Canon 5D Mark II Audio Exposed; with BeachTek DXA-5D and juicedLink CX231

Marten Dalfors · July 3rd, 2009, 02:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tramm Hudson

If that is the case, they will go away in a soon to be released verison of the firmware that only re-writes the registers at boot, when recording starts and when it ends.

Then I'm really looking forward to the next release. Thanks for all your work, you will receive a donation from me soon.

Jon Fairhurst · July 3rd, 2009, 04:16 PM

3. Canon 5D Mark II Audio Exposed - Wireless Lav on Vimeo

In Part 3 of Canon 5D Mark II Audio Exposed, I compare the Microtrack II, Zoom H4n, BeachTek DXA-5D, and the juicedLink CX 231 when recording from a lavalier microphone over a Sennheiser EW100 G2 wireless link.

The only processing of the comparison audio was changing gain to match levels. You can download the uncompressed comparison audio here: http://p3pictures.com/audio_5d2/Audi...irelessLav.zip

Don't miss...
Part 1: Boom Mic - 1. Canon 5D Mark II Audio Exposed - Boom Mic (juicedLink, Zoom H4n, Microtrack II, BeachTek) on Vimeo
Part 2: On Camera - 2. Canon 5D Mark II Audio Exposed - On Camera (juicedLink, Zoom H4n, Microtrack II, BeachTek) on Vimeo
...
Part 4: Foley (pending)
Part 5: Noise Tests and Final Conclusions (pending)

A couple of notes...
1) I screwed up on the BeachTek into the Magic Lantern firmware, which is a shame. It would have done well with the strong signal from the G2 system, and
2) You can hear the clicks into the Magic Lantern firmware when I speak. As mentioned above, that will be fixed in the next firmware release.

Enjoy!

Chris Barcellos · July 3rd, 2009, 04:42 PM

Hi Jon: FYI: I shot some hard wired AT399 lavs into my 5D using the JuicedLink, using Magic Lantern. I used the default sound setting in Magic Lantern 0.1.4 I probably ran Juiced Link too low. It was set at high on both tracks , but I trimmed back to about the 11 oclock position on 1, and the one oclock position on the other. Pan for both was set at center. I actually used the mics as plant mics near the talent. I seemed to have plenty of headphones volume but I noted a bit of hiss. the levels came out low not exhibiting his, but I am going to have to boost, and will have to filter. ( By the way, do you have recommendations on how to filter the hiss in post.) From this shoot I learned it is important to not rely on boosted headphone volumes as an indication of the levels. In fact it would be wise to set levels based on meters, and then adjust headphones with volume controler attached to the headphone amp system. I should have bumped the level on the trims dials all the way up.

Mark Hahn · July 3rd, 2009, 04:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris Barcellos

Hi Jon: FYI: I shot some hard wired AT399 lavs into my 5D using the JuicedLink, using Magic Lantern. I used the default sound setting in Magic Lantern 0.1.4 I probably ran Juiced Link too low. It was set at high on both tracks , but I trimmed back to about the 11 oclock position on 1, and the one oclock position on the other. Pan for both was set at center. I actually used the mics as plant mics near the talent. I seemed to have plenty of headphones volume but I noted a bit of hiss. the levels came out low not exhibiting his, but I am going to have to boost, and will have to filter. ( By the way, do you have recommendations on how to filter the hiss in post.) From this shoot I learned it is important to not rely on boosted headphone volumes as an indication of the levels. In fact it would be wise to set levels based on meters, and then adjust headphones with volume controler attached to the headphone amp system. I should have bumped the level on the trims dials all the way up.

Doesn't magic lantern have audio peaking meters? I was counting on that.

Chris Barcellos · July 3rd, 2009, 05:12 PM

Mark: Yes it does. However, I was shooting in a bright daylight situation, static on tripod, and made the mistake of relying on the phone levels I was hearing. I have a Boostaroo that raises volume level for monitoring. However, the level coming out of the Boostaroo is very hot, and I made the mistake of paying attention to levels from phones, and ignoring the level meters that Tramm had made just for this situation. Mistake, and through that mistake I learned you can actually rely on the meter levels, because if I had paid attention, I would have boosted the JuicedLink levels more.

