Need Camcorder Advice For Live Music
 

I'm leaning heavily towards one of these;

https://www.amazon.com/Canon-VIXIA-H...n+vixia+hf+g40

I want to use this camera to record myself practicing in the living room as well as record the full band at a live performance.

I am figuring I will have to add a suitable stereo mic. Need advice on that, too.

Dinny

It's been almost 20 minutes.

I was expecting more ouchy'all.

Dinny

PM Nickelback Dane

I recorded myself "practicing" in the living room once.

if you can, record at a low level.

I did, that was the problem

Why not a go-pro?

Use the same one you do for home porn

There was a camcorder that had a bluetooth mic for better sound. I do not know if it is still made.

Unless you're going to get serious, you'd be surprised what a middle of the road Sennheiser or even a cheaper Rode mic will collect. Even if your camera limits you to the 3.5 input, they can still pull in some decent sound depending on the area you're in.

I use CA-14 omnis, termed down to 3.5 and I record @24/96 WAV PCM on a Tascam dr2d. Works great for live performances/demos/etc

I was trying to figure a way to work this into the tread title.

The lens on the GoPro seems small like an iPhone or some such. Do the mics do well with high SPLs?

I'm also wondering if I'll be ~$700 happier with the Canon.

Dinny

This is what I was thinking would be better than the GoPro. A mic like this on the Canon should make tons better looking and sounding footage.

Dinny

Can you turn phantom power in Canon off?

I'm quite very nearly almost turned on in an I don't get it sort of way.

Is that so wrong?

Dinny

No way in hell would I try to do what you're wanting to do with a go pro, and I own 3 of the over priced little ****ers.

I assume some of your live performances will be under fairly low light? If that's the case, you might want to get your hands on one of these cameras and make sure you're happy with the noise in the footage in low light situations. In the past, Canon has definitely had the upper hand over the equivalent Sony with regards to the actual in the field lux ratings.

I don't know what kind of shows you do, but I bet you'll eventually want to run a mic on your camera as well as an audio recorder similar to what rabble mentioned earlier and have them mixed into something more appealing to whoever your audience is.

Many Camcorders will get the job done (as far as live music goes). The problem is that unless you have a feed directly from the board (the house system) the audio will most likely be disappointing. If you can arrange with whomever is running sound to get you an Aux out, you can get fairly good audio, however.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7jw_IzWrHys" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Get this and a low priced Tascam PCM recorder. Do the audio separately and sync them later in post :

http://www.church-audio.com/viewitem.php?productid=21

You'll be much happier in the long run.

IIf you're playing at a theatre or Arena, or the engineer can give you a dedicated stereo or mono mixdown, sure.

Most clubs and small venues don't have much in FOH except vox and kick drum. Very little guitar or bass. The sound guy is mixing to the room, not the recording. 9 times out of 10, a raw SBD feed is damn near unlistenable.

The Tascam DR-2D (as well as the DR-40 and Zoom h4n) has a 4 track capability, so I usually take the board feed and the omni mic source and I just post mix them in Pro Tools.

The omni mics are usually the basis of the recording, then I bring in the SBD and pan until the vocals sound "right".

I can post a couple sample if you like.