EQ on set/location

[Philip Perkins]

Yes, don't wuss out. Warnings to a production mixer about the perils of using EQ should include also warning them about the perils of not using EQ. Both choices involve matching, and a poor choice of either is still a poor choice.

Of course production mixers, like everyone else on a crew, should think of the whole process. And one of those thoughts (among many) should be realizing that post will be very limited in matching single lavs in a crowded 5-lav mono mix that was left too bright or too dull or with too much rumble by someone afraid to use their mixer. Production mixers should not be afraid to use the knobs on their equipment any more than they should be afraid to leave them alone.

Glen Trew

And those warnings should include the notion of "when in doubt, don't".  I'm not talking about simple high and low rolloffs here, I'm talking about midrange EQ, especially boosts.  Telling mixers they should feel free to extensively mess with the midrange using a multi-band analog EQ is a loaded gun as far as post goes, especially if the mixer is less than very experienced.  I'm not telling mixers to be "afraid" of anything--I'm asking them to consider the consequences of what they do and not limit our options in post.

Philip Perkins

[Eric Toline]

And those warnings should include the notion of "when in doubt, don't".   I'm not talking about simple high and low rolloffs here, I'm talking about midrange EQ, especially boosts.  Telling mixers they should feel free to extensively mess with the midrange using a multi-band analog EQ is a loaded gun as far as post goes, especially if the mixer is less than very experienced.  I'm not telling mixers to be "afraid" of anything--I'm asking them to consider the consequences of what they do and not limit our options in post.

Philip Perkins

How extensive is exstensive? For me I have no problems adding where required a little 2-3db push at 3-5k to make a voice stand out in a noisey scene or background. Remember that there are other ears listening on the job that I have to answer to and my job is to make the voice intelligable for those ears.

Eric

[Glen Trew]

Still waiting for a response to this everyday scenario:

"...if a lav mic is particularly dull or bright sounding (because of any number of factors), and this mic is mixed in mono with other mics that do not need to be altered...

How is this mic going to be shaped and massaged without harming the other mics and the combined ambience in the mono mix?

Glen Trew

[Glen Trew]

Still waiting for a response to this everyday scenario:

"...if a lav mic is particularly dull or bright sounding (because of any number of factors), and this mic is mixed in mono with other mics that do not need to be altered...

How is this mic going to be shaped and massaged without harming the other mics and the combined ambience in the mono mix?

Glen Trew

(meant to say "in post", as added below...)

Still waiting for a response to this everyday scenario:

"...if a lav mic is particularly dull or bright sounding (because of any number of factors), and this mic is mixed in mono with other mics that do not need to be altered...

How is this mic going to be shaped and massaged in post without harming the other mics and the combined ambience in the mono mix?

Glen Trew

[Jeff Wexler]

Still waiting for a response to this everyday scenario:

"...if a lav mic is particularly dull or bright sounding (because of any number of factors), and this mic is mixed in mono with other mics that do not need to be altered...

How is this mic going to be shaped and massaged without harming the other mics and the combined ambience in the mono mix?

Glen Trew

Well, as you probably know, in the old mono days (when everything was mono because that's all there was), sound editors would split out or cut up the dialogue lines into individual tracks --- then when one of the voices, what ever mic was used to record it (often a lav), didn't sound so good, they would work on that track. This was time consuming and quite difficult often, burt that is the way it was done. The only real obstacle to this approach was when there was considerable overlapping dialog. Certainly in the days that this was the normal procedure it was a rarity that everyone was talking at once making it impossible to split out the mix.

Regards,  Jeff Wexler

[Philip Perkins]

(meant to say "in post", as added below...)

Still waiting for a response to this everyday scenario:

"...if a lav mic is particularly dull or bright sounding (because of any number of factors), and this mic is mixed in mono with other mics that do not need to be altered...

How is this mic going to be shaped and massaged in post without harming the other mics and the combined ambience in the mono mix?

Glen Trew

Here's how: in most films there is only one person talking at once, usually.  I undertand that it's a scene or a conversation with x number of people, but for the audio to be intelligible there is usually only one talker up at a time from second to second.  In post we do spot EQ all the time--it's an automated part of our process, and we tweak the dialog line by line or word by word to make it work.  Particularly in docs, where iso tracks are almost never available, we end up doing this on all the dialog to even things out and make things match across cuts.  So I CAN easily, in a calibrated room with repeatable and saveable settings and automation to take me from one set of settings to another and onward, go thru exactly the scene you've just described and make it work just fine.    There are many ways of keeping the ambience consistent, if the ambience is strong enough to be heard to change thru this process.  (Using room tone gotten on set, adding library etc ambiances to hide changes etc etc.).  The task you set is not only not impossible, it is something we do on every job.

