The Canon DSLR Audio thread

I use +10db when I use my G2 wireless system and I get a good clean signal in camera. I think I feel comfortable using that level of gain for my VMP since I've had such good results with the wireless.
 
I was using the Jan 30 build of ML for the last number of months but I've updated to a newer build. So when I use the VMP or my G2 system and select external stereo mic, should the Mic Power setting be "On (Low Z)" or "Off (High Z)"? Thanks.
 
rszebras said:
I was using the Jan 30 build of ML for the last number of months but I've updated to a newer build. So when I use the VMP or my G2 system and select external stereo mic, should the Mic Power setting be "On (Low Z)" or "Off (High Z)"? Thanks.
Click to expand...

I'd say off, but I'm not entirely sure. I'm still using an older build myself. As I understand it, that has to do with the gain for the internal mic, which is why it is required for using the internal or internal + ext options.
But that's a good question. Try it and tell us what you think?
 
hi there,
i already posted this in the wrong thread, i tried to remove it but couldnt,sorry, im really just looking for an answer,
does anyone know or does anyone use a Zoom h2 to record audio plugged directly into the Canon 60, i have found this cable by Sescom


LN2MIC-ZOOMH4N


that says it specifically works with zoom h1 and zoom h4n , how about the zoom h2 ?
if not does anyone have a cable alternative , i want a solution that is cheap and not too clunky.
​
 
Last edited:
I assume you want to use the H2 as a mic and then route that directly into the 60d via the headphone out. I believe that SESCOM cable has a pad that reduces the line level signal to mic level so it should work on the 60d too. I might be inclined to try a cable with no pad, adjust your headphone out level really low, and put the analog gain on the 60d as low as possible. This should give the cleanest signal in the 60d. Then adjust the headphone out up slightly until you have a good signal. It's less expensive than the SESCOM cable and it won't cut the signal too low so that you have to resort to the noisy Canon preamps.
 
Stupid Question, if I use a Rode VXLR XLR - 3.5mm adaptor, then run an XLR cable back, then have the Female - male XLR - 3.5mm adaptor and run that into the camera.

Will that allow me to go past 10-12 feet ? Or is it really never balanced since it comes from an unbalanced source ? *Edit (Assuming I am using the Rode VM - Pro)

Sorry, not a sound guy.
 
A little question:

I am looking into buying a new camera for both film and photography. I have had a T3/1100d mainly for photography, but when I got a Rode Video Mic Pro for filming I wanted to get a new camera. Now I'm not sure what would be the better option, T3i/600d or T2i/550d.

I want my audio to be be better, and I have had problems with the T2i/550d I tried and the Rode Mic due to autogain. I read that Magic Lantern should fix the problem, but haven't really tried it. I also read somewhere that Canon installed AGC-software in the T3i/550d, but I couldn't really find out if it works well.

I think my question is basically: Considering the use of Magic Lantern on the two, which one would give me the better options for video productions? And also, how consistent is Magic Lantern? Would I be able to count on it working?

I would much like to avoid to install more parts on my camera, and my demands for the audio quality is not extremly high, I just want to be able to record reasonable quality audio and consistent.

Any answers are much appreciated!
 
I think the T3i has manual audio levels. I can say that the T2i with Magic lantern sounds fine. I've done an audio test with the VMP and T2i. But I suggest the T3i or 60D for the articulating screen. I think the T3i also has a cool digital zoom that does not lose resolution, so you can get really close to stuff with no rex loss.


This vid shows the T2i with a JuicedLink preamp:

This vid shows the T2i with the VMP mounted in the shoe mount:
 
I really like my t2i. And with Magic Lantern it is a great camera for the price. You get a lot with Magic Lantern besides manual gain control of audio. I especially like the exposure tools: zebras and waveform. The articulating screen has some advantages for low or high angle shots. Not sure it's worth the extra dollars, though.
 
Hello all, no one is talking 7D. Anyways I'm filming a short that will be under twelve minutes if the final product looks polished I am going to write more story and make it my first feature. The basics got a 7D, zoom H2 and want a mic that will catch the roughness in peoples voices well and just a good mic that wont let me down. Wish to be as close to point and shoot as possible without using the H2, yet flexible enough to use a boom pole to get great audio, if H2 is my best option with adapters that's fine. I'm think rode 2 but I'm open, a boom pole and adapters am i on track? suggestions on mic's? Do i need to get into a portable mixing board that will hike up cost? Just want to find the right package deal, price is important say four bills top tops like to keep it at 3 bills.

