Pre-amps and line levels

J

joelaready

Active member
I keep reading about how the preamps are better on a mixer than on a camera, and from my experience running audio boards in churches, schools, and other places I can see how this would be true...but why is it better to record into a mixer, and then run it as a line into the camera? Isn't that just adding one more link into the chain? Won't the camera's preamps still negatively affect the audio from the mixer and cancel out the mixer's benefit? I know that mixers are good for multiple mics, but let's just say you only have one or two mics. Is the sound quality going to improve from running the mics through a mixer first? What am I missing?
 
joelaready said:
I keep reading about how the preamps are better on a mixer than on a camera, and from my experience running audio boards in churches, schools, and other places I can see how this would be true...but why is it better to record into a mixer, and then run it as a line into the camera? Isn't that just adding one more link into the chain? Won't the camera's preamps still negatively affect the audio from the mixer and cancel out the mixer's benefit? I know that mixers are good for multiple mics, but let's just say you only have one or two mics. Is the sound quality going to improve from running the mics through a mixer first? What am I missing?
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It depends on the camera - some have separate mic and line level input circuits and sending them line level bypasses a potentially noisy mic preamp. Others take line level and just pad it down and send it through the same preamp circuits the mic level inputs use. In that case, no advantage except the higher levels going to the camera reduce the chance of noise pikcup in the cables. What a mixer will do is give you better control on levels, better metering, high pass filtering to help reduce handling and wind noise, and limiters to help reduce the chance of clipping. Some also do things like provide monitoring or decoding of M/S mic arrangments, that sort of thing.
 
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