High End Live Recording Equipment

restlesssoul

Might actually be my first time posting in here.

I want to record bands in small venues and I want the video and sound quality to look/sound like this:

http://www.anchorguitars.com/content/ke ... comes-down


How do I achieve this? I'm guessing its a camera and a hand held mic that is separate.

Would love some advice on brands, model numbers and prices.

Thanks!

mccreadyisgod

Based on what I saw and heard, that appears to be a soundboard recording spliced with a bunch of footage from a separate camera. I would also guess that the audio and video weren't synced via wordclock, that they just tried to sync the footage to the soundtrack when appropriate. Otherwise, the video was not the exact video of what was being played during that part of the song, just a sort of montage. Hard to tell what the camera was, or how much was done to the footage in post. As for the audio, it was probably some sort of recorder plugged in to the soundboard. Could be cassette, CD recorder, HD recorder, etc. You could probably get the same quality from a decent field recorder; many of them have internal mics, but you could also invest in a good stereo mic (assuming your recorder has mic preamps, or the mic is built to use your recorder's mic input). Here is a selection of recorders: http://www.musiciansfriend.com/search/s ... d+recorder

There are also a lot of digital video cameras with decent on-board mics. You will probably want something with a manually-adjustable mic input level (camera or recorder), since live shows are waaay louder than some models are calibrated for. Field recorders are probably a safer bet, since many of them are built to record band shows/practices/demos/etc. If you want to have the audio and video in sync, and you want to use a stand-alone recorder with a separate camera, you might want to sync them via wordclock, so if that's important to you, look for equipment that supports wordclock. You can also play with soundboard recordings versus mics in the venue; for most small clubs, mics would yield better results, since you aren't at the mercy of the soundguy, and you will get a better representation of what was in the room rather than what was running through the soundboard. In many small clubs, guitars and drums aren't even run through the mixer (they're loud enough on their own), which means they wouldn't end up on a soundboard recording.

The last option is to look at a good camera that can accept an external microphone, and then add a good stereo mic that plugs into the camera. This can be a bit tough if you want to move the camera around, since you need the mic plugged into the camera. If the camera and mic are both on a tripod and aren't moved around, then this is less of a problem. Unfortunately, I know virtually nothing about cameras or camera-specific mics, so I can't help much with that.