Motor sound?

[Urban Skargren]

Hi!
Just received my new A1. One thought I have is I clearly hear the motor sounding (electronic quite high-freq whining). Is that normal? I thought this type of camera would be totally silent, but maybe I have too high demands. And my thinking goes, "as long I can hear it in the room, the mic will too" (if not placed very far away). Wish I had a couple of other cameras to compare with.

[Dan Herrmann]

That is an issue if shooting in near silence and fortunatly I am never doing that but I did test removal with audition and once I isolated the frequency I was able to clear it out.
I am using a very expensive external shotgun and the hum is definitly there.
I did not notice it using the build in mic but I assume that picks up enough ambient sound that you would not notice the hum.

[Jeff Mahar]

Also July 2nd the new Adobe Soundbooth CS3 comes out. There is a free beta at http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/soundbooth/ . It has some great new features, like the ability to create a noiseprint from a blank area of ambient noise and remove it from the whole of your track. Another great one is the ability to visually see the entire sound spectrum, go in and isolate sounds from the spectrum and heal them automatically, just like photoshop can do with the heal brush on images. It is quite amazing. I was actually able to take a ringing telephone out of the background and maintain the dialog that was happening. You couldn't tell.

[Urban Skargren]

Other A1 owners? Do your camera motors sound?

[Don Palomaki]

Not intrusively for what I shoot.

A couple things folks do to make it sound worse than it really is:
1. Over tighten the mic clamp (resutls in more couupling to the mic)
2. Use a very hot mic in MIC setting with AGC
3. Position the mic so the motors re in a high sensitivity sid lob

[Bill Watson]

"3. Position the mic so the motors re in a high sensitivity sid lob"... ?????????

[Doyle Calvert]

Originally Posted by Jeff Mahar

Also July 2nd the new Adobe Soundbooth CS3 comes out. There is a free beta at http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/soundbooth/ . It has some great new features, like the ability to create a noiseprint from a blank area of ambient noise and remove it from the whole of your track. Another great one is the ability to visually see the entire sound spectrum, go in and isolate sounds from the spectrum and heal them automatically, just like photoshop can do with the heal brush on images. It is quite amazing. I was actually able to take a ringing telephone out of the background and maintain the dialog that was happening. You couldn't tell.

First comment on this outstanding site. I'm learning a great deal from all here, and I appreciate the depth and quality of content. Thanks to all.

For those that don't know, the current version of Adobe Audition, included with Production Studio Pro, features what seems to be this exact feature in the upcoming SoundBooth. I was glad to see SoundBooth keep that capability.

I've used it very effectively to isolate and eliminate specific frequencies in old historical oral history interview recordings and to restore old recordings digitized from 78 speed records.

If SoundBooth did not have that spectral analysis capability, I would keep Audition around specifically for it. Very useful and powerful tool.

Oh, and I love my new A1 and have, so far, had zero problems with it. Still LOTS to learn.

[Urban Skargren]

Not many answers about A1:s having no motor noise. I wonder if that means the A1's generally do have motor noise? Well, if it's because you are afraid of telling it because it could diminish your chances of getting it sold later, I understand. :)

I found some german links about the (possible) motor noise of the A1 and I did some free translation of them here:

1) "Negativ: Ungwöhnlich lautes Laufwerksgeräusch"
= "Negative: unusually high tape transport noise"
(http://www.testeo.de/produkt_meinung...a1-388167.html)

2a) "Ich habe gestern meine A1 bekommen und beim einschalten bemerkte ich sofort dieses pfeifende Geräusch."
= "I received my new A1 and at turning it on I immediately noticed this whining noise"

2b) "Jip, auch an meiner Kamera gibt es ein recht "hohes" Geräusch, --- Stört aber nur, wenn es extrem leise im Raum ist."
= "Yep, also at my camera there is a quite "high" noise --- disturbs only when it's extremely quite in the room though"

2c) "ich habe bei der A1 folgendes festgestellt: Ein auffällig lautes Laufwerksgeräusch, das mit den Geräuschen einer XM2 oder XL1 nicht zu verlgeichen ist. Deswegen wollte ich sie eigentlich zum Service schicken, aber ich denke, das kann ich mir nach den Beiträgen hier dann sparen."
= "Also I have noticed this: an unusual high motor noise, that cannot be compared with the noise of the XM" or XL1. Because of this I wanted to send it to service, but after these contributions I can spare me that."
(http://forum.slashcam.de/laufwerksge...tml?highlight=)

3) "Also the Canon XH A1 possesses a loud drive assembly"
(http://babelfish.altavista.com/babel...t.de%2f23.html)

[Jack Walker]

If someone is selling a close to knew XH-A1 cheap because of this noise, let me know immediately!

[Poppe Johansson]

My A1 (PAL) definitely has loud motor noise compared to other camcorders in this price range. This has been the only thing I've been a bit disappointed with A1.

[Bill Watson]

Haven't noticed any at all but I'll look for it next time I do a 'quiet' shoot and let you know.

[Don Palomaki]

motors re in a high sensitivity sid lob"

Make that "...motors are in a high sensitivity side lobe" which is to say the motor noise source is located in a portion of the microphone's pattern where teh mic has higher sensitivity, not rejection.

[Don Palomaki]

Re: Soundbooth - A quick read gives me the impression that Soundbooth is sort of "Lite" or simplified version of Audition geared toward video, not audio professionals, Maybe a bit like more like Cool Edit was to Cool Edit Pro.

[Urban Skargren]

I compared my A1 today with a Sony Z1-E, and the Sony was totally silent. The A1 was even louder than a Panasonic 3CCD amateur camera I compared with. I admit it's quieter than my little Sony Dig.8 though :). I could be that I have recieved a 'monday' A1, but since several people already complain, I'm trying to get used to the thought of accepting it.

Anybody tried those "camera noise" standard filters? I've been using a lot of other filters before, but my conclusion always is "sh. in sh. out"

[Urban Skargren]

Originally Posted by Dan Herrmann

but I did test removal with audition...

Found this thread about filtering motor noise if anybody's interested.