Do I need an Audio Mixer...

O

OlWiseRedEye

Active member
Ok, I'm a bit confused here. I have 2 sennheiser g2 wireless mics. I have 2 people to mic up with them. I thought that having 2 xlr inputs on the camera meant that I could just plug both into the camera and voila. That doesn't seem to be the case. In order to record them both in stereo i am guessing that I need a small mixer. Am I correct? That way both mics would plug into the mixer and then the mixer into the second xlr port on my camera...

If i don't need them can someone please tell me what I am missing to pick up both mics in stereo with just the camera... Thanks!
 
Typically mics with a single XLR are mono, audio for one track.

If you want stereo, distinct l&r channels of audio, you'd need dual mics on each person. And, yes, you'd need to put all four channels (for two guests) to a mixer to mix down to the two inputs on the hvx200.

Is there a specific reason you're trying to get stereo for your situation? Typically you'd just center the audio from the mic in your audio editing program.
 
You don't want to record dialogue in stereo. You would record on channels 1 & 2 directly into the camera.

Just having shot something with 2 g2s I would recommend spending some time learning how to place tha lav correctly on your actors so you don't get clothing noise. This is not as easy as I anticipated.
 
Betacam2 said:
Typically mics with a single XLR are mono, audio for one track.

If you want stereo, distinct l&r channels of audio, you'd need dual mics on each person. And, yes, you'd need to put all four channels (for two guests) to a mixer to mix down to the two inputs on the hvx200.

Is there a specific reason you're trying to get stereo for your situation? Typically you'd just center the audio from the mic in your audio editing program.
Click to expand...

ok, so i guess I'm just incorrect about what i'm wanting lol...sorry.

On the camera, when you plug a g2 into input 2 and and then select it as both (L) and (R) on the HVX, the signal is both in the left and right channels. How do I do that with 2 g2s plugged into inputs 1 and 2 or can I only get 1 left channel and right channel from each?
 
OlWiseRedEye said:
ok, so i guess I'm just incorrect about what i'm wanting lol...sorry.

On the camera, when you plug a g2 into input 2 and and then select it as both (L) and (R) on the HVX, the signal is both in the left and right channels. How do I do that with 2 g2s plugged into inputs 1 and 2 or can I only get 1 left channel and right channel from each?
Click to expand...

Putting one of the mics and assigning it to both the l & r channel is pretty much like assigning a single channel in your editing/audio program to both the l and r channel. So, I'd only do that if you have one mic and a single talent speaking.

You wouldn't really get a distinct stereo benefit by assigning a single mic to both the l and r channel on the cammera.

So, really, the best thing to do with two mics is just plug them into the xlr inputs 1 and 2 and assign them to distinct channels. In post, you'd assign both audio tracks to the l & r channels.
 
The only reason/advantage to having a mixer is if you want to create some sort of overall stereo image. Then feed the mono mics to separate mixer channels, then feed the stereo output of the mixer to L and R in the camera. You would then control the stereo pan image (i.e., where each mic "appears" L&R) by using the "pan" control on each mixer channel.
 
Another reason for having a mixer is being able to control the levels on all four audio channels. For some unfortunate reason, the dials on the back of the camera can only be used to set the levels for Channel 1 and Channel 2, and Channel 3 and Channel 4 always act as though their non-existing dials are in the center position.

It would have been nice to have four dials, or let the camera remember the current dial settings when you change the channel selection switch -- that way you could adjust all four levels using just two dials.
 
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