Recording with a DR40 w/ NTG1 straight to a DSLR?

[soursteezle14]

I shoot a lot of interviews and syncing the audio after each shoot is very tedious. Is there any way that I can still use my NTG1 with my DR40, but record it straight to my DSLR (t2i) as well as record it to the external as a backup source? If someone could post what I would need or if this is even possible that would be great.

Thanks in advance!

 

[RandomHero]

Hey there!
So, the easiest way to do that (unless I'm missing something) would simply be to use the 1/8" line out and run that to your DSLR. You could then use the camera's headphone out to monitor, and syncing shouldn't be an issue any longer. Sadly, unlike the DR-100, this only has the one output, so you couldn't monitor directly form the DR40. But this set up should work fine.

 

[Alex H.]

If you're going to use the headphone output to feed the T2i, you'll need to get a line>mic padded cable to avoid overloading the T2i's pre-amps. Also, be sure you have Magic Lantern installed on your T2i so that you can disable the AGC. Otherwise, there's no point at all in recording sound to camera.

Of course, in doing this, you're sacrificing quality for convenience.

 

[RandomHero]

If he's just using the line in to sync audio, AGC probably wouldn't be too big of an issue. If you're looking for a padded cable like that, it's right here: http://www.dvestore.com/dvcreator-line-to-mic-cable/

The audio recorded by the DR40 would most likely be far superior, so hopefully this is just for syncing/post purposes?

 

[Steve House]

You said 'record to the DSLR with the external as backup' but you're getting it backwards. So far, no DSLR records audio that is good enough to actually be usable for production, at best it can serve as a scratch track to aid in syncing in post. You should use the tracks from the external recorder as your primary. I don't have a DR40 and looking at the manual online I can't find a definitive answer as to whether or not it sends out a real time monitor signal on the line output as it records - if it doesn't, your idea won't work. If it does there is no actual line input on the camera so you'll definitely have to pad down the output of the recorder in order to avoid overloading the camera's audio input. IMHO, using the headphone output to send to another recording device is a kludge anyway - headphones outputs are designed to feed, well, headphones, not other audio inputs - the impedance's are wonky and the volume control without a unity gain setting makes proper gain staging a headache. The preferred method would be to feed your mics into a real mixer, one with multiple outputs. One mixer output would be sent to the recorder, the other, padded to mic level, to the camera. The mixer would be effectively at the junction of a 'Y'. There would be no direct connection between recorder and camera per se.