I recently had a gig where I was trying to take an XLR in off a sound board while simultaneousley recording with the XL2 Mic.

I checked and double checked the settings with those prescribed in the manual but couldnt get both the onboard mic and the XLR input to record simultaneously.

I was setting the 'Audio1' area to 'rear' and the 'audio 2' area to 'front mic' - the front mic came in fine, however the XLR input never came through on the extra channels.

If I was willing to record 'rear' through 'audio 2' that worked fine, I just couldn't use the 'front mic' then.

Yes - I checked all the pre-amp, and mic-att. settings and I had the Audio Setup to 12bt 1/3,2/4.

any ideas?

Check out this link...
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=37976

I was setting the 'Audio1' area to 'rear' and the 'audio 2' area to 'front mic'

Hi Stefan,

I'm a little confused by what you're reporting, because there is no "Front Mic" option under Audio 2. The front mic is available only under Audio 1.

Also, how do you know that you didn't record all four channels? Please describe the exact method you used to check whether or not you recorded the extra channels.

I will do that and report back.

Be sure to use the Audio Monitor button to check your recording as outlined on page 89 of the XL2 operator's manual.

yes, I did have the labels mixed up for Audio 1&2. I didnt have my camera in front of me when I was filling out the thread (i was just running on an assumption that 1 would be ABOVE 2 on the camera.

But otherthan that settings were the same. After reading through this and other threads it seems that the part I most likely left out was toggling the 'audio monitor.' I have a shoot tomorrow and will try things then.

Another person had made a suggestion in a related thread that by turning the gain down on channel 2, I could mono-ize the onboard mic and be able to use channel 2 for real XLR is this accurate? a round about method of achieving something?

yes, I did have the labels mixed up for Audio 1&2. I didnt have my camera in front of me when I was filling out the thread (i was just running on an assumption that 1 would be ABOVE 2 on the camera.

But otherthan that settings were the same. After reading through this and other threads it seems that the part I most likely left out was toggling the 'audio monitor.' I have a shoot tomorrow and will try things then.

Another person had made a suggestion in a related thread that by turning the gain down on channel 2, I could mono-ize the onboard mic and be able to use channel 2 for real XLR is this accurate? a round about method of achieving something?

If you have an external mike to that you can get close to the talent, why use the onboard mike at all? The sound you'd record from the on-camera mike is going to be inferior to the other audio anyway and you'll most likely discard it, so why bother. There's no point in recording dialog in stereo - record it mono with the cleanest audio you can and pan it equally to the left and right tracks in post. Far better is to use a mixer with the external mike that send its feed to both channels on the camera, recording one at the normal recording level and the second 6-8 dB down from that. That was if there's an unexpected loud sound that overloads and distorts on the main channel you have a replacement lower level, hence undistorted, backup to fall back on.

Here's something to try, when you play back the tape in VCR mode, press the audio monitor button until you see that all four audio channels are playing back. It will say 1/3, 2/4 on the top-left of the EVF. This will make sure that all of your audio channels are playing back.

yeah! it seems I've got it. Thanks to everyone for suggestions and patience on this. Things successful. woopity dooo!