Philip Perkins

 

[Marc Wielage]

One of the first things you'll notice is that the background isn't quite as bad as you thought it was.  This is because of the "bleed through" factor of your ears hearing more background than is being recorded.

In the case of the Sony 7506's, I always felt it was because I suspect these headphones tended to over-emphasize problems like rumble and background noise. I think this is an asset, not a problem, and I think most users learn to work around it.

I've been surprised many times to hear something that sounded like crap to me on location, and then we get into the dailies room, crank up the speakers, and everybody goes, "hey -- that sounds OK." I've never once heard something in dailies that I didn't hear in the headphones.

By an interesting coincidence, I just did some post work on a (very expensive A++ budget) commercial a couple of days ago, and I was shocked at how bad the lavs were mismatched in terms of EQ. If I didn't know better, I'd say they were different mikes placed in drastically different places. And that was the mono dailies mix; the isos sounded no better. (No names, please.)

At least we've figured out how to reliably handle 23.98fps timecode audio now in realtime dailies.  :-)  [The TC slates still drift as much as ever, sadly.]

--Marc W.

[RPSharman]

Marc, Philip & Randy -

Let me ask you... I did a movie recently where the lead had to be wired the whole time.  Too many cameras and angles and action.  The first day and a half we experimented with the best mic position and lav for the actor, making sure not to switch within a scene or location of course.  We made some physical adjustments to the hero costume to be worn for 85% of the film, and to its doubles.  Once we found the "best" combination, it remained consistent through the next 6 weeks of the film.  Given that we had no access to the actor or costume until day one, how hard would it be for the post crew to match up those few scenes we shot before we were able to dial in what I liked?  And to the more experienced production guys out there... what other options did I have?

Just curious,

Robert

[Philip Perkins]

Marc, Philip & Randy -

Let me ask you... I did a movie recently where the lead had to be wired the whole time.  Too many cameras and angles and action.  The first day and a half we experimented with the best mic position and lav for the actor, making sure not to switch within a scene or location of course.  We made some physical adjustments to the hero costume to be worn for 85% of the film, and to its doubles.  Once we found the "best" combination, it remained consistent through the next 6 weeks of the film.  Given that we had no access to the actor or costume until day one, how hard would it be for the post crew to match up those few scenes we shot before we were able to dial in what I liked?  And to the more experienced production guys out there... what other options did I have?

Just curious,

Robert

A perfect match--probably not, but certainly closer than what you might have heard on location.  In post we have the ability to make changes to all the different versions of your placement to make them sound more alike, and we can also fudge with lines/words from alt. takes and wild lines as well as camouflage with BGs and sfx if necessary.  We can also gradually ease in and out of problem areas in this fashion to, in a way that the audience (watching the film in a linear manner) won't notice.  I should say that this kind of work is an expected part of audio post anymore, at least in my world--no one expects the production sound mixer to be totally consistent or not make a change when they think they can do better.  I, for one, applaud you for experimenting until you got a good setup going, and then sticking to it.  Your dialog editors should be buying you some big drinks.

Philip Perkins

[randythom]

I agree with Phillip on these points.

Randy

A perfect match--probably not, but certainly closer than what you might have heard on location.  In post we have the ability to make changes to all the different versions of your placement to make them sound more alike, and we can also fudge with lines/words from alt. takes and wild lines as well as camouflage with BGs and sfx if necessary.  We can also gradually ease in and out of problem areas in this fashion to, in a way that the audience (watching the film in a linear manner) won't notice.  I should say that this kind of work is an expected part of audio post anymore, at least in my world--no one expects the production sound mixer to be totally consistent or not make a change when they think they can do better.  I, for one, applaud you for experimenting until you got a good setup going, and then sticking to it.  Your dialog editors should be buying you some big drinks.

