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

[Chris Barcellos]

Thanks for the update Tramm. The config files in particular will greatly improve work flow for shooters.

[Dan Chung]

Its like Christmas, Tramm you are a star!

Dan

[Dan Chung]

Tramm,

I just bought one of these FiiO E5 Headphone Amplifier in Black HiFi Headphones little headphone amps which works a treat with your hack giving good monitoring levels and a hard button volume control. Only problem is that I need to modify the mini jack at the camera end as it is the three strip type not a stereo one, does anyone know where I can get the right jack plug without butchering a Canon AV cable?

Dan

[Min Lee]

HOSA GRF-341 TWO FEMALE RCA TO 3.5MM ADAPTER

B&H has it but I got it from Dale Pro Audio because it was a little cheaper and free shipping.

If anyone has a wiring diagram for hacking the AV cable, though, please post. Even though I got the adapter, I'd rather opt for a shorter AV cable wired directly to a headphone jack.

[Dan Chung]

Min Lee, thanks for the link. That adapter is precisely what I'm trying to avoid :) anyone else? I assume you can get the Canon cable as a spare part but I bet its not cheap.

Dan

[Tramm Hudson]

Originally Posted by Dan Chung

does anyone know where I can get the right jack plug without butchering a Canon AV cable?

I hacked up my A/V cable since I never use it. I've also successfully used an old iPhone earbud, but the enamel coated wires are hard to solder. The problem with the GRF-341 is that it doesn't split the video off correctly since it is only a stereo jack.

The part that you're looking for is a TRRS connector. 4 Conductor 3.5mm Plug - TRRS 3.5, 2.5mm Mini Connectors at Markertek.com is one source for just the connector, and this looks promising for an assembled cable (but I haven't tested it): 3.5mm. (TRRS) Right Angle Male Plug to (3) RCA Male (video & left/right audio) Camcorder Cable, 6ft

One problem, as I'm sure you have run into, is that the Canon firmware will try to use the composite video output when it boots, which requires the headset to be unplugged and plugged back in. Perhaps using the HDMI output will fix that in the next release of my firmware.

[Chris Barcellos]

Wow, I am going to check my set up out again. I didn't think I was having any issues. I just plugged a cord that came with my Boostaroo headphone amplifier into the AV out port, and I think I was getting both channels out. I will check it out tonight. It is just a standard miniplug male as far as I can recall.

[Dan Chung]

Thanks Tramm, I'll check those out. I was going to ask about having to unplug the headphone out every time, glad to see your on top of that too!

Dan

[Chris Barcellos]

Okay, I checked my rig out, ME66 to Juiced Link, to camera in, using JuicedLink cable, then Monitor out to my Boostaroo. I have the Juiced Link set for center on the channel mic is fed to. I ran Magic Lantern.

I get sound in both ears, though left is louder than right. I do note there is a difference in level reported on the level meters too, so this tells me that different levels are coming out of the Juiced Link for each channel. Or is it possible Tramm set up different levels on each channel in the camera ?

All plug ins in the set up out of the AV jack into the Boostaroo are the standard stereo miniplugs.

[Jon Fairhurst]

Hi Chris,

I haven't done any channel comparisons. I've been running the right channel on everything, simply because in stereo, the BeachTek puts the pilot tone into the left channel.

The key to measurement is to eliminate variables. Either send an identical signal to both channels by connecting the tip and ring on the mic plug into the camera, or record one channel at a time into a single recorder channel and compare.

I would recommend setting the gain of the unused signal to 0, low, and switching it to both channels as well. If the unused channel is switched to one side or the other, that might affect things.

[Chris Barcellos]

Thanks Jon. I tried that, too, but still seems to be some difference. The difference isn't that great usually, but you would think that center panning would give a unified signal that I am not seeing at all times on the camera meter. This may be an incamera set up issue.

Again the difference is workable and not extreme, but just enough to ask questions about. Maybe Tramm can tell us if he had to set channels independently. It kind of reminds me of the way we set up sound with one channel higher gain, and one lower so if the higher went to high and distorted, the other channel was low enough to be usable still.

[Tramm Hudson]

Originally Posted by Chris Barcellos

Maybe Tramm can tell us if he had to set channels independently

The channels are set independently, but to the same gain value. There may be minor variations in the hardware amps as well.

Does your headphone amp output noise when the Canon firmware is running? Everytime I've tried using a stereo headphone connection into the camera with the video output it produces lots of squealing noise on one of the ears. With ML running there is no video signal, but there is still some problems on the same ear due to it shorting a pin to the (inactive) video circuit.

Also, I misunderstood the way that the GRF-341 is being used. If you plug the RCA jacks into the Canon A/V cable, it will work just fine. For some reason I was thinking it would be connected to the camera on the 3.5mm cable side.

[Chris Barcellos]

Originally Posted by Tramm Hudson

The channels are set independently, but to the same gain value. There may be minor variations in the hardware amps as well.

Does your headphone amp output noise when the Canon firmware is running? Everytime I've tried using a stereo headphone connection into the camera with the video output it produces lots of squealing noise on one of the ears. With ML running there is no video signal, but there is still some problems on the same ear due to it shorting a pin to the (inactive) video circuit.

Also, I misunderstood the way that the GRF-341 is being used. If you plug the RCA jacks into the Canon A/V cable, it will work just fine. For some reason I was thinking it would be connected to the camera on the 3.5mm cable side.

I suspect that we do have a variation in the in camera hardware. It would be interesting to have Robert Rozak's (JuicedLink designer) input on this issue.


I will check out noise with headphones plugged in regular Canon firmware this evening. As you may remember, early on I indicated that when we plugged in an outside mike or or an XLR adapter, and then tried to monitor using and LCD, I got screech too, though it wasn't really loud, but it recorded to the camera, causing havoc with the audio Capture.

Interestingly, I never even considered using the Canon AV cable out of the camera. I suppose this came with my experiences with the Canon HV20, where with the AV switched to headphone's in the menu system, I could plug a straight mini plug headphone into the camera to monitor with headphones. I did not have to adapt the existing cable, nor do I think it is necessary here, as I monitor headphones through the standard cable provided by Boostaroo.

[Marten Dalfors]

When I use external microphones in the 5D with ML I get small ticks when there is sound. If I keep silent I don't get them, but when I talk I keep hearing them. They are subtle but enough to keep irritating me. If I feed the mics through the H4n and record at the same time I don't get ticks with the H4n but in the camera. I have tried with mics straight into camera, with H4n and another preamp.

I searched but didn't find anything in the forums about it. Anyone got the same problem?

Rode NTG-2 mics. I have attached a sample file. Yes, the tone I'm making is terrible, but you can hear the ticks.

[Tramm Hudson]

Originally Posted by Marten Dalfors

When I use external microphones in the 5D with ML I get small ticks when there is sound. If I keep silent I don't get them, but when I talk I keep hearing them.

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.