This is out of my price range and not even sure if it has adapters that ill need, but if its way better I'll give in.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/551607-REG/Audio_Technica_AT_875_Shotgun_Microphone.html
 
Last edited:
Three Billion Seconds said:
Hello all, no one is talking 7D. Anyways I'm filming a short that will be under twelve minutes if the final product looks polished I am going to write more story and make it my first feature. The basics got a 7D, zoom H2 and want a mic that will catch the roughness in peoples voices well and just a good mic that wont let me down. Wish to be as close to point and shoot as possible without using the H2, yet flexible enough to use a boom pole to get great audio, if H2 is my best option with adapters that's fine. I'm think rode 2 but I'm open, a boom pole and adapters am i on track? suggestions on mic's? Do i need to get into a portable mixing board that will hike up cost? Just want to find the right package deal, price is important say four bills top tops like to keep it at 3 bills.

This is out of my price range and not even sure if it has adapters that ill need, but if its way better I'll give in.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/551607-REG/Audio_Technica_AT_875_Shotgun_Microphone.html
Click to expand...

The 7D doesn't give many options for recording decent audio in-camera. That's why you'll likely have to resort to the Zoom H2 recorder that you mentioned, and why the 7D isn't mentioned much in this thread (the goal here being to discuss the camera's audio system).

Once you are going with external sound recording, it really doesn't matter if you are using a DSLR or a full sized cam. And there is a whole dedicated audio section of the forum to talk about that here:
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/forumdisplay.php?29-Audio

I think you'll find the discussion and advice there more helpful to your situation. Good luck!
 
There hasn't been a lot of talk on here about the T3i/600D. I know its a relatively new camera etc etc, but I did some testing on mine tonight with some of the suggestions in the thread and here is what I have discovered.

Using the Canon menu to turn down the "Rec. level" to just one notch above zero DOES work fantastically well (which is good since Magic Lantern hasent figured out how to turn of the AGC on the 600D yet). You will need to pre-amp any microphone line going in though. My Azden WR-Pro lav was only moderately audible with the mic an inch directly in front of my mouth. Might have better luck with different microphone setups as mentioned throughout the thread, but I don't have any to test with. I did run an aux cable from the heaphone jack on my computer directly into the microphone input on the camera and that worked superbly. I'm going to try to pick up a pre-amp tomorrow to test out with my lav and see if that does the trick for me. If it does I will be very pleased with how cheap and simple my audio fix was.

I have to compliment all of the contributors to this thread, you have all been very helpful in figuring all of this out. Thanks!
 
t3i hisses more than t2i

t3i hisses more than t2i

Hey all,

first of all, thank you for all the info!

Just want to share my experience and disappointment with the t3i: I just bought a t3i and the audio hiss (with rode videomic) is terrible, much worse than the t2i I used before (with just Rode Videomic plugged directly into the cam). I'm seriously considering returning the t3i and getting a t2i instead.

I have never used Magic Lantern. And without it, my t2i footage (with RVM) sounds great and I did not get AGC issues. (I would use Magic Lantern if I buy my own t2i to make it even better.)

As far as I know the Magic Lantern for t3i still does not fix audio monitoring or AGC disabling. If I have to choose between flip out screen (t3i) and better sound (t2i with and without Magic Lantern) my decision is easy. Get rid of the noisy t3i. The interesting thing is that on the t3i the hiss is louder with the Rode Videomic plugged in than with the built in camera mic!

Not the case with t2i...And I know my RVM works fine...

Finally I think the external mic plug on the t3i is a bit too low and in the way of your left hand easily. The t2i plug is a bit higher up the camera and out of the way.

Just wanted to share my experience...

What do you all think?
 
neek said:
Hey all,

first of all, thank you for all the info!

Just want to share my experience and disappointment with the t3i: I just bought a t3i and the audio hiss (with rode videomic) is terrible, much worse than the t2i I used before (with just Rode Videomic plugged directly into the cam). I'm seriously considering returning the t3i and getting a t2i instead.

I have never used Magic Lantern. And without it, my t2i footage (with RVM) sounds great and I did not get AGC issues. (I would use Magic Lantern if I buy my own t2i to make it even better.)

As far as I know the Magic Lantern for t3i still does not fix audio monitoring or AGC disabling. If I have to choose between flip out screen (t3i) and better sound (t2i with and without Magic Lantern) my decision is easy. Get rid of the noisy t3i. The interesting thing is that on the t3i the hiss is louder with the Rode Videomic plugged in than with the built in camera mic!

Not the case with t2i...And I know my RVM works fine...

Finally I think the external mic plug on the t3i is a bit too low and in the way of your left hand easily. The t2i plug is a bit higher up the camera and out of the way.