Philip Perkins

[randythom]

How much processing you do on the set depends to some degree on what kind of project you are working on.  If there is going to be little time or money to do anything with it in post, then obviously you should do what you can to make it sound as good as possible as you record it.  On the other hand, in the world of feature films where I spend most of my time there is (or should be) time in post to try various kinds of eq and processing, with full freedom to UNDO, so it's best if only minimal processing is done on the set for that kind of project.  It's easy to fall into the trap of using processing tools too much. It happens in production and in post production. We've all done it occasionally and regretted it, or been criticized deservedly for it later.  So... to flip the "wuss" argument on its head, sometimes the "wuss" is the foolish young gunslinger who uses his gun too often; the "real man" is Gary Cooper in High Noon who uses it only when absolutely necessary. 

Randy

Wuss out, huh?  It's important to remember that as a production sound person you are part of a team, and not the captain of the team either.  I think the attitude that you can do whatever you want with your tracks, esp. vis EQ is presumptuous and in danger of limiting options and making more work down the line.  I've come by this position from having to try to undo a lot of poorly judged on-set EQ (done on headphones) while trying to match audio across cuts and keep characters sounding the same scene to scene in post.  So I think I'll continue to wuss out, as you call it, and think for the whole process, as I see it.  Prefader tracks are not a panacea for bad choices in a mix track--they are a lot more work to get to and put into a mix, esp if we've already been using the mix track previously.  I'm not telling you to never EQ, but I am asking that you be very circumspect about how much you do, and that once you start please try to be very consistent with it, or consider doing less, if any.  Matching is a serious, time consuming issue in post.

Philip Perkins

[Glen Trew]

Here's how: in most films there is only one person talking at once, usually.  I undertand that it's a scene or a conversation with x number of people, but for the audio to be intelligible there is usually only one talker up at a time from second to second.  In post we do spot EQ all the time--it's an automated part of our process, and we tweak the dialog line by line or word by word to make it work.  Particularly in docs, where iso tracks are almost never available, we end up doing this on all the dialog to even things out and make things match across cuts.  So I CAN easily, in a calibrated room with repeatable and saveable settings and automation to take me from one set of settings to another and onward, go thru exactly the scene you've just described and make it work just fine.    There are many ways of keeping the ambience consistent, if the ambience is strong enough to be heard to change thru this process.  (Using room tone gotten on set, adding library etc ambiances to hide changes etc etc.).  The task you set is not only not impossible, it is something we do on every job.

Philip Perkins

 

Not impossible?

In an ideal situation, of course there would be no overlap. But, as has been discussed on this group many times, overlap occurs often, and often without notice. So, when the production mixer can’t know for sure (which is nearly all the time) that overlap isn’t going to happen, it stands to reason that they should EQ with the assumption that it’s going to happen.

So the question remains: When there's overlap, how does post production equalize just one lav mic of a mono mix containing multiple lav mics? Even tougher: If two overlapping mics need to be EQ'd - one made brighter and one made less bright - what are the possibilities to help this in post? Pretty much none; which is a preventable shame if it is due to the wuss factor.

Here’s another question for postproduction mixers: When you don’t notice EQ problems between mics in the production mono mix (which is presumably much of the time), how do you know it isn’t because proper EQing was done on the set?

Whether or not someone is a novice should have nothing to do with them being allowed to use their EQ knobs. Not EQing when they should (such as in the above scenario) can have the same concequences as EQing in a way they shouldn’t. Since a novice is more likely to make either mistake while they are gaining experience, my advice to them is to get very familiar with the full range of their EQ controls. Practice listening to EQ changes with headphones, then listen back to the recordings on control room monitors. Based on what hear and what you learn from your combined experiences, develop your own sense for when to EQ and when not to EQ, how much to add or take away, at what frequencies, etc. Remember that you are the person hired to make that choice, and you should not let someone else make it for you.

Glen Trew

[larry long]

I've been reading this thread, and it has reminded me of Coopers 306 which had no EQ so I couldn't buy into it. I rarely use any EQ unless it's a lav mic. but always if I use any it's subtractive EQ. I very seldom will try to shape the sound based on this principle. I hope the next mixer I own will offer a pre fade pre EQ iso so that my choices can be remixed if I make the wrong decision.

LL

[Noah Timan]

Well, as you probably know, in the old mono days (when everything was mono because that's all there was), sound editors would split out or cut up the dialogue lines into individual tracks --- then when one of the voices, what ever mic was used to record it (often a lav), didn't sound so good, they would work on that track.

This was still the procedure used by dialogue editors in the two track days, and I think for the most part it is still used now.  A/Bing the dialogue into separate tracks from the mono mix so gentle tweaks can be made still saves a lot of steps from the other option of completely reassembling a mix from prefader isos, and I believe the effort to do so is far less time consuming in this day and age in post.

