GH2 Panasonic GH2 audio cable connection problem with Sescom LN2MIC

[Optivita]

Hi
I am new to that stuff please help

I have a cable (Sescom LN2MIC-ZMGHN-MON) and my idea was to use that cable with my Sennheiser g3 100 wireless transmiter. so i can interview the person . I know that cable is good to connect for zoom H4n but that will only give me a good quality external mic. That is not what I am looking for
How to connect something wireless to my GH2
Any idea ? any cable any trick ?
Thanks

Please help me
Thanks

 

[John Frey]

Connect your wireless receiver to your Zoom, and then the Zoom to your GH2 via the Sescom cable. Adjust your Zoom input and output levels and your GH2 input levels accordingly. This gives you the ability to record dual sound and/or mix a second outside audio source, or use the Zoom Mic in addition to the wireless source. I do this all of the time an as long as you test and tweak your settings correctly, works great.

 

[Sam Mallery]

The Sescom cables were designed to take the feed from a headphone output. A Sennheiser G3 receiver doesn't have a headphone output. You can try turning the AF Out setting on the receiver to its full +12 dB level, and then adjusting the Mic Input level on the GH2 all the way up to 3. But I'm not sure that will work.

John's suggestion is the right way to do it.

 

[ginsek]

I have a cable (Sescom LN2MIC-ZMGHN-MON) and my idea was to use that cable with my Sennheiser g3 100 wireless transmiter.

Yes, you can do this - you CAN connect Sennheiser G3 100 wireless receiver (not transmitter) to GH2 and get fairly decent audio. You can do this either directly or via Sescom which adds padding. Depending on that you'll have to adjust AF Out. Adding Zoom 4Hn is safer since you can control what you are recording and you will have two copies of audio, plus Zoom will give you better quality audio. In those cases when you don't want to deal with connecting and setting a separate audio recording device this is pretty good solution. That is if you can afford to take a risk and record without hearing what is being recorded. Here is a video on youtube.com that shows some tests including Sennheiser G2 wireless connected directly to GH2. Another thing to keep in mind is that you are going to get only 1 channel since G3 mic is mono, but that shouldn't be a problem.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofpapTx3gcQ
I've done this successfully multiple times with Sescam and without. Sescam cable can serve 1) as an adapter (mine is 3.5 to 2.5mm) 2) adds padding, which allows you to use higher quality Sennheiser mic preamplifier instead of GH2 camera preamplifier. This means that you can set your GH 2 audio to level 1 and adjust G3's AF Out.

 

[Sam Mallery]

Nice video, Ginsek. The DMW-MS1 is such a let down!

The question I must pose is this: are the perks you gain by using a Sescom cable with the headphone monitoring worth the risks if you're not going to bother using an external recorder?

One thing I've noticed about my GH2 is that the little sub-mini mic input is finicky. I don't blame Panasonic for this, it's just the nature of tiny audio jacks. Recently I was testing some mics, and I unplugged one mic and plugged in another when the GH2 was rolling. I had the audio meters displayed on the LCD, and everything looked okay. But, when I played the footage back, it turned out that the second mic that I plugged in didn't make a solid enough connection with the mic input, and the audio was a staticy mess of noise. Again, when I was rolling, the audio looked okay on the meters, and physically it seemed like it was plugged in correctly, but on playback it was all noise.

The issue with using a Sescom cable to monitor an exterior mic (without an external audio recorder) is that all you're hearing is the feed from the mic - you still don't know what it sounds like in the camera. Having headphones plugged into a Sescom monitoring cable will introduce additional tugging and force on the GH2's mic input (because there is now a pair of headphones and its cable plugged into the camera - which is ultimately pulling on the GH2's little mic input).

In my opinion, you're increasing the risk of screwing up the mic's connection with the camera, just so you can monitor the sound of the mic - and not the sound that's actually being recorded. That's not a balanced risk/reward ratio in my book.

I agree that you can get a nice sound with a Sennheiser G2 or G3 with the ME2 lav microphone, but I don't think the "preamp" in the G2 and G3 is worthy of praise, and thus worthy of expending extra effort in order to tap its sound over the built-in audio circuitry of the GH2.

 

[ginsek]

The question I must pose is this: are the perks you gain by using a Sescom cable with the headphone monitoring worth the risks if you're not going to bother using an external recorder?

Sorry if I didn't make it clear. No, I don't monitor if I don't use an external recorder.

One thing I've noticed about my GH2 is that the little sub-mini mic input is finicky.

I totally agree, this mic input is flimsy and unreliable.

but I don't think the "preamp" in the G2 and G3 is worthy of praise, and thus worthy of expending extra effort in order to tap its sound over the built-in audio circuitry of the GH2.

I don't know enough to argue with that. I just repeated what somebody else on dvxuser.com forums said. Also I didn't make any extra effort to use it over GH2 amplifier. As far as I understood it is just a matter of decision whether to set higher GH2 audio level and lower AF Out on G3 or lower GH2 audio level with higher AF Out on G3. I chose the latter. Either way I know that this is a risky situation - to record without monitoring and with this tiny mic input, but you definitely can. If it is a more important shoot I use either Zoom H4n or Tascam DR-100 to record audio.