Help please! 7d external microphone problems

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M1CEtro

Active member
Hey guys my canon 7d is in good shape. I just bought an Azden SGM 1x shotgun microphone. I bought an XLR mono cable from radioshack along with an adapter that transforms the 1/4 inch jack at the end of the XLR cable into a 3.5mm mono jack. This 3.5mm is plugged into the side of the camera in the mic line in hole. When I record audio, I'm assuming the 7d is automatically trying to record in stereo? Only the left side channel is recording audio and the right side is nothing but hiss. How do I fix this? I've tried getting another adapter that uses a 3.5mm stereo jack instead of mono into the 7d, but that didn't work. So I have to get a stereo XLR cable? Is there anyway to make the 7d record audio in mono? I don't think the mic is the problem, it records audio on my computer just fine in mono. But when plugged into the 7d and then i review the footage, audio is only being recorded on one side!!!?

Thanks for your help
 
I'm pretty sure this is the way it works on the 7D. Some mics will duplicate the same track to both channels and some will leave one channel blank. The 7D (because of no magic lantern) has the worst audio implementation of all the Canon DSLRs. You WANT mono anyway, you NEVER record stereo except maybe for ambient sound. I think the way to handle it is delete the one channel in post and duplicate the good one.

For all practical purposes DSLRs should be considered silent film cameras that require separate audio. The audio implementation on them varies from a high of really bad, to a low of completely unusable.
 
M1CEtro said:
Hey guys my canon 7d is in good shape. I just bought an Azden SGM 1x shotgun microphone. I bought an XLR mono cable from radioshack along with an adapter that transforms the 1/4 inch jack at the end of the XLR cable into a 3.5mm mono jack. This 3.5mm is plugged into the side of the camera in the mic line in hole. When I record audio, I'm assuming the 7d is automatically trying to record in stereo? Only the left side channel is recording audio and the right side is nothing but hiss. How do I fix this? I've tried getting another adapter that uses a 3.5mm stereo jack instead of mono into the 7d, but that didn't work. So I have to get a stereo XLR cable? Is there anyway to make the 7d record audio in mono? I don't think the mic is the problem, it records audio on my computer just fine in mono. But when plugged into the 7d and then i review the footage, audio is only being recorded on one side!!!?

Thanks for your help
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That's exactly what should happen. The mic only produces 'one channel'. In your editor, you will have to split out the 'stereo' to 2 mono tracks, and throw the track away that does not carry the audio. You can then use your editing software to 'fill' the missing 'stereo' track, so you will have a balanced output.

Unless the microphone is listed as 'stereo', it is essentially a mono device...
 
As UncleBob says, you do NOT duplicate the mono track. Instead, in your NLE's mixer panel, you PAN the mono track to centre it equally between the left and right stereo output tracks. You don't have two duplicate dialog tracks going left and right respectively; you have one single track that is sent equally to both the left and right speakers.
 
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As UncleBob (and Steve) says, you do NOT duplicate the mono track.
Absolutely!
To reiterate what was previously stated, the 'silent' track needs to be removed from the TL, change the file (or clip) to mono and pan the track to center. This is can be done in most NLEs, (or destructively in a third-party audio editor) however the procedure differs. .. For instance, in Sony Vegas, right-clicking the audio event/clip brings up a "Channels" context menu with a "Left, Right, or Both" select option ... Takes about 10 seconds. (if yo' slow)
 
The raison that you need to keep the mono track is to have the "ghost-center-effect". Dialogues come out of center speakers in a 5.1 setup. But if you only have 2 speakers, it comes out of the "ghost-center" (it's also the center, but as there's no speaker there...it's a "unexisting/ghost speaker".

And having a stereo track both L and R panned in the middle is like asking water in a Saloon....
 
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