[Philip Perkins]

Not impossible?

In an ideal situation, of course there would be no overlap. But, as has been discussed on this group many times, overlap occurs often, and often without notice. So, when the production mixer can’t know for sure (which is nearly all the time) that overlap isn’t going to happen, it stands to reason that they should EQ with the assumption that it’s going to happen.

So the question remains: When there's overlap, how does post production equalize just one lav mic of a mono mix containing multiple lav mics? Even tougher: If two overlapping mics need to be EQ'd - one made brighter and one made less bright - what are the possibilities to help this in post? Pretty much none; which is a preventable shame if it is due to the wuss factor.

Here’s another question for postproduction mixers: When you don’t notice EQ problems between mics in the production mono mix (which is presumably much of the time), how do you know it isn’t because proper EQing was done on the set?

Whether or not someone is a novice should have nothing to do with them being allowed to use their EQ knobs. Not EQing when they should (such as in the above scenario) can have the same concequences as EQing in a way they shouldn’t. Since a novice is more likely to make either mistake while they are gaining experience, my advice to them is to get very familiar with the full range of their EQ controls. Practice listening to EQ changes with headphones, then listen back to the recordings on control room monitors. Based on what hear and what you learn from your combined experiences, develop your own sense for when to EQ and when not to EQ, how much to add or take away, at what frequencies, etc. Remember that you are the person hired to make that choice, and you should not let someone else make it for you.

Glen Trew

Re: overlaps in post:  we deal, the same as we deal with it on location, and we get away with it usually.  It happens less then you might think actually, and again, iso tracks are no panacea for this situation either.  (I say a good boom op paying attention can't be beat.)  Re: whether we notice the EQ you've done or not...well, so what?  If you did it and it worked, good on you.  However, I have gotten a lot of audio where it either did NOT work, or, more likely worked for that shot but didn't cut well with what came next.  Not every mixer is on Glen Trew's level, so I object to statements that seem to give permission to go for music style eqing in a situation where it can do  A LOT more harm than good to the overall sequence.  The nub of this argument--and the postie's position, is that you can't know how things will be cut or layered later, so less is more.  No one is asking anyone to record bad audio, we know no rules apply always, and we don't generally 2nd guess production mixers' decisions, but we do request that you (we) keep in mind that you DON'T know how the film will be assembled and mixed and leave our options open as much as you can.

Philip Perkins

[Philip Perkins]

This was still the procedure used by dialogue editors in the two track days, and I think for the most part it is still used now.  A/Bing the dialogue into separate tracks from the mono mix so gentle tweaks can be made still saves a lot of steps from the other option of completely reassembling a mix from prefader isos, and I believe the effort to do so is far less time consuming in this day and age in post.

YES.  It isn't a bad idea to make a visit to a dialog cutter at work once in awhile to keep up with how that work is done now.  DAWs have made very subtle fixes and changes much more possible faster than they were in the past.

And: most of the world is still in those "2 track days".

Philip Perkins

[randythom]

Hi, Glenn!

I wouldn't try to forbid anyone to use eq in production.  I would encourage caution with it though.  And yes, if you're in a situation where you think overlapping is likely, and you're mixing mics onto one track, and there is a drastic eq discrepancy between two of the mics, then some eq is probably called for.  But with ProTools and similar workstations we can be pretty precise in cutting and eq'ing tiny moments in time exactly the way we want in post.  Very often these days we're eq'ing one syllable differently from the syllables on either side of it.

Every mixer I know who has been doing it for more than ten years agrees that the more experience we have, the less eq and other processing we do.  Novices tend to be obsessed with processing, and very often over-process, which is why I recommend that they eq and process a little less than they may be tempted to.  As you say, "Based on what hear and what you learn from your combined experiences, develop your own sense for when to EQ and when not to EQ, how much to add or take away, at what frequencies, etc."  When one develops that sense then one isn't a novice anymore.  Until it's developed, be cautious.

Randy

Not impossible?

Whether or not someone is a novice should have nothing to do with them being allowed to use their EQ knobs. Not EQing when they should (such as in the above scenario) can have the same concequences as EQing in a way they shouldn’t. Since a novice is more likely to make either mistake while they are gaining experience, my advice to them is to get very familiar with the full range of their EQ controls. Practice listening to EQ changes with headphones, then listen back to the recordings on control room monitors. Based on what hear and what you learn from your combined experiences, develop your own sense for when to EQ and when not to EQ, how much to add or take away, at what frequencies, etc. Remember that you are the person hired to make that choice, and you should not let someone else make it for you.

