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senseless

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Apr 23, 2008
1,890
260
Pennsylvania, USA
What's the best way to set an on camera shotgun mike, when recording someone on public address? I have the option of wide, center and shotgun. The person will be about 20 feet away and the loudspeakers are on the sides of the stage.
 
What's the best way to set an on camera shotgun mike, when recording someone on public address? I have the option of wide, center and shotgun. The person will be about 20 feet away and the loudspeakers are on the sides of the stage.

Off hand, and you don't say which camera, I'd say wide, based on the speaker position...You could use centre, but that's going to depend on the volume levels...with wide, you should grab the audio from both sides.
 
Off hand, and you don't say which camera, I'd say wide, based on the speaker position...You could use centre, but that's going to depend on the volume levels...with wide, you should grab the audio from both sides.

It's a Canon hd consumer camcorder and Canon dm50 mike. I am trying to minimize echo, but shotgun mode might make it worse. Wide is probably right.
 
It's a Canon hd consumer camcorder and Canon dm50 mike. I am trying to minimize echo, but shotgun mode might make it worse. Wide is probably right.

I have never used the DM50, but my DM100 also has these three modes, and the wide settings provides an opening angle of 120°, the center setting is still 90°. This means, if you are 20 feet away from the stage and the speaker are 40 feet (or less) apart, the center settings will do just fine and you'll collect less noise from the surroundings.

If this is a semi-professional gig by any means, try to get a mic closer to the speaker (clip on would be perfect). From 20 feet away and with speakers, you will not get good sound. Understandable, but not good.
 
I have never used the DM50, but my DM100 also has these three modes, and the wide settings provides an opening angle of 120°, the center setting is still 90°. This means, if you are 20 feet away from the stage and the speaker are 40 feet (or less) apart, the center settings will do just fine and you'll collect less noise from the surroundings.

If this is a semi-professional gig by any means, try to get a mic closer to the speaker (clip on would be perfect). From 20 feet away and with speakers, you will not get good sound. Understandable, but not good.

Correction, it is a DM100 Canon Mike I'm using. I'm thinking it might be better to focus on capturing the wide public address sound rather than trying to zero in on the talker and picking up a delayed public address bouncing back. I'm just an amateur, but it's disappointing when the sound is not good.
 
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