Urgent Help with Mixpad 4 balance to GS100/DV-953

[Stephen van Vuuren]

I am considering purchasing a Panasonic GS100 (supposedly same audio specs as DV-953). I have a Samson Mixpad 4 that output 1/4" TRS balanced at +4dBu.

The DV953 manual has only these specs and I'm not sure how to run it into the camera mic jack.

316 mV, 10 kohm or more
Mic Input: Mic sensitivity -50 dB
(0 dB = 1 V/Pa, 1 kHz)
(Stereo mini jack)

Anyone point me in the right direction? I realize a Beachtek box could do this, but since I need dual phantom power, those run $300 plus and I like this Mixpad mixer.

[Aaron Koolen]

Stephen do you realise that the Mixpad 4 only does 18V phantom? What mics are you going to use with it as a lot of them, ala ME66, require 48V phantom.

The biggest problem I had running mics into a mixer and out to my camera, was the crappy metering. To get a usable signal in the mixer I had to boost the crap out of the input signal (~55Db) , then I could meter it with some accuracy. Then of course to get it out again, I had to chop it down cause I could only handle a mic in on the other side. Therefore, I was adding noise at both ends. I got by but not ideal. You could skip lowering the master fader and stick an attenuator barrel on the output or something. I'm going to build myself one of those for future use.

Aaron

[Stephen van Vuuren]

My AT815 works okay with the Mixpad. Levels are little low but I get clean audio.

[Jay Massengill]

Your AT815b runs fine at phantom levels of 9 to 52 volts. The K6/ME66 will run between 12 and 48 volts.
It is true that this lower phantom voltage won't work with mics that require full 48 volt phantom power. So for future use you'll need to carefully check the specs on mics.
For your original question, you'll need to make or buy a device that can attenuate the output of your mixer by about 50db.
It would also be helpful if it maintains the balanced connection from the mixer for the greatest possible distance, incorporates a blocking capacitor to remove any DC voltage that's present on the mic jack and maintains the stereo separation from the mixer to the camera's two recording channels.
Read up on Jay Rose's columns, archives and books on how to do this. You can also check a variety of vendors for the components (either parts to build with or already made parts that you'll have to select and use together).
For example, the Shure A96F does the balanced/unbalanced connection, has a blocking capacitor and distributes the single balanced signal into both channels of your camera.
However, it doesn't have any attenuation. You'd need to use a separate 50db attenuator. This setup also wouldn't allow you to keep two mics separate on their way to the camera.
Since you're in Greensboro NC, you could go to SE Systems and talk with them. They'd be very knowledgeable on the outputs of the mixer and how to attenuate them, although they might not be as up to speed on inputting to a mini-cam stereo mic input, but you have the specs for that already.

[Stephen van Vuuren]

Jay:

Thanks for the input - I'm familiar with Jay Rose, but not "SE Systems" I will look them up. However, I discovered the ND filter on the GS100 is auto, just like similar cams, so after all this, I guess I'm going to have to find a way to get a cam with full manual funtion.