Glen Trew

[Mark LeBlanc]

Randy,

In reference to processing, do you count channel limiters? I run my 788 with them on pretty much all the time, but I will change the db level that it kicks in. Better than digital distortion, though I have had some women scream that overloaded the mic. Had the -10 pad kicked and and she still overloaded the poor thing..

Mark L

[Glen Trew]

Re: overlaps in post:  we deal, the same as we deal with it on location, and we get away with it usually.  It happens less then you might think actually, and again, iso tracks are no panacea for this situation either.  (I say a good boom op paying attention can't be beat.)  Re: whether we notice the EQ you've done or not...well, so what?  If you did it and it worked, good on you.  However, I have gotten a lot of audio where it either did NOT work, or, more likely worked for that shot but didn't cut well with what came next.  Not every mixer is on Glen Trew's level, so I object to statements that seem to give permission to go for music style eqing in a situation where it can do  A LOT more harm than good to the overall sequence.  The nub of this argument--and the postie's position, is that you can't know how things will be cut or layered later, so less is more.  No one is asking anyone to record bad audio, we know no rules apply always, and we don't generally 2nd guess production mixers' decisions, but we do request that you (we) keep in mind that you DON'T know how the film will be assembled and mixed and leave our options open as much as you can.

Philip Perkins

Before I continue, I think it should be stated, especially for the sake of the novices, that in the grand scheme of things, the use or avoidance of on-set EQ is a usually a minor issue in terms of the degree of problems it causes. However, it is a complex enough topic that involves not only the technical and artistic aspects of sound for film/video, but likely also, the human factor of control ("Leave those knobs alone, I'll take care of it!", followed by "Don't tell me what to do with my knobs!"), that it seems to require what would otherwise seem to be an inordinate amount of discussion (and very long sentences).

For me, the larger underlying issue is the thought that seems to be shared by many post mixers and even production mixers, that the production mixer should not make decisions and take affective actions about EQ when they record. I hear phrases such as "allowing gentle tweaks", "never go past 10:30 or 1:30", and "permission to go for music style EQin" (no offense intended to anyone here, and considerable respect acknowledged to our esteemed participants). Of course, as the posters probably meant, when gentle tweaks are needed (usually sufficient) then only gentle tweaks should be done, and likewise for moving a knob within 10:30 or 1:30. No one can deny that adjustments made should be equal to amount needed, so if a large adjustment is needed, then a gentle tweak is the wrong choice. That's what I mean about the "wuss factor" - lacking the confidence to go past a certain range when it is called for. There can be plenty of discussion about when the decision to make an adjustment is called for, but when it's called for, fear (or lack of "permission") should not be a factor.

Should we be careful when making adjustments? Of course, but no more careful than when deciding to not make adjustments. Will mistakes sometimes be made when deciding to EQ? Yes. Will mistakes sometimes be made when deciding to not EQ? Yes. But these decisions must be made, and during the production they should only be made by the production sound mixer.

Now, with all that said, I'll point out that the following question is very important, but it has still not been answered:

"When there's overlap, how does post production equalize just one lav mic of a mono mix containing multiple lav mics? Even tougher: If two overlapping mics (in a group of 5, for example) need to be EQ'd - one made brighter and one made less bright - what are the possibilities to help this in post?" Wouldn't it be better to have the mics equalized in the mono mix by the production mixer? And this is not an obscure hypothetical; it is something many mixers (most?) deal with every day of production.

Glen Trew

[Glen Trew]

Hi, Glenn!

I wouldn't try to forbid anyone to use eq in production.  I would encourage caution with it though.  And yes, if you're in a situation where you think overlapping is likely, and you're mixing mics onto one track, and there is a drastic eq discrepancy between two of the mics, then some eq is probably called for.  But with ProTools and similar workstations we can be pretty precise in cutting and eq'ing tiny moments in time exactly the way we want in post.  Very often these days we're eq'ing one syllable differently from the syllables on either side of it.

