D7000 Audio Tips

Sean Michael

Sean Michael

Well-known member
Is anyone having success recording audio via the D7000?

I have made a couple of attempts using external mics -- a Sennheiser wireless lav setup, and a Sennheiser MKE400 shotgun mic. Without visual audio level aids and a headphone jack, we are at a disadvantage. Frequently the audio has been marred by clipping.

Anyone have any tips or suggestions with regard to getting best results?
 
There isn't any good way to really address this issue other than using an external recorder. I have used Rode SVM on D7000 with minimum gain set. I too suffereed from clipping in emotional shouting scenes. No more external mic into D7000. I use a cheap H2 and being able to see audio level and hear what's being recorded is a huge plus.
 
I've used my Sennhiseiser ME66 and wireless receiver with good results. Definitely set the audio level to 1 inside the D7000 menus.
 
Rode NTG2 -->> 4Channel Mixer/Pre-Amp -->> M-Audio FastTrack Pro -->> Laptop running Adobe Audition. Its a bit cludgy for me to do by myself but so far so good.

PS It only took 3 shoots for me to knacker the input jack on the D7000.....
 
On a shoot last weekend audio wasn't too critical for me, so I took a chance and mounted a Rode NTG-2 shotgun (on a new Rycote Lyre adjustable offset mount, which worked superbly well), cabled straight into the D7000. The D7000 was set to - wait for it - auto-gain.

I'm pretty much floored by how well this worked for me. I'd briefly tested the preset gains and found level 1 too low and 2 didn't offer much headroom, hence my risking auto. I can't be certain, but it seemed to roll off peaks rather smoothly - so far, nothing seems clipped, and the noise floor looks surprisingly even. Yes, I know auto=evil, but do try it, at least with the NTG-2 it doesn't seem to be hopeless. I should point out that the dynamic range I was filming was pretty limited, with a reasonably quiet background - not exactly testing circumstances.

And of course, you've no way of knowing if it's OK until you watch the footage back in your edit system, as the camera provides neither level meters nor monitoring. When audio's more critical, I'll be going dual-system - initially with a Microtrack II since that's what I have lying around. Ugh. Roll on more paying gigs.
 
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I use the d7000 + DR-100 combo and I set the d7000 gain to auto. - its the best option. I also use a padded (-50db) cable from the recorders line-out to the mic-in on the d7000.

I was even able to sync the DR-100's meter to what the d7000 was recording by sending through the headphone jack at a specific level and setting the d7000 to lvl1 gain. its a nice feature, but not necessary since there is a significant difference in quality between the captured audio from the d7000 and the dr-100(24bit wav) and I only use the 7000's track for sync.
 
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