NTG-1 and feedback with monitor speakers..

[Steve House]

Originally Posted by Mike Costantini

Thanks! I was worried because it was hard to listen to in the headphones while recording having two different thing going into each ear but it came out good for a first try. I use Sony Vegas for the editing. The gain level for the mic channel on the camera is 12:00 (halfway point) The gain on the Bluetube for the mic is almost full up (which I don't believe it should be??) The Bluetube makes signals hot as hell so it's weird that I have to turn it almost all the way up to get decent volume into the camera.

As for exact meter levels, I don't recall what they were on the Bluetube, but on the camera I try to keep everything between -12 and 0. I hate buying or watching videos where I have to increase the volume so much to hear it. Plus I usually use the W1 Limiter (http://betabugsaudio.com/plugs.php) (I didn't use it in the clips I posted) to make the audio sound much bigger and better.


For our purposes, I think this setup will be just fine, although I'm sure something is wrong that I have to boost the gain so high on the Tube...

No, nothing is wrong, in fact, perhaps you should lower it a bit. You're under the mistaken impression that you should be hitting that high on the camera meters and in fact you may be recording too hot and risking clipping, especially on the guitar track - I didn't hear any but you're in the range where it's a danger. Peaks should just be touching -12 dBFS or maybe a little more thereabouts. You don't want peaks to even come CLOSE to full scale. I don't what you did with the levels when you made the tracks you posted but when I loaded them into Soundforge, the voice track peaked at -1.7 dBFS on the guitar noodling with the voice averaging about -6 to -8 dBFS. But the guitar/seq track lit the clipping indicators at several locations and the VU meter shows a max level of +9.5dB so if that's what you got in the camera it's definitely too hot.

If you had a mixer with tone, as a starting point you'd send a 0VU tone to the camera and adjust the camera levels so it read about -20 dBFS in the camera's meter. Then if the material wasn't too "peaky" you might record a little hotter. You said you can't stand programs that you have to turn up and I agree with you but that's not something you adjust in the camera or recorder on set. Don't make the mistake of thinking the level on the tape in the camera is the level it will be in the final program - your goal when shooting is to get the full dynamic range of the performance on the tape without clipping or distortion - post is where you adjust levels for what is heard in the final program.

[Mike Costantini]

Thanks for telling me that. This was just a quick and dirty test, but no, I never have anything clipping and I rarely adjust the volume in post because I get the volume loud enough when the filming was going on. So you're saying that the audio meters on the camera should never go above that -12db as seen below on page 45:

http://www.mediacollege.com/equipmen...ra/agdvc80.pdf


What I've been doing was recording in the range between -12 and 0, but never quite hitting 0.

Does -12dB on the camera meter (on the tape) equate to -12dB in Vegas? I guess I worry that if I record the volume too low on the tape, that even if I increase it in post it won't be high enough and that's why I was trying to record as loud as I could without hitting 0dB.... I'm learning a lot here, thanks again!

I was just looking through the manual and read this on page 49:

When connecting an external microphone, set the INPUT1 switch or INPUT2 switch to the MIC position.
Set the input level (–50 dBu and –60dBu) using the MIC GAIN 1 and MIC GAIN 2 items on the setting menuRECORDING SETUP screen.

You're saying to set it to LINE because it's coming from the Bluetube and not the mic directly into the camera, correct?

[Steve House]

Originally Posted by Mike Costantini

Thanks for telling me that. This was just a quick and dirty test, but no, I never have anything clipping and I rarely adjust the volume in post because I get the volume loud enough when the filming was going on. So you're saying that the audio meters on the camera should never go above that -12db as seen below on page 45:

http://www.mediacollege.com/equipmen...ra/agdvc80.pdf


What I've been doing was recording in the range between -12 and 0, but never quite hitting 0.

Does -12dB on the camera meter (on the tape) equate to -12dB in Vegas? I guess I worry that if I record the volume too low on the tape, that even if I increase it in post it won't be high enough and that's why I was trying to record as loud as I could without hitting 0dB.... I'm learning a lot here, thanks again!

I was just looking through the manual and read this on page 49:



You're saying to set it to LINE because it's coming from the Bluetube and not the mic directly into the camera, correct?

Yes, that's correct. The Blue is a preamp, which means it is already boosting the mic level to line level.

I won't say it should NEVER go over -12 but that's the general ballpark of the average levels you should be shooting for. You can't really say that -12 on the camera will equate to -12 in Vegas because of meter response times - who knows for sure what Panasonic has set theirs up for - but they should be pretty close most of the time. -20dBFS sine wave usually corresponds to -12 to -14 dBFS on voice waveforms.

[Mike Costantini]

Alrighty then, I'll be sure to let you see the final outcome of this video when it's done, we're probably going to shoot it tonight...