Jon Fairhurst · July 3rd, 2009, 05:27 PM

Chris, I run everything at Analog +10dB ("5") and Digital at 0dB. I run the JL at "H" fully cranked, unless the signal is too hot, as it was from the Sennheiser G2 rack mount receiver. I trimmed to 12 o'clock for that test, but everything else has been full throttle.

That said, the JL/ML can sound a bit harsh if the levels are too high. The noise is quite low, so I prefer recording on the cool side, leaving lots of headroom and providing a clean sound.

For removing noise, I use Sound Forge 9. Look into Gold Wave for a cheaper alternative.

I'd recommend recording the same setup with the mic(s) in the quietest room in your house surrounded by (but not touching) blankets. Record at least 30 seconds. Use that as your noiseprint. That way, you'll be removing the hiss, but not the room.

And Mark, yes, ML includes meters. However, it does take some faith to run the juicedLink full bore. We're so used to noise when the volume is at 10 that I understand why Chris backed off the levels. The juicedLink breaks the rules - crank it all the way when you need the signal!

Chris Barcellos · July 3rd, 2009, 07:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tramm Hudson

I can clearly hear them in your sample. They sound like they are occuring at 1 Hz, which is almost certainly due to the firmware re-writing the AK4646 control registers once per second.

If that is the case, they will go away in a soon to be released verison of the firmware that only re-writes the registers at boot, when recording starts and when it ends. The quick hack of writing them every second was since I didn't have enough info to know when recording started.

Now that I have property event slaves working, my code will be notified when these events occur so that it will only need to re-write the registers when appropriate. This should also eliminate the first second of bad audio when recording begins.

Tramm, I reported these same ticks a some time back demonstrating the tone method of shutting down the AGC. It occurred when I raised the volume level on the tone to the higher levels. I thought at that time that the camera was cycling something to do with AGC and that was causing the ticks.

Tramm Hudson · July 3rd, 2009, 08:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jon Fairhurst

3. Canon 5D Mark II Audio Exposed - Wireless Lav on Vimeo
....
2) You can hear the clicks into the Magic Lantern firmware when I speak. As mentioned above, that will be fixed in the next firmware release.

They appear as black vertical lines in the last section of the spectragraph. Otherwise it looks lots like the original, with the exception that the noise in the Beachtek test appears to be ramping back up during the silent section.

Mark Hahn · July 3rd, 2009, 08:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris Barcellos

Tramm, I reported these same ticks a some time back demonstrating the tone method of shutting down the AGC. It occurred when I raised the volume level on the tone to the higher levels. I thought at that time that the camera was cycling something to do with AGC and that was causing the ticks.

We don't have another "black dots" issue do we? If you heard the ticks with no magic lantern then we may have a problem. Of course Tramm can fix anything, right?

Chris Barcellos · July 3rd, 2009, 08:29 PM

Mark, I am not so sure it is a problem... The ticks were showing up when I was pumping tone in at high levels from my mp3 player. I remember I was trying to find the level that disabled AGC completely. This turned out to be around 25 on my volume meter on my MP3 players, and if I pushed up over that, I started hearing the ticks. I remember thinking at the time that it may be activating some sort of limiter in the camera. My tone was going in at 15,400 hrz.

Chris Barcellos · July 3rd, 2009, 09:26 PM

I have managed to generate the click in my set up, using a 15,400 inaudible tone, lined into camera using my juiced link. Clicking occurs as volume is applied to the track. It occurs the same in both ML and stock. I have forwarded track to Tramm to help him sort it out.

