a discussion amongst contributors to anticipate the next speaker, you must know the operational position of your faders by touch alone. You must also recognize the sound level you require by listening to the output, so that you don't need to continuously watch the meters, an occasional glance is all that should be necessary.

Deliberate sound peak

However, meters are a guide to keeping the overall dynamic range of your output to within about 20 dB, the broadcast requirement. Although it gives you peace of mind to know you can rely on the limiter holding back sudden peaks, there are times when you want to give the listener the experience of a sudden jump in sound level. Thus, sound peaks must be anticipated, and levels adjusted to cope. From the listener's perspective, what matters is to retain the impression of a change in level, and so you may need to gently reduce the overall level preceding a peak, to preserve the desired effect. From this you will gather that rehearsal of critical items/material is to be recommended.

A further problem of wildly varying sound levels on location is that your ears can be fooled into believing that the level they're monitoring is correct, when the ambient level has altered so much that their sensitivity has been either lowered or heightened. Beware; this is the time to keep a close watch on the meters.

The perfect mix?

You've honed your skills to perfection, and your programme mix effortlessly glides from one contributor to another. But is a programme mix necessarily the ideal for post-production? ‘I can't separate these sounds!’ is the wail from the edit suite, following yet another change of mind from production.

You may have the capability of mixing several sources together, but don't lose sight of the end result. You still need to give the (dubbing) editor plenty of choice, especially in the face of ever-varying production requirements. Take one example, the one-to-one interview. For maximum flexibility, the post-production requirement is almost certainly each voice on a separate track.

Split track

Assuming you plug the inputs such that one person's mic is selected to channel one, and the other to channel two, then via the mixer, you can split track by feeding the left leg (channel one) panned hard left to track one, and the right leg (channel two) panned hard right to track two (obviously, check that you haven't ganged the faders). If production prefer, you could split track and offer answers (the interviewee) on track one, pan pot central (going to both tracks), and a programme mix of questions and answers (interviewer panned hard right) on track two. The latter option does need a firm decision beforehand to ensure it's the ideal answer to a dubbing editor's dream.

Transcription recording

You may be asked to provide a transcription recording on a cassette recorder. This does not have to be broadcast quality as it is for use by the reporter, who can listen to it to select the pieces they require (often in the car on the way back from location) and/or by production staff at base in preparing a script to assist the edit. Many reporters carry one of their own, and often find that its onboard mic provides sufficient quality for their purposes. However, if they prefer a feed of your programme sound, you can send them one from the unbalanced output of the mixer, always providing you have the correct plugs/leads to interface with the equipment they produce. Make sure you check the input level is correctly set, and that it is recording satisfactorily before the interview. For peace of mind, carry one of your own with reliable connections and known recording characteristics.

Unless used regularly, it's the one piece of kit that causes most grief to sound recordists (apart from radio mics), since they frequently forget to start them. Dubbing a cassette of an important interview from the camcorder during a break in shooting can be extremely frustrating (and embarrassing!). If the interview is protracted, change the audio cassette every time you change the video cassette (make sure the audio cassettes are the correct length), as another embarrassing moment is when the cassette recorder goes ‘CLICK’ during the interview when its tape ends. This can also happen if the battery dies, so ensure that you put fresh ones in before recording, and carry plenty of spares. If you are shooting more than one interview for an item/programme, use a fresh cassette for each interview. When you remove cassettes from your recorder, label each one clearly, as the most embarrassing moment is when you discover you've just taped over a previous interview.