Yesterday I did a shoot using Sony 680S stereo shotgun in Stereo mode. Winds were buffeting us at about 20+miles per hour. I heard the crackle on wind gusts. I changed the mic sensitivity from -41 to about -20 (in both channels) and the crackle stopped.

I think it's a case where the mic preamp is over driven by the wind.

The annoying thing about it is that until the gust hits you have no way to anticipate the issue and if the gust dies you have no idea if you brought down the sensitivity enough until the next gust hits.

I briefly turned on the camera's internal wind filter but I don't like the way that sounds. The mic also has a roll off switch but for the same reason I didn't attempt to use it.

I agree - the preamp is most likely being overdriven in the low end.

How about blowing into the mic? I am sure with practice you could come up with a test that consistently works to simulate the wind you might encounter.

Craig, what kind of wind protection do you have on your shotgun?

Just the Sony cover. I suspect if I got a big furry beast (I refuse to call them dead cats) that would help immensely.

It may be impacted by the force of the wind. I'm not sure how to do 20mph breath vs 10mph breath. To simulate gale force I could sneeze.

If that Sony cover is a foam cover, there's your problem. They are almost useless in anything above a whisper of a breeze. The key to making these things work is to create a zone of dead air around the openings and vents of your mic. A Rycote, or similar, is the best, albeit expensive, way to go. Even that plastic basket needs a dead c..., er, rodent to work in the kind of wind you are talking about.

I wouldn't even call it "foam." It's more brittle than the cover on the shotgun that came with the PD-170. Yes I need to get a proper cover for it. I wish I could try before I buy. Rycote is trustworthy/expensive and has many choices from short hair on camera to windjammers, etc..

The Windpac-L from DPA is probably the most effective device for stopping wind. It's way too big for use with a camera mounted mic and is expensive. It does however give almost no HF attentuation. The design would seem to provide the protection in much the same way as a popper stopper on a studio mic.
If you've got the budget probably worth a look at as DPA is not a company that comes to mind with field audio.

I noticed the excessive wind noise with an Audio Technica shotgun mic with the standard foam microphone sheath. The low-cut switch was on. I've used the microphone outdoors with my Sony Z1U, and I never had this sort of trouble. Hmmmm. I have AGC off and the wind cut parameter off. In fact, I've had quite a bit of adjustment needed since switching from a Z1U/FX1 pair to this EX1. In the past, I just plugged in mics and adjusted the external gain knows. The EX1 seems to require some futzing.

I had similar issues initiall with the VX2000. I think we were hoping that microphones will work the same way when stuck on the EX1. With the default input trim settings, the microphone signal level is too low, forcing us to crank up the input gain with the external knob.

So Craig, it seems the recipe I have given earlier in this thread is working:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showpost....3&postcount=30

Nevertheless, I don't like the fact that to be protected from _potential_ overloading, one needs to set the trim level really low; already with -38dB, the waveform display I'm getting after importing to Vegas is almost flat...

Luckily enough, the overall sound quality of the EX1 is sufficient to be able to effectively turn the sound level up in post, without introducing too much noise.