Every mixer I know who has been doing it for more than ten years agrees that the more experience we have, the less eq and other processing we do.  Novices tend to be obsessed with processing, and very often over-process, which is why I recommend that they eq and process a little less than they may be tempted to.  As you say, "Based on what hear and what you learn from your combined experiences, develop your own sense for when to EQ and when not to EQ, how much to add or take away, at what frequencies, etc."  When one develops that sense then one isn't a novice anymore.  Until it's developed, be cautious.

Randy

Hi Randy!

Glad to have you weighing in on the EQ topic. Also, thanks for starting the input trim topic (no doubt a more potentially harmful and important adjustment than EQ).

GT

[Philip Perkins]

Before I continue, I think it should be stated, especially for the sake of the novices, that in the grand scheme of things, the use or avoidance of on-set EQ is a usually a minor issue in terms of the degree of problems it causes. However, it is a complex enough topic that involves not only the technical and artistic aspects of sound for film/video, but likely also, the human factor of control ("Leave those knobs alone, I'll take care of it!", followed by "Don't tell me what to do with my knobs!"), that it seems to require what would otherwise seem to be an inordinate amount of discussion (and very long sentences).

For me, the larger underlying issue is the thought that seems to be shared by many post mixers and even production mixers, that the production mixer should not make decisions and take affective actions about EQ when they record. I hear phrases such as "allowing gentle tweaks", "never go past 10:30 or 1:30", and "permission to go for music style EQin" (no offense intended to anyone here, and considerable respect acknowledged to our esteemed participants). Of course, as the posters probably meant, when gentle tweaks are needed (usually sufficient) then only gentle tweaks should be done, and likewise for moving a knob within 10:30 or 1:30. No one can deny that adjustments made should be equal to amount needed, so if a large adjustment is needed, then a gentle tweak is the wrong choice. That's what I mean about the "wuss factor" - lacking the confidence to go past a certain range when it is called for. There can be plenty of discussion about when the decision to make an adjustment is called for, but when it's called for, fear (or lack of "permission") should not be a factor.

Should we be careful when making adjustments? Of course, but no more careful than when deciding to not make adjustments. Will mistakes sometimes be made when deciding to EQ? Yes. Will mistakes sometimes be made when deciding to not EQ? Yes. But these decisions must be made, and during the production they should only be made by the production sound mixer.

Now, with all that said, I'll point out that the following question is very important, but it has still not been answered:

"When there's overlap, how does post production equalize just one lav mic of a mono mix containing multiple lav mics? Even tougher: If two overlapping mics (in a group of 5, for example) need to be EQ'd - one made brighter and one made less bright - what are the possibilities to help this in post?" Wouldn't it be better to have the mics equalized in the mono mix by the production mixer? And this is not an obscure hypothetical; it is something many mixers (most?) deal with every day of production.

Glen Trew

We've already answered this question generally, and further details on specific technique and plugins would depend on the exact circumstances in play moment by moment.  It would be gnarly, but I've had to do exactly this many times, and we have many tools to help us do it.  A situation in which 5 people were talking completely 100% over each other mixed down to a single track would be kind of unusual--more of an effect than a real scene.  In an Altman sort of situation where there are multiple scenes running at the same time then of course one would have to iso and figure it all out later unless you'd had a lot of rehearsal.  In a more normal kind of scene where there might be rapid fire interaction between multiple characters we'd be going after each character individually as needed--remember: in post we don't have to work in real time, we can work on tiny amounts of dialog--syllables even.  In almost ANY scene that has multiple actors or speakers all on wires there are going to be level mismatches and EQ issues due to wardrobe, head turns, props etc., so we chew our way thru the scene in post fixing these problems one by one and making the scene flow as best we can.

I hereby declare JWSound a "wuss-free zone".

Philip Perkins

[Guest Ken Mantlo]

I EQ the living crap out of some of my radio's on certain actors (Judd Nelson for one) because it would sound like a giant pile of dog shit if I didn't -- and, yes, the lav is in the right place.  I'm not turning that in if I can fix it at my board.  In TV, post usually doesn't have the time to fix this stuff.  Use your ears.

