I have been using a Sennheiser MKE 300 as an external mike with my XL1 and although it has worked fine I find the audio level really low. I have tried what I can without success. Any tips ? I AM a novice so go easy on any tech stuff! Thanks.

I have an MKE 300 as well and it seems to work fine for me. I know I might be stating the obvious, but did u try changing the battery? I know they say it should get 1000hours or around that, but if its left in i'm sure a little power seeps out gradually.

Thanks Christopher. Yes I have put in a new battery - I thought it was that and indeed the last user DID leave it on (!!). The problem persists.

I had a MKE 300 on an XL1s and ditched it because the output didn't match that of the Sennheiser ME66 family. The level was noticeably lower and the quality of the audio sounded 'thin' by comparison. The specifications, if you dig around for them on the Sennheiser site, will bear out this impression.

Al

Thanks Al. If this is the case and this mike is just not that powerful, do you have any tips on adjusting the controls on the XL1 to improve the inmput ?

Where and how are you connecting the MKE300?

To Don: from memory, the MKE300 comes with a tightly-coiled cable terminating in a 3.5mm plug. As it has its own battery it doesn't need power from the camera so (IIRC) it could be plugged into the socket normally used by the on-camera mic. This would probably be the way most people would connect it.

However, when I had one I extended the mic's own cable with a short lead enabling it to be plugged into one of the XLRs on the MA-200. I thus had the (camera mounted) MKE 300 in, say, the "left" channel and a ME66 connected to the "right".

Hence the noticeable and unacceptable mismatch in level and quality.

To David: The MKE300 works OK on its own, and without the ME66 for comparison you can play around with the gain control until you get a reasonable level.

For some reason, I never tested the MKE300 against the standard Canon stereