I wouldn't recommend trying to mix seven mics down to two channels, to tell you the truth. You'll likely end up with two blown tracks. As problematic as recording four tracks to the XL2 is, that's probably your best bet, as mentioned in here.

i bought a MA300 .... but i am not able to connect it right! ... i hooked it up on the shoe .. but i cant get to hear any thing from the XLRs on the shoe... i did change the setting in the audio to 4 channels 12 bits but still dosnt seems to get it work.... is there any thing else i need to do? using XL2 with MA300

Once in a while when I run four channels I forgot to switch the monitor meters on to four channels, making me think that I get no sound -- your problem might be as easy. The Audio Monitor button is located just above the White Balance.

-- peer

so not turing the audio meter ... i wont be able to hear any thing on the headphones either?

Set the Audio 2 input select switch to SHOE. This switch is located on the left side of the camera under the audio controls panel door. See page 52 of the operator's manual for more details.

i did and thats great! i was able to get audio to the headphones ..but strangly when i try caputring the audio in Sony Vegas 8.0 it dosnt get the audio from the SHOE ... from the MA300 that is ... am i suppose to setup some thing in Sony as well??

Search our Vegas forum for discussions relating to four-channel audio capture. In some NLE systems, you have to make a second capture pass to get channels 3 & 4. Our Vegas forum will have much more info though.