The GH1 audio

K

kippard

Active member
Is anyone shooting with GH1 audio? How bad/good is it? I'm bothered by the idea of using a separate audio recorder, but need quality. The Beachtek solution seems annoying (bulky). Any ways to deal with the auto gain issue? Thanks for the feedback.
 
Link to the previous GH1 audio thread here, and to those before it -

http://96.30.23.131/showthread.php?t=183863&highlight=audio

IMHO the GH1 audio, and its auto gain, is no better or worse than you'd expect. Attach a Rode Stereo VideoMic with its gain on -10dB and things improve. Use external audio if you want to do the job properly (but without knowing the job you want to do, it's hard to be sure what to recommend).
 
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Ozpeter said:
Link to the previous GH1 audio thread here, and to those before it -

http://96.30.23.131/showthread.php?t=183863&highlight=audio

IMHO the GH1 audio, and its auto gain, is no better or worse than you'd expect. Attach a Rode Stereo VideoMic with its gain on -10dB and things improve. Use external audio if you want to do the job properly (but without knowing the job you want to do, it's hard to be sure what to recommend).
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Thank you for your reply, Oz. I'm working on an indie feature. I'm a one-man band and want the simplest setup I can get. Is the auto gain negated using the Rode Stereo VideoMic on -10dB? Does it become too quiet? I'll look over the thread. Thanks again,
 
Apart from auto gain, the recording is made at 16bit / 16.000KHz
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Er... I think there's some confusion there.

If you mean that the sampling frequency is 16,000KHz then that would be an industry first - you could use that kind of frequency in a microwave oven.

If you mean 16KHz sampling frequency, then the frequency response would be limited to about 8KHz and the sound would be very muffled - which it isn't - the response recorded by the internal mic extends to around 16KHz looking at the plot in front of me.

If you mean that the frequency response from the internal mic extends to 16KHz then indeed you are correct, but that's no disaster for video (just in terms of the extent of the response).

The GH1 digitises audio using a sampling frequency of 48KHz and a bit depth of 16 bits, which is industry standard for video. However, if there's crap electronics and a crap mic in front of the analog to digital converter, that spec doesn't mean much. And having the mic fixed to the camera is convenient, but often you need the mic somewhere else.

At the end of the day it's necessary to listen to, and analyse if you want, actual recorded samples, and see whether the audio is adequate for your particular purpose.
 
Given that so many short films these days seem to be in essence silent movies with music tracks performed by popular beat combos to distract from the insignificance of the images, then the GH1 sound is often of no consequence anyway.

Perhaps I'm getting to be an aged reactionary... :(
 
Ozpeter said:
Given that so many short films these days seem to be in essence silent movies with music tracks performed by popular beat combos to distract from the insignificance of the images, then the GH1 sound is often of no consequence anyway.

Perhaps I'm getting to be an aged reactionary... :(
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But in the end isn't that better than dialog recorded with built-in sound equipment, recited by people who can't act, and edited by someone who thinks that sound editing/mixing consists of cutting your film visually and then adding cross fades between all the audio tracks?

Seriously though, I have nothing against mostly silent short films, but if I'm actually doing a narrative short and not just a montage, I follow a "no wall-to-wall sound/music" rule.
 
I've been playing around with what can be obtained from the built-in mic, and in situations where the sound is chiefly ambient (rather than centred dialog) it can benefit from a little widening (for instance by adding 3dB to the side channel and subtracting 3dB from the centre channel using the msBalance vst effect from http://mdsp.smartelectronix.com/product/mstools/ - if your NLE doesn't have a built in stereo width function).

That can really bring the sound to life - for me, the limited stereo spread that the built in mic gives can sound a bit flat.
 
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