Mixer for A1?

[Wayne Smith III]

Hi

I have an NTG2 and noticed that the audio contains a hum type thing and it sucks!

does anyone know of a good sound mixer for my xh A1?

thanks!

[Tripp Woelfel]

Originally Posted by Wayne Smith III

I have an NTG2 and noticed that the audio contains a hum type thing and it sucks!

If you're getting it whilst running on AC power, try batteries. I have a Countryman lav that hums on AC but it disappears on battery power.

Originally Posted by Wayne Smith III

does anyone know of a good sound mixer for my xh A1?

You'll have to be more specific if you want any salient answers. Budget? Inputs? Features? Etc. Whatever you want, be prepared to spend at least US$500.

[Wayne Smith III]

Well man It's like this... I just want to get rid of the hum. I know little about sound. I have energizer batteries in side. Is their anything else that could help?

Thanks alot!

[Mark Boyer]

Your gain could be turned up too high, check your headphone levels - too low of level with your head phone causes you to turn up your mic gain to compensate. Is your hum is static interference, servo motor noise from the focus or zoom? Do you have the Mic mounted directly to the camera or have you tried a XLR cord and move the mic away from the camera? Are you working on phantom power with a battery? Is there a florescent light or a motor nearby? Have you ever had a clean sound with this set up or is it a new system?

Please be more specific to your problem.

[Steve House]

Originally Posted by Wayne Smith III

Well man It's like this... I just want to get rid of the hum. I know little about sound. I have energizer batteries in side. Is their anything else that could help?

Thanks alot!

What makes you think a new mixer will get rid of the hum? It might, but then it might not. We're happy to help you figure it out, but you've got to give us something more to work with. Right now your quesztion is sort of like calling the doctor and asking "I don't feel so good, what should I do?" without giving any more information than that.

First of all, when and where are you noticing the hum and what does it sound like? Do you monitor your sound with proper headphones as you're shooting and can you hear the hum then or do you only hear it after importing it to your PC for post? Do you hear it with everything you've shot or only some of the time? If you notice the hum on a file in post and go play back the file's source tape in the camera, listening to the playback on headphones, do you also hear the hum? What environment are you shooting in and exactly how do you setup the mic and connect it to the camera, what are the complete details of the setup from start to finish and how are the camera's audio controls set? Is your mic cable a properly wired XLR and have you tried swapping it out for a new one? Are you plugging into the XLR terminals or are you using an adapter and plugging into the minijack mic terminal? Where is the mic physically placed - is it perhaps mounted right on the camera and is it possible the "hum" is actually the sound of the zoom or focus motors?

.....

LOL Mark and I must have been typing the same idea at the same time

[Wayne Smith III]

Originally Posted by Steve House

What makes you think a new mixer will get rid of the hum? It might, but then it might not. We're happy to help you figure it out, but you've got to give us something more to work with. Right now your quesztion is sort of like calling the doctor and asking "I don't feel so good, what should I do?" without giving any more information than that.

First of all, when and where are you noticing the hum and what does it sound like? Do you monitor your sound with proper headphones as you're shooting and can you hear the hum then or do you only hear it after importing it to your PC for post? Do you hear it with everything you've shot or only some of the time? If you notice the hum on a file in post and go play back the file's source tape in the camera, listening to the playback on headphones, do you also hear the hum? What environment are you shooting in and exactly how do you setup the mic and connect it to the camera, what are the complete details of the setup from start to finish and how are the camera's audio controls set? Is your mic cable a properly wired XLR and have you tried swapping it out for a new one? Are you plugging into the XLR terminals or are you using an adapter and plugging into the minijack mic terminal? Where is the mic physically placed - is it perhaps mounted right on the camera and is it possible the "hum" is actually the sound of the zoom or focus motors?

.....

LOL Mark and I must have been typing the same idea at the same time

I can hear the buzz with my head phones on. It sounds like soft fuzzy static. the mic is on a boom. and what setting do you set your camera to when you use the mic? and yes xlr inputs!

[Kevin Walsh]

Originally Posted by Wayne Smith III

I can hear the buzz with my head phones on. It sounds like soft fuzzy static. the mic is on a boom. and what setting do you set your camera to when you use the mic? and yes xlr inputs!

