Can I use four mics since the HVX200 supports four channles?

P

primo productions

New member
I am going to be doing some interviews soon with multiple people and was wondering if I would be able to hook up four mics to the HVX since it can capture 4 seperate mono tracks. I'm guessing it will be a simple solution like a L/R XLR splitter but that raises a new concern for me. If there are two mics hooked up to a single XLR output using a splitter and they both require the 48v power from the HVX, will each mic only get 24v or will will the camera just draw twice as much juice from the battery? Also, what would happen if two mics were hooked up to a single XLR output but only one needed the 48v power?

Any lavalier, wireless lav's, and shotgun model reccomendations as well as retailer recommendations would be greatly appreciated!
 
No, I think 3&4 are just from the on board mic and are not adjustable, please someone correct me if I am wrong.

I did a shoot routing in the mic to CH 2 and set both ch 1&2 to 2. We record one channel lower than the other as safety. Ch 3&4 were the ambient sound from the on-board mic.
 
No you can not. There has been discussion of modifying the camera by removing the onboard mic and installing some sort of connector(s). I can not bear to perform surgery so early in the game though. At least until the warranty expires.
 
I think the way to go for your multiple interviewees would be to route all four microphones to a mixer: make sure you are happy with the levels before shooting, and put two voices on each of the two channels of the camera.

I wish you could use more than two mics! I often want my wireless lavs in channels 1 and 2, and my shotgun in another channel for backup... but no es possible :(

M.
 
I used a Sony MS mic (not a shotgun, very nice sounding mic) to record a drum circle recently and was very happy with the results. It records 16 bit uncompressed PCM audio so if you like that quality that's what you get. I think the mic pres are pretty good for an on camera preamp. Granted it is not an audiophile tube pre like I would use in a recording studio but it blew away the quality of my old Canon XL1.

Sure wish I could access those first two channels, though. I used to record surround information with a four mic setup with my XL1. I would love to be able to do that with this camera, but I will have to record audio externally to make that happen.
 
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That is really annoywing, what is the point of having 4 channels of audio if you can't record discretly to each?
 
We just did a shoot at a niteclub with a stand up comic (Jim Wiggins) and it was great. We sent he p.a. mixer (the mike on stage) into one channel, a lav on the comic for backup. We were shooting from about the middle of the room with the HVX high on stix. When we went to do the final edits the mic on the HVX gave us the audience laughter at perfect levels. GREAT audio, the best live audio we have ever heard! Love our HVX.
 
Yeah, the four channels thing is really two channels plus whatever chatter you pick up from near the camera. I'm shooting a 5-6 mic ensemble piece soon and the only way to get everybody on mic is to rent yourself a mixer.

But look how pretty your picture is!
 
Does anyone know of a way to turn off the onboard mics when using external mics? I ran boom into channel one and lavs into channel 2 but I have to delete channels 3 and 4 because of the loud room tone and crap audio they captured. It would be nice to turn off channels 3 and 4 if you don't want to deal with bad on camera mic sound.
 
I'm very confused as to why you would want to turn off 2 channels of audio, even if you never use it? I would never turn off the audio even if I could. What great backup if something should go wrong with your main audio!

When you're doing your final mixdown, just turn off the two audio tracks in your NLE.
 
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