Boom Mic Question
 

I used a boom mic on my last project which attached to the MA-100 on my XL1s. The MA-100 has two ports, but its a right channel and a left. Is there any way to duplicate the channels for "faux stereo" before post? Or some way to make a single reciever record in true stereo? Also, the sound from the on-board mic seemed better than the sound from the boom mic... what's the deal with that?

Try a XLR female to XLR male splitter. They're short (about 8in.) and split the signal so you can put it on both channels.

Ben Lynn

What mic was used on the boom? How was it controlled and what levels were used? When everything is right, generally a good boom mic will easily get better sound than the onboard mics. If something isn't right in the chain of equipment and settings for your boom mic, it is possible to get more pleasing sound from the onboard mics. It's just not a reliable thing to depend on for sure.
You can also split one of the RCA outputs from the MA-100 into both jacks of the camera. This is generally easier and cheaper than finding an XLR splitter.
Either way, it's only two-channel mono. This can however be handy for recording one channel at full volume and the second channel a little lower for safety. You have to use the balance control on the XL-1 for this since it only has a single level control for the rear RCA's.

faux stereo... you can't do that without an add-on mic like the Ambient Emesser (M/Ser, where M/S stands for mid/side stereo technique.)
Some info about stereo techniques: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1997...f1f716e5688792
M/S is the most practical for video. And you really don't need stereo for television (a small minority will be able to hear stereo).

Which mic did you boom with? Sometimes shotguns can sound really weird because of echos and sounds hitting the mic off-axis.

The mic is an Azden SMG-2X. I'm not so much concerned with the stereo vs. mono as I am with hearing sound from only the left or right speakers which is the case right now...

The sound was fine, but it recorded VERY quiet on Auto and even when i adjusted the record level manually. Could the bad sound be because of a dying battery? Maybe i'll replace it.

In premiere 6.5 there was an option to duplicate the left or right channel, but in Premiere Pro, i can't find that option. Any ideas?

Trust me, it has a pan capablility. Don't use a signal splitter between the microphone and the camera. Record a single channel. Use the on-camera microphone if you can into the other channel for room tone and as a backup.

Pan in post.

Are you recommending i use both the onboard mic as well as the boom? I was thinking of doing this, but i wasn't sure if it would give me what i wanted.

One technique for audio acquisition when shooting is to record the same audio signal on two channels at different amplitudes, or loudness. For instance, if you were to split the same audio feed to two channels, you would set one audiio input channel at the "4.5" position, the other input channel at the "6.5/7.5" position.

The effective result is that at any give time you will have one of the two channels recording the sound at the desired level. The downside is that you may lose your ambience microphone, and frankly it may make your inputting into NLE more trouble if you follow this tried and true analog technique.

Although you are supposed to get four channel recording capability with the Canon adapter, so maybe you can have your cake and eat it too? Or do you then have to import 4 audio channels instead of 2. Yikes.

Were you wearing headphones while operating the camera?

Back in the day when Analog was used, (Oh wait, I'm still using analog) you got four controllable inputs settings and two actual mike inputs on the camera. The effective result was you could offset your volume levels if you wanted so that inevitably you were covered when it came to audio levels.

Back in the day when people used actual audio mixers, oh wait, I still do, you turned your pan pot to the twelve o'clock position and you had instant left/right sound.

A few years ago when NLE was still in it's infancy I would get edit masters brought into my studio that needed reworking and I would see the problem you speak of. The Master would have left-right stereo and then suddenly there would only be sound on one channel.

Your instincts are completely correct, you don't want to leave any sounds only on one track if your goal is to have all the sounds in your video production correctly represented.
Don't give up until you've figured it out.