Wayne, when you say soft fuzzy static do you mean it sounds like someone making a SSSS sound? If so you may need to learn how to manually set your audio levels. Here is a link to a video on youtube YouTube - Audio Recording with a Canon XH A1 Video Camera : How to Set Canon XH A1 Audio Levels Manually to get you started.
If you are hearing something else like a buzz from a florescent light it would be helpful to post a small clip for us to hear.

[Steve House]

Originally Posted by Wayne Smith III

I can hear the buzz with my head phones on. It sounds like soft fuzzy static. the mic is on a boom. and what setting do you set your camera to when you use the mic? and yes xlr inputs!

Sounds like you have the recording level cranked up and may be hearing noise in the camera's preamp circuits. How far away from the talent do you have the mic? For normal speaking levels, the mic should be boomed to within about 24 inches of the speaker's mouth.

[Vasco Dones]

Wayne,

are you in manual mode?, are your mic levels set right?
Then double-check to be sure that the buzz is really there.
The A1 headphone output is not very reliable:
got me scared to death more than once, until I realized
that the buzz wasn't on the tape, just in the headphones...

Best

Vasco

[Wayne Smith III]

Heres 2 examples

YouTube - test...

YouTube - test


Exactly what do you set your camera to when your recording audio?

[Steve House]

Originally Posted by Wayne Smith III

Heres 2 examples

YouTube - test...

YouTube - test


Exactly what do you set your camera to when your recording audio?

First thing to note is your mic appears to be way way WAY too far from your subjects. In the first clip, after you've come around behind the "stage", it appears the boom op is almost beside the camera in the right front corner. Looks like the boom operator was holding it like you hold a flagpole, with its base at his waist and the pole angled up and out. That puts the mic higher than the girls heads, but to the rear quater of girl on the right wearing the blue cap. That would put the mic itself about 6 to 8 feet away from blue-cap and pointed at the back of her head and at least 10 or 12 feet from the other girl speaking on the left, the standing girl in the pith-helmet, and not even close to being aimed in her direction. Proper use of the boom would have the operator standing and holding it directly over his head so it extends horizontally out to the speaker. It has to actually reach their position so it's over her head and to their front just barely out of frame. The proper position has the mic pointing down at an angle of about 30 degrees off of vertical, just in front of the subject and pointed at their face. The mic axis should be aimed at the speaker' upper chest and throat and should never point outside of an imaginary circle drawn about 8 inches in diameter around their larynx. Distance needs to be no more than about 20 inches from the subject's mouth. It would be a lot easier to position it properly and keep it out of frame if you weren't trying to shoot from low down near the floor. The lens axis/shot line should be horizontal, the boom horizontal.

The girl in the pith helmet is hopeless from your position. There's no way you can get one mic close enough to both speakers when they are separated by that distance. You need two booms to make it work, or I think this scene is one where putting a wireless lav on each of the two main characters and booming the other two would make sense.

In the second interview, the voice that says "quit it" at 23 seconds is the only one that sound's actually "on mic." Again, the mic is too far away from the speakers. The hum sounds to me like air conditioner noise - I see a ceiling vent behind the two guys talking, I'll bet there was another one directly overhead. Your tipoff that you're too far and the gain is up to compensate is the level of the two people talking in the background is almost as high as the levels of the two people you're interviewing. You're shooting from down low again, shooting up from waist level, not straight from eye level. Sound like the mic is in front up pointed at them, not above them pointed down at them

In both of them the mic placement issues mean you have to crank up the gain to get any kind of voice level on tape. That means everything in the room is also boosted. The distance also means you have a very high proportion of reflected sound versus direct sound in the result.

There's no magic setting - you have to use the meters and listen in headphones. I don't recall the FX1 calibration but your levels should have speech hovering around -10dBFS or so, peaks to -6dBFS or so. There's usually a red dot or other indicator on the meter of the proper average recording level.

[Vasco Dones]

Wayne,

2 books by Jay Rose (pick one):
- Producing Great Sound for Film and Video
or
- Producing Great Sound for Digital Video
(available used from Amazon for $5!)

Best

Vasco