It seems to me that even when my audio meters are hitting the red, my audio comes out much weaker than it should. My waveforms in Premiere look pretty humble too, so I'm getting the impression the C100 is lying to me. I got some files from a C300 shooter I'm working with and his audio is much beefier, using pretty similar mics and recording technique. My audio is clean, with lots of headroom, it just looks like it was recorded at a level far lower than I know I had it at. At any rate, how can it be that the C100 shows I'm peaking when Premiere (and my ears) both show my input as pretty anemic? Anyone else experiencing this?
C100: C100 audio meters showing erroneous peaking?
- Thread starter deanoise
- Start date
A very good question, because if it's a fault, then it's something everyone needs to be aware of - so I thought I'd go and run some tests:
1) Running 1KHz Tone into the camera from a field mixer at -18dBfs.
2) Running a lapel mic directly into the camera and setting the pots for my voice to peak just below 0dBfs and then running into the red.
In both instances, the signal correlated exactly as I'd hope in FCP - bang on -18dBfs and peaking just below 0 and clipping on red - which is a relief to me, but doesn't resolve your problem right now.
A couple of quick questions: is your colleague running any kind of limiter/compressor? What mic/mixer combo is he using versus yours?
Cheers,
Ben.
1) Running 1KHz Tone into the camera from a field mixer at -18dBfs.
2) Running a lapel mic directly into the camera and setting the pots for my voice to peak just below 0dBfs and then running into the red.
In both instances, the signal correlated exactly as I'd hope in FCP - bang on -18dBfs and peaking just below 0 and clipping on red - which is a relief to me, but doesn't resolve your problem right now.
A couple of quick questions: is your colleague running any kind of limiter/compressor? What mic/mixer combo is he using versus yours?
Cheers,
Ben.
Andy Turner
Active member
I posted about the same thing several months back and received zero feedback. Maybe not as bad as what you are describing but my audio comes into premiere lower than what the camera said it was. I do not consider myself an audio professional however by any means so I would love some advice on it still. I have just been compensating for it by trying to record a little hotter than where I feel that I should. If no-one else is having this issue though then maybe it could just be an issue with our specific cameras?
So, I've tried a couple of things. I haven't been able to find out what my friend's audio setup was that gave him such better results than mine, but here's what i've found: Even with my audio coming in pretty consistently at -10 on the camera's level meters, my waveforms in Premiere are, well, inadequate, and the sound is not nearly as robust as it should be. But with the camera's audio gain cranked very slightly higher (from just under 5 to just over it) so it's just showing red pretty consistently, the waveforms come in much better and, the signal sounds much fatter, and while it is "slightly" crispy, it doesn't sound over modulated. By the way, I'm performing these "tests" with a Sennheiser ew100 G3 setup with a Sanken Cos11 Lav. Anyway, I think the camera's VUs are acting shy and I'm just going to push things barely into the red from now on, instead of having them hover between -10 and -20 as I've done for years. It's a little scary to be running with no headroom like this, but my ears are telling me it's OK, even if the camera disagrees. Hmmmm...
Fluoro
Well-known member
I have this same thing. If the levels on the C100 are peaking once I bring it into FCPX it's hitting about -6db. Hmmm.
Edit: and now it's behaving exactly as expected. -10db on the C100 is -10db once brought into FCPX. 0db on C100 is 0db in FCPX.
Don't know what the issue was I didn't change anything that I can remember.
Edit: and now it's behaving exactly as expected. -10db on the C100 is -10db once brought into FCPX. 0db on C100 is 0db in FCPX.
Don't know what the issue was I didn't change anything that I can remember.
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sorry to bring up an old thread but I'm having the same predicament - running my levels much higher than I really feel comfortable in order to get a decent (but lower) level showing in Premiere. Has anyone found an explaination for this or are only a few folks having this problem?
I've just learned to record things hotter than what looks right to me. I turn on the limiter in the menu and get the levels so that they pretty consistently hit the top of the meter. When I do this it seems to come out strong but undistorted. It's pretty hairy to do this the first couple of times on important work or something you're getting paid for, but I've learned to (almost) trust it.