Tramm Hudson · July 3rd, 2009, 10:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris Barcellos

I have managed to generate the click in my set up, using a 15,400 inaudible tone, lined into camera using my juiced link. Clicking occurs as volume is applied to the track. It occurs the same in both ML and stock. I have forwarded track to Tramm to help him sort it out.

I don't think it is directly my problem anymore. The stock firmware results in the first graph fairly conclusively show a problem in either the audio device or something in the chain leading to it. The stock firmware also looks like it was put through a limiter -- there is clipping far below full scale and your voice sounds very clipped. The left channel of the sample with Magic Lantern sounds clean without any clicks, other than one word where you clipped the full scale.

Both of these two spectragraphs show the interruption on the right channel very clearly and the first also shows that the pilot tone is not doing a very good job of defeating the AGC with the stock firmware -- note how the bottom channel "swells" during the silent sections.

One oddity, however, is that the ML firmware is showing the clicking problem at a much, much lower volume than the stock one. This may be an artifact of the different gain and we might be able to fix it with different MGAIN and DGAIN parameters.

My hearing isn't that great after too many hours in airplanes, but I could hear the pilot tone pretty clearly in my right ear. The analyzer shows it at 15.3-15.4 kHz, which I thought was above my hearing.

Chris Barcellos · July 4th, 2009, 01:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tramm Hudson

I don't think it is directly my problem anymore. The stock firmware results in the first graph fairly conclusively show a problem in either the audio device or something in the chain leading to it. The stock firmware also looks like it was put through a limiter -- there is clipping far below full scale and your voice sounds very clipped. The left channel of the sample with Magic Lantern sounds clean without any clicks, other than one word where you clipped the full scale.

Tramm

With the stock firmware track, it I had no way, of course, to monitor the input, and I had the hot ME 66 right at my. The clipping cleaned up as I set the mic under my monitor. Thats really what Magic Lantern is doing for us.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tramm Hudson

Both of these two spectragraphs show the interruption on the right channel very clearly and the first also shows that the pilot tone is not doing a very good job of defeating the AGC with the stock firmware -- note how the bottom channel "swells" during the silent sections.

Interestingly, when I attempted to use the pilot tone initially with my ENG44 I could not feed the tone through the ENG44.. it caused a very prounounced cycling of tone levels. When I brought that up back then I suggested it might have something to do with the Eng44 preamps, or an onboard limiter..

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tramm Hudson

One oddity, however, is that the ML firmware is showing the clicking problem at a much, much lower volume than the stock one. This may be an artifact of the different gain and we might be able to fix it with different MGAIN and DGAIN parameters.

I had not noticed that before, but you are right, it was there on the lowest volume level, 25 level on the volume input. I whatched a levels meter on it, thought it is inaudible to meit runs a lot higher than any other sound being recorded.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tramm Hudson

My hearing isn't that great after too many hours in airplanes, but I could hear the pilot tone pretty clearly in my right ear. The analyzer shows it at 15.3-15.4 kHz, which I thought was above my hearing.

I can't hear it. Older ears.

This is all an interesting exercise, but from my viewpoint, the only issue arises with abnormally high sound levels. I have not heard any of the tick in my recordings, except when I am putting a tone in the camera. So when you get your version out that allows us to lock in settings, we should be able to easily test various set ups to arrive at combinations that eliminate the issue completely.

Thanks again for your hard work..

Jon Fairhurst · July 4th, 2009, 03:48 PM

In Part 4 of Canon 5D Mark II Audio Exposed, I compare the Microtrack II, Zoom H4n, BeachTek DXA-5D, and the juicedLink CX 231 when recording foley sounds with a Rode NT1-A large condenser microphone.

