25 Sound recordist operation: practical exercises (d) and (e)

Practical exercise (d): mixing

To gain experience, and harking back to Section 13, Mics: practical listening exercise (b) – mic placement and sound discrimination, move the loudspeakers as far apart as possible, and feed the same sound to each. If you can select speech on your radio as the loudspeaker feed, that is the ideal for this exercise. Place a mic in front of each loudspeaker and plug them to convenient channels on your mixer. (If you're unable to select the same source to each loudspeaker, use a single loudspeaker with both mics pointing at it – and unplug the other. Although this should provide the same result, experience shows that the two loudspeaker system works better, always providing they both match, that is.)

Monitoring on headphones (just checking!), fade up one mic to provide you with a satisfactory level (let's say peaking 4 on the PPM). Now, gently cross-fade between your two mics – keeping the level exactly the same, so that you're unable to hear any rise or dip in the overall sound output level. Keep your eye on the meter, but with a varying level of sound source, such as speech, you'll find it nowhere near as exact a reference as your ear for maintaining the desired level.

If you have two further mics available, place one beside each of the other mics and plug them to your other two channels. Repeat the exercise, mixing between adjacent channels in order, 1, 2, 3, 4, and then alternate, 1, 3, 1, 4, 2, for example. Once you're satisfied that you can achieve a reasonably smooth result, record one complete sequence through all four channels. Your recording may be on a quality audio cassette or minidisk system, or on a camcorder (there is no point to listening to it via an inferior system, such as a transcription unit, as you may not be able to accurately judge the consistency of your efforts). The added advantage to utilizing a camcorder is that you can also familiarize yourself with its plugging, should this be necessary.

Before you play it back, let me ask you, what was the person you've just recorded talking about? Embarrassing, isn't it? Nine times out of ten the recordist is so concerned with listening to levels and sound quality, that he/she doesn't follow the content. That's the next skill you have to acquire, because if there's ever a production debate about ‘What did he say?’ the first person to be asked is the recordist.

When you do replay this exercise, you should do so on loudspeakers, so that you can assess the sound as a listener. Ask yourself, is there any noticeable difference between the sound quality you heard on headphones and the quality from the loudspeakers? Is there any discernable change in the level?

Practical exercise (e): mixing and balancing

This exercise works best if you can have someone read a lengthy passage from, say, a book or a newspaper. Place them well away from the two loudspeakers, and place a mic at a suitable distance in front of them to record their reading, and so that it does not noticeably pick up sound from the loudspeakers. Select a different source to each loudspeaker, preferably music, and place a mic in front of each one.

Fade up your reader, and slowly mix in sound from one loudspeaker ‘beneath’ the speech, until you have a suitable balance between speech and music. Now cross-fade the two music sources (the mics in front of the loudspeakers) to provide a smooth transition ‘behind’ the speech. Record your results (on a quality system, as before), cross-fading backwards and forwards between the two music sources every twenty seconds or so, for a couple of minutes.

Replay your results, and again ask yourself, does the balance between speech and music sound the same as it did on headphones? Is it the balance you were trying to achieve, the music not too loud or too quiet behind the voice? Are the transitions between the background music sections subtle enough for the listener to accept as ‘natural’ or ‘believable’?