Audio for 7D what are you doing.
 

here is what i am going to first

zoom h4n for now with the 4 tracks of audio i can run all i need wireless, shotgun and a combo of all and with the audio enabled on the 7d to match up with in post should be good and with the 12min clip size should be easy app. with a clap to start each clip!!

when magic lantern gets the 7d up i may go with the juiced link but for now i like the zoom option

what are you all doing???

Plan on Juiced link - Magic Lantern. Don't have the camera yet though

Tascam DR100. I wanted the separate level controls.

On DSLR News Shooter, one guy uses the H4N as a camera mic, with a cable going to the camera. I'm wondering if that or the Tascam might be the best of both worlds with the 7D when Magic Lantern is done. If you can send audio from the recorder's built-in mic to the camera, you should be able to do the same with a good mic via the XLRs. Maybe. If so, then you could record double system when you need to or record to the camera when you need to with only the recorder and not a Juicedlink or Beachtek. Although the Juicedlink might improve quality.

If I go with a recorder it'll be the DR-100, for the same reason as above, separate level controls.

I haven't finished reading the manual yet. I was hoping AGC was a function that could be turned off in the menu.

Nope, it's on all the time. That's what Magic Lantern is for. When it comes out for the 7D.

Another thing about the Tascam versus the Zoom is it uses two AA batteries, and in a separate compartment, has a rechargeable battery. So that's three ways to power the unit. But you have to buy the charger for it.

Bill, I am using the same trick, in narrative environnement. The H4n on the shoe mount of the camera and the line out of the zoom (lowered to mic level) in the camera. The rationnal for this is that my soundman can work in exactly the same way when I shoot on the 7D or the XLH1. I still continue to record on the internal memory of the H4n since the level of noise in what the camera is recording is considerably higer then the tracks of the H4n. But what I get is a very solid refence track to sync easilly in post.

Do you have some kind of attenuator cable to get the line level down?

I don't have a cable with an atenuator in it, yet (like the guys at DSLR News Shooter). But I have ordered one to an audio technician, should have it in a few weeks. What I am using now is an old Beachtek DXA-2S that I have laying around from my Optura 40 days.

This unit can take line or mic level and have a stereo mic level output. It's bulkier than a dedicated cable but for now it works.

sync
 

wouldnt it just be easier to use the zoom on its own and also leave the audio on on the 7D for post reference?? it sounds like alot of work just to feed reference audio to the cam.

Kirk, It's impraticable in many circumstances. When my soundman is using a shogun mike on a boom 30 or 40 feet from the camera, there is too much differences between this sound track (highy directionnal, close to the source) and the sound recorded from the camera (Omni pattern, very far from the source).

I have done an interview in an industrial building with a lot of machine noise. The sound from the shotgun clearly got the voice of the talent (sure the ambiant noise was still present but this is ok in this kind of setup) but the camera mike would have picked only the loud ambiant sound.

I'm doing dual system audio on my 7D: I record the audio with my 5D + Magic Lantern + juicedLink and use the 7D's audio track to help with syncing.

That's the plan until I have Magic Lantern running on the 7D, too.

Like the rest of you I am doing double sound. I have a 10-30db XLR attenuator that I can pluig into the line level XLR socket of my mixpre mixer.

JP, are you using the H4's built-in mics? If so, wouldn't you still get mostly the ambient sound?

No, my soundman is feeding me a signal from the mixer. Shotgun - mixer - h4n

Rode Videomic directly in-cam for the simple projects, seperate-sync Zoom H4n for the big ones.

What am I doing? Ha!

I had to shoot an interview last week (first week owning the camera) and knew it would work great for the footage since I have a fast lens. The audio was going to be my hiccup.

I captured the audio into my Macbook Pro with an M Box Mini 2 (XLR input through USB). I had my shotgun mic on a boom to sit right under her out of frame. It took about 10 sec to perfectly match up the on camera sound with the high quality Garage Band live capture.

It seems like it's a hassle to do it that way, but hey, it worked and I could monitor and backup everything right there.

Will a microphone like the Sennheiser MKE 400 pick up the camera noise like the internal mic does?

mic
 

Paul

I think he says his sound man is running the shotgun on a boom over the talent so it will pick up the voice better over the noise

what he is in a whole different ball park with the audio aq.

Yes Kirk,

I might not have been enough clear. My fault. English is a foreign language for me. I wasn't using the H4n mkes.

I can tell you the BeachTek is one way not to go. It's pretty much worthless. I have one and the only pro to it is that you can hook up XLR to the 7D. But the mount is off and the meters are not worth anything and the headphone out put is pretty much non existent. Save your money on this POS.

I run double system into a Sound Devices 702, to allow for oversampling audio for extra processing headroom before aliasing, and to leverage those sweet SD preamps and limiters. For really simple audio, I don't even strap a mixer in front of it, to keep things simple, lightweight, and streamlined.

I found all of Zoom's preamps too noisy for my taste, but YMMV!

wireless noise
 

has anyone else run wireless right to the cam? i have tried my Sen. and AT wireless and they are both noisy went plugged into the cam.

Are you referring to a Sound Devices MixPre ?

If so, I'm confused by how you setting it up with the attenuator.

I already have a Zoom H2. Anybody compared the quality of that vs the H4N for working with the 7D?

h2
 

roger

i think the quality will be ok the H4n just has a ton more pro features

I just got mine 2days ago and i can feed it in to the cam for reference and capture on the zoom at normal levels with the AGC on it blows out the audio on the cam!!!

I hope that Magic lantern gets the 7D up and going soon now that the firmware up date has come out and he has something to work from.

any word on progress ??

My solution for making videos at the level I am at (making instructional videos for my classes) I bought a Nady wireless mic system. It is only mono but when editing in vegas I was able to get it on both channels & the system wiped out the background noise I was getting off the internal mic. I am sure there are better set ups but for $50 it did the trick for me.