4. Canon 5D Mark II Audio Exposed - Foley on Vimeo

The only processing of the comparison audio was changing gain to match levels. You can download the uncompressed comparison audio here: http://p3pictures.com/audio_5d2/Audi...art4_Foley.zip

Don't miss...
Part 1: Boom Mic - 1. Canon 5D Mark II Audio Exposed - Boom Mic (juicedLink, Zoom H4n, Microtrack II, BeachTek) on Vimeo
Part 2: On Camera - 2. Canon 5D Mark II Audio Exposed - On Camera (juicedLink, Zoom H4n, Microtrack II, BeachTek) on Vimeo
Part 3: Wireless Lav - 3. Canon 5D Mark II Audio Exposed - Wireless Lav on Vimeo
...
Part 5: Noise Tests and Final Conclusions (pending)

Enjoy!

Chris Barcellos · July 4th, 2009, 04:08 PM

Thanks Jon, another interesting test.

I am going out to a party in a while, where some mariachi's will be playing. I am going to shoot the performance, using ML in its current state, and see what we come up with. Problem is I am probably going to record at default settings cause I know I will not be able to change again after camera shut downs, or time outs, etc.,

July 3rd, 2009, 04:16 PM	#62
Jon Fairhurst Inner Circle Join Date: May 2006 Location: Camas, WA, USA Posts: 5,513	Part 3 loaded!!! 3. Canon 5D Mark II Audio Exposed - Wireless Lav on Vimeo In Part 3 of Canon 5D Mark II Audio Exposed, I compare the Microtrack II, Zoom H4n, BeachTek DXA-5D, and the juicedLink CX 231 when recording from a lavalier microphone over a Sennheiser EW100 G2 wireless link. The only processing of the comparison audio was changing gain to match levels. You can download the uncompressed comparison audio here: http://p3pictures.com/audio_5d2/Audi...irelessLav.zip Don't miss... Part 1: Boom Mic - 1. Canon 5D Mark II Audio Exposed - Boom Mic (juicedLink, Zoom H4n, Microtrack II, BeachTek) on Vimeo Part 2: On Camera - 2. Canon 5D Mark II Audio Exposed - On Camera (juicedLink, Zoom H4n, Microtrack II, BeachTek) on Vimeo ... Part 4: Foley (pending) Part 5: Noise Tests and Final Conclusions (pending) A couple of notes... 1) I screwed up on the BeachTek into the Magic Lantern firmware, which is a shame. It would have done well with the strong signal from the G2 system, and 2) You can hear the clicks into the Magic Lantern firmware when I speak. As mentioned above, that will be fixed in the next firmware release. Enjoy! __________________ Jon Fairhurst

July 3rd, 2009, 04:42 PM	#63
Chris Barcellos Inner Circle Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Elk Grove CA Posts: 6,838	Hi Jon: FYI: I shot some hard wired AT399 lavs into my 5D using the JuicedLink, using Magic Lantern. I used the default sound setting in Magic Lantern 0.1.4 I probably ran Juiced Link too low. It was set at high on both tracks , but I trimmed back to about the 11 oclock position on 1, and the one oclock position on the other. Pan for both was set at center. I actually used the mics as plant mics near the talent. I seemed to have plenty of headphones volume but I noted a bit of hiss. the levels came out low not exhibiting his, but I am going to have to boost, and will have to filter. ( By the way, do you have recommendations on how to filter the hiss in post.) From this shoot I learned it is important to not rely on boosted headphone volumes as an indication of the levels. In fact it would be wise to set levels based on meters, and then adjust headphones with volume controler attached to the headphone amp system. I should have bumped the level on the trims dials all the way up. __________________ Chris J. Barcellos

July 3rd, 2009, 05:12 PM	#65
Chris Barcellos Inner Circle Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Elk Grove CA Posts: 6,838	Mark: Yes it does. However, I was shooting in a bright daylight situation, static on tripod, and made the mistake of relying on the phone levels I was hearing. I have a Boostaroo that raises volume level for monitoring. However, the level coming out of the Boostaroo is very hot, and I made the mistake of paying attention to levels from phones, and ignoring the level meters that Tramm had made just for this situation. Mistake, and through that mistake I learned you can actually rely on the meter levels, because if I had paid attention, I would have boosted the JuicedLink levels more. __________________ Chris J. Barcellos

