In my experience, when you use a mic mixer and input it into a camcorder, you turn on tone and adjust your mixer meters to 0 VU. Then, still sending tone out to the camcorder, you set the meter in the camcorder to -20. That way the mixer and the camcorder audio is calibrated, and what the audio op sees in the mixer meters matches what is recorded in the camcorder.
The problem with the HMC40 is that when you attach the Panasonic XLR adapter, you can't bring up the audio meters on the LCD screen. The audio is "FIXED" at some who-knows-what standard and there is no option to set it to manual and the camcorder does not have the option to make the meters appear on the LCD screen. Yes, you can adjust the input level dials on the XLR adapter, but to what are you adjusting? The camcorder meters are defeated. What the audio op sees on his meters has little or no relevance to what is being recorded.
This is a SERIOUS problem for people trying to get quality audio along with their video. Why in the world would Panasonic give us professional XLR connectors on their XLR adapter, presumably so that we could employ professional microphones, and then not allow the user to control the audio in a professional manner? Is there some workaround that I am not aware of?
The problem with the HMC40 is that when you attach the Panasonic XLR adapter, you can't bring up the audio meters on the LCD screen. The audio is "FIXED" at some who-knows-what standard and there is no option to set it to manual and the camcorder does not have the option to make the meters appear on the LCD screen. Yes, you can adjust the input level dials on the XLR adapter, but to what are you adjusting? The camcorder meters are defeated. What the audio op sees on his meters has little or no relevance to what is being recorded.
This is a SERIOUS problem for people trying to get quality audio along with their video. Why in the world would Panasonic give us professional XLR connectors on their XLR adapter, presumably so that we could employ professional microphones, and then not allow the user to control the audio in a professional manner? Is there some workaround that I am not aware of?