MA-100 XLR audio adapter questions

[Jack Smith]

The Ma100 has electronics to process the incoming signal (active circuitry) and doesn't work passively(without DC power)
it gets it's low voltage DC power from the cam.Most passive devices would lose a bit of signal strength , so your right ,it boosts the signal slightly.

[Don Palomaki]

Jack is correct. The MA100 uses an a of couple integrated circuit amplifiers to perform the balanced to unbalanced transformation and in the process provides about 6 dB of gain. This is a standrd practice and offers both some potential advantages (e.g., wider frequency response, gain, lower distortion), and disavantages (e.g., needs power, no ground isolation), over transformer-based methods. The amplifiers require the 5-volt DC power from the camcorder to operate.

[Michael Sweeney]

i have no idea what is wrong with this. i am hoping i don't have something broken. anyways. i have an apex 175 shotgun mic and a xl1s with the ma-100 xlr adapter. i plug in the mic and i have messed with all the settings but it does not work...am i doing something wrong, is this mic not compatiable with my camera?

thanks,
mike

[Vic Owen]

Does the Apex mic require phantom power? The MA-100 does not supply it. I think the Apex might have the provision of battery power(?)

[Michael Sweeney]

yeah, it takes phantom power or a battery which i put a brand new battery in.

[Michael Sweeney]

can anyone help me??

[Vic Owen]

Is your MA-1 connected to the Audio-1 jacks & the Input Select to Audio-1? What is your Menu gain set to? (It should be set to Mic.) Is your power plug from the MA-1 connected? Is your REC level set correctly?

You might try a different mic if one is available to help figure out which part is malfunctioning.

[Don Palomaki]

If the battery is good and installed properly, it should work with the XL1 and MA-100. The most common problem is camcorder setting as Vic outline above.
1. Connect the MA-100 properly, both the audio and power cables, to the Audio 1 jacks at the back of the body. (Note, the jacks at the side of the handle are audio 2)
2. Setting the camcorder to Audio 1 input (switch behind the door)
3. Selecting MIC (or perhaps MIC ATT for loud venues) for the Audio 1 input from the menu

If that fails, try a different known good mic with the camera, and try the Apex on a different system to verify it woeks.

[Josh Rudy]

I remember seeing somewhere (maybe the manual maybe not) that the RCA jacks on the back of the XL1 were dual use and if this is true then how do you switch from the camera to input to record from the input?

[Greg Boston]

Not on the XL1. They became dual use on the XL1s. No A/V input available for the XL1.

-gb-

[Josh Rudy]

darn, guess i should've bought an XL1s then heh.

[Don Palomaki]

Well, to be more specific, the audio jacks are bi-directional (input or output). It is the analog video jacks on the XL1 (both RCA and s-video) that are output only.

[Greg Boston]

Don is right. I stand corrected. You can use the RCA jacks for audio input. There is both a menu selection and the switch on the left side of the camera body to accomplish this.

It's on pages 36,37 of the owner's manual.

Don't know what I was thinking cause it would have been really hard to use my MA-100 with the XL1 if the rca audio was output only.

Mea Culpa.

-gb-

[Stephen A. Dolphin]

So, when I plug in the MA-100 I noticed that only 1 Channel on the meter is responding to the signal. Although the Left or Right channel only shows activity on the Meter, depending upon which XLR plug is plugged in, is it still recording in Sterio?

I noticed this last weekend when I was recording a concert and I plugged in a XLR cable directly into the main board at the venu, but only one channel was responding to the recording. Also, in the the head phones one ear was only playing.

I Audio 1/MIC seetings on Audio1 and REC LEVEL on "A" per page 36 in the manual.

Should I have left the INPUT SELECT on MIC with the MA-100 engaged?

[Don Palomaki]

The MA-100 has two XLR inputs, one for left and one for right channel. If you are connecting only one input cable to it (e.g., a mono feed from the sound board), you will have sound only on the connected channel.

You can mix it in post to both channels (e.g., using the NLE audio PAN feature), or use a "Y" splitter at the MA-100 output or the MA-100 input, or run a second cable from the sound board for the other channel if it is a stereo sound board..

Be sure the signal feed to the MA-100 is MIC level, not line level. A line level signal will overload the MA-100.

The MA-100 is normally connectd to the Audio1 inputs, and Audio 1 is the slected input. If you set the input switch to MIC, you get the input from the mic jack (typically the standard XL1 mic), and the Audio1 jacks become audio output.