Once again, I'm not an audio guy as far as the camera goes so I have a question. I am recording two speakers next week with the HMC150. Both will be wearing wireless lavs. I will plug the speaker on the left into XLR1 and set switch to input1, and speaker 2 will go in XLR2 and be assigned to input2. Short of having a mixer, and taking a line out of it to input 2 on the camera and set the camera to record stereo (mono sum), is there any way for me to record these tracks on both channels? I only worry because some people here have those old mono computer speaker that only plays the left channel.
Audio from two wireless lavs
- Thread starter abeas
- Start date
Mike Harvey
Veteran
Are you simply concerned about final output? Because unless the people you're concerned about are only going to see the raw footage, you should be able to output the final product in mono, which solves the problem.
First, you don't want to record your speakers to both channels (unless it's just one speaker). Some reasons why:
1. If one speaker is louder than the other, then it's a pain to keep changing levels all the time in post.
2. If they both speak at the same time, then you can lose intelligibility when the levels clip. With each speaker on a separate channel, you can always turn one down.
3. You're also recording background noise from 2 channels, which makes it twice as loud.
Now with just one speaker, it's actually an advantage to record him on both L and R channels, with the level for one set higher than the other. That way, if the speaker suddenly gets louder, he won't clip one audio channel.
In post, it's easy to set the pan level of each audio channel to 0, meaning the audio is fed to both L and R channels. In fact, I think this is the default in Final Cut Pro. Many old TV's only have one audio channel (yes there are still some around), so you have to do this for any TV production.
1. If one speaker is louder than the other, then it's a pain to keep changing levels all the time in post.
2. If they both speak at the same time, then you can lose intelligibility when the levels clip. With each speaker on a separate channel, you can always turn one down.
3. You're also recording background noise from 2 channels, which makes it twice as loud.
Now with just one speaker, it's actually an advantage to record him on both L and R channels, with the level for one set higher than the other. That way, if the speaker suddenly gets louder, he won't clip one audio channel.
In post, it's easy to set the pan level of each audio channel to 0, meaning the audio is fed to both L and R channels. In fact, I think this is the default in Final Cut Pro. Many old TV's only have one audio channel (yes there are still some around), so you have to do this for any TV production.