[Glen Trew]

We've already answered this question generally, and further details on specific technique and plugins would depend on the exact circumstances in play moment by moment.  It would be gnarly, but I've had to do exactly this many times, and we have many tools to help us do it.  A situation in which 5 people were talking completely 100% over each other mixed down to a single track would be kind of unusual--more of an effect than a real scene.  In an Altman sort of situation where there are multiple scenes running at the same time then of course one would have to iso and figure it all out later unless you'd had a lot of rehearsal.   In a more normal kind of scene where there might be rapid fire interaction between multiple characters we'd be going after each character individually as needed--remember: in post we don't have to work in real time, we can work on tiny amounts of dialog--syllables even.  In almost ANY scene that has multiple actors or speakers all on wires there are going to be level mismatches and EQ issues due to wardrobe, head turns, props etc., so we chew our way thru the scene in post fixing these problems one by one and making the scene flow as best we can.

I hereby declare JWSound a "wuss-free zone".

Philip Perkins

To warrant EQ of lavs on the set, the overlap would not have to be "a situation in which 5 people were completely 100% over each other". Just two mics occasionally overlapping within a mono mix is enough benefit from having the mics in the mix sound the same (equal) during prodution. Overlap within a mono mix has become a normal possibility or even probability, especially in the case of multiple cameras (which has also become normal).

But there is a second part to the avoided question: "Wouldn't it be better to have the mics equalized in the mono mix by the production mixer?". With the big picture in mind, doing so should allow fine-tuning EQ in post production to be less "gnarly" and less invasive to the mono mix.

Glen Trew

[Philip Perkins]

To warrant EQ of lavs on the set, the overlap would not have to be "a situation in which 5 people were completely 100% over each other". Just two mics occasionally overlapping within a mono mix is enough benefit from having the mics in the mix sound the same (equal) during prodution. Overlap within a mono mix has become a normal possibility or even probability, especially in the case of multiple cameras (which has also become normal).

But there is a second part to the avoided question: "Wouldn't it be better to have the mics equalized in the mono mix by the production mixer?". With the big picture in mind, doing so should allow fine-tuning EQ in post production to be less "gnarly" and less invasive to the mono mix.

Glen Trew

I'm not avoiding your question, I've answered it twice already.  Here's a 3rd try: each situation involving the kind of scene you describe is unique sonically.  In post we will do whatever we think we need to do (can do) to even it out.  You can EQ or not on location as it suits you, but you are very unlikely to be able to perfect the scene to the degree we can in post since on location you work in real time and in post we can go a word at a time if we want, in addition to having much more powerful tools.  Since we have this ability, the point is to not go farther than absolutely necessary in location EQ, since, again, you do not know how the scene will be cut together and sit in the final sequence of the movie, and that matching matters a great deal.  An experienced mixer can help the cause, possibly, and inexperienced, harried or unlucky mixer will make the situation much worse.  The final point is that since we have these tools in post now, and are able to make scenes work that are recorded w/o individual mic EQ other than low roll off all the time in a mono or 2 track mix (since on many kinds of productions that is all that is available to us), the best route is to take it easy on location eq, figuring that the fine eq adjustments can be done later, often better.

Philip Perkins

[Glen Trew]

I'm not avoiding your question, I've answered it twice already.  Here's a 3rd try: each situation involving the kind of scene you describe is unique sonically.  In post we will do whatever we think we need to do (can do) to even it out.  You can EQ or not on location as it suits you, but you are very unlikely to be able to perfect the scene to the degree we can in post since on location you work in real time and in post we can go a word at a time if we want, in addition to having much more powerful tools.  Since we have this ability, the point is to not go farther than absolutely necessary in location EQ, since, again, you do not know how the scene will be cut together and sit in the final sequence of the movie, and that matching matters a great deal.  An experienced mixer can help the cause, possibly, and inexperienced, harried or unlucky mixer will make the situation much worse.  The final point is that since we have these tools in post now, and are able to make scenes work that are recorded w/o individual mic EQ other than low roll off all the time in a mono or 2 track mix (since on many kinds of productions that is all that is available to us), the best route is to take it easy on location eq, figuring that the fine eq adjustments can be done later, often better.

Philip Perkins

I know what you mean... Sometimes I'll turn in just the mono mix, complete with EQ and ambient mic mixed in the way I like it, to discourage an inexperienced, harried, or unlucky post mixer from "improving" it.

When it comes to our hero illustration of multiple lavs in an overlapping mono mix, I completely agree with your statement, "to not go farther than absolutely necessary in location EQ", but will add that the production mixer "should go as far as absolutely necessary in location EQ". Too much production EQ creates more work for post. Too little production EQ creates more work for post. An improvement with production EQ creates less work for post and enhances the final product, which, surely, is everyone's goal.

On to a new thread: "Should production mixers move their faders?"

GT