Just wanted to share my experience...

What do you all think?
Click to expand...

Interesting- is the Rode Video Mic (no-pro version, I assume) set to 0dB on the back? Ideally, you should send in a hot signal (+20db on the pro version), and set the t3i's level down to zero, but the regular video mic only has negative settings (-20db, etc) and zero. Leave it on zero, if you're not already. I don't have much experience with the regular video mic or the t3i, to be honest, but apparently others have reported similar findings. The t3i's manual level only control digital gain, if I recall correctly, leaving a noisy analog preamp that you can't silence very easily.

T2i is still the champ, IMO. With the 60D right beside it.
 
I never knew the T3i / 600D had such a bad audio preamp... only just recently discovered this after owning the camera for about 2 months. My own testing has confirmed what has been talked about in this thread, i.e. turn down the manual gain to one notch above 0 and feed a good clean signal into the camera audio input. I've tested with the Sennheiser G2 setup and also with a Zoom H4 (which has both a line out AND headphone out as opposed to the newer H4n) and they are by FAR better solutions than the on-board stuff, at least where noise level is concerned.

One thing though, has anyone noticed pumping or dropping out of their audio on this camera? Here is an example with manual gain set at 50% and onboard mic. I didn't notice this when using any of the external equipment I mentioned above.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWBilBBIAcY
 
M. Gilden said:
Interesting- is the Rode Video Mic (no-pro version, I assume) set to 0dB on the back? Ideally, you should send in a hot signal (+20db on the pro version), and set the t3i's level down to zero, but the regular video mic only has negative settings (-20db, etc) and zero. Leave it on zero, if you're not already. I don't have much experience with the regular video mic or the t3i, to be honest, but apparently others have reported similar findings. The t3i's manual level only control digital gain, if I recall correctly, leaving a noisy analog preamp that you can't silence very easily.

T2i is still the champ, IMO. With the 60D right beside it.
Click to expand...

I only tried these tests with t3i and RVM (non pro). I tried all kinds of combinations, shifting between the RVM 2 options and the T3i manual sound options (from almost 0, 25, 50 to almost 100). The overall volume changes but the amount of hiss remained. So annoying... That's why I went back to B&H today and returned the t3i. They made no fuss, great reurn policy. The video reps also told me they were not aware of any "hiss issues" with t3i and never got a complaint before. Strange because google tells me I'm not alone. Anyways. that's the past!

I brought the t2i home and my first test with RVM plugged in the camera is already better than any of my t3i test shots, in terms of audio. I bought the sescom cable and will now explore the wonderful world of Magic Lantern to do audio monitoring and disabling of AGC altogether for even better results.

/3 hours later.../ I just installed Magic Lantern. Even though I had the latest Canon firmware on my new t2i, I still had to "Re-install" the Canon firmware before Magic Lantern worked. My T2i showed it was 1.0.9 but would not allow me to install ML until I "updated" to 1.0.9 from the Canon site.

For the first time is it really quiet when I film silence and I'm monitoring sound coming out from the camera with headphones! That's crazy! I'm looking forward to discover all Magic Lantern has to offer.

I just share this as info for others.
 
Last edited:
Hi guys,

Seems I have posted an audio question on the wrong place, I did not see this one.


I have a weird situation with my RVM equipped 60D with ML.
Everything is okay on stock firmware, with the RVM it records normally, audiometer gives good reading and all. Shows significant increase of levels when the RVM is plugged in.
Everything also works good when I finally use Magic Lantern and discover the usefulness of the hack. That was until about a month ago.

I don't know what trigerred it, now as soon as I use Magic Lantern on the 60D, everything went unbelievably quiet. The ML's audiometer barely moves, if ever. On same room, situation and distance to subject, using the ML is like losing maybe 80% of the audio level I get with stock firmware. I tried, I think, all possibility to nail down what is wrong.

I tested with fresh new RVM to find out if my RVM is the problem, and apparently it is also the same case with the fresh unit.
I even sent my 60D to Canon Care where they couldn't find what's wrong for 2 weeks and they replaced mic input assembly just to please me.
Both camera and mic is just 4 months old and used very rarely for interviews. I am really curious, need to find out what's wrong, if there's something I missed. I think it's on the ML but can't find anything, think I've tried everything. If any of you good people have any thoughts, I would really appreciate any input.
 
With magic lantern you are basically turning off AGC (Auto Gain Compensation). AGC boosts the level of everything. So when you disable it you get less volume. Try setting the camera's audio to 0db digital gain, and 10db analog gain. If you have the Rode VideoMic Pro you would have the 20db boost that would get your levels up too. You may need a preamp.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top