July 3rd, 2009, 05:27 PM	#66
Jon Fairhurst Inner Circle Join Date: May 2006 Location: Camas, WA, USA Posts: 5,513	Chris, I run everything at Analog +10dB ("5") and Digital at 0dB. I run the JL at "H" fully cranked, unless the signal is too hot, as it was from the Sennheiser G2 rack mount receiver. I trimmed to 12 o'clock for that test, but everything else has been full throttle. That said, the JL/ML can sound a bit harsh if the levels are too high. The noise is quite low, so I prefer recording on the cool side, leaving lots of headroom and providing a clean sound. For removing noise, I use Sound Forge 9. Look into Gold Wave for a cheaper alternative. I'd recommend recording the same setup with the mic(s) in the quietest room in your house surrounded by (but not touching) blankets. Record at least 30 seconds. Use that as your noiseprint. That way, you'll be removing the hiss, but not the room. And Mark, yes, ML includes meters. However, it does take some faith to run the juicedLink full bore. We're so used to noise when the volume is at 10 that I understand why Chris backed off the levels. The juicedLink breaks the rules - crank it all the way when you need the signal! __________________ Jon Fairhurst

July 3rd, 2009, 08:29 PM	#70
Chris Barcellos Inner Circle Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Elk Grove CA Posts: 6,838	Mark, I am not so sure it is a problem... The ticks were showing up when I was pumping tone in at high levels from my mp3 player. I remember I was trying to find the level that disabled AGC completely. This turned out to be around 25 on my volume meter on my MP3 players, and if I pushed up over that, I started hearing the ticks. I remember thinking at the time that it may be activating some sort of limiter in the camera. My tone was going in at 15,400 hrz. __________________ Chris J. Barcellos

July 3rd, 2009, 09:26 PM	#71
Chris Barcellos Inner Circle Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Elk Grove CA Posts: 6,838	I have managed to generate the click in my set up, using a 15,400 inaudible tone, lined into camera using my juiced link. Clicking occurs as volume is applied to the track. It occurs the same in both ML and stock. I have forwarded track to Tramm to help him sort it out. __________________ Chris J. Barcellos

July 4th, 2009, 03:48 PM	#74
Jon Fairhurst Inner Circle Join Date: May 2006 Location: Camas, WA, USA Posts: 5,513	Part 4 - foley - loaded!!! In Part 4 of Canon 5D Mark II Audio Exposed, I compare the Microtrack II, Zoom H4n, BeachTek DXA-5D, and the juicedLink CX 231 when recording foley sounds with a Rode NT1-A large condenser microphone. 4. Canon 5D Mark II Audio Exposed - Foley on Vimeo The only processing of the comparison audio was changing gain to match levels. You can download the uncompressed comparison audio here: http://p3pictures.com/audio_5d2/Audi...art4_Foley.zip Don't miss... Part 1: Boom Mic - 1. Canon 5D Mark II Audio Exposed - Boom Mic (juicedLink, Zoom H4n, Microtrack II, BeachTek) on Vimeo Part 2: On Camera - 2. Canon 5D Mark II Audio Exposed - On Camera (juicedLink, Zoom H4n, Microtrack II, BeachTek) on Vimeo Part 3: Wireless Lav - 3. Canon 5D Mark II Audio Exposed - Wireless Lav on Vimeo ... Part 5: Noise Tests and Final Conclusions (pending) Enjoy! __________________ Jon Fairhurst Last edited by Jon Fairhurst; July 5th, 2009 at 09:14 AM.

July 4th, 2009, 04:08 PM	#75
Chris Barcellos Inner Circle Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Elk Grove CA Posts: 6,838	Thanks Jon, another interesting test. I am going out to a party in a while, where some mariachi's will be playing. I am going to shoot the performance, using ML in its current state, and see what we come up with. Problem is I am probably going to record at default settings cause I know I will not be able to change again after camera shut downs, or time outs, etc., __________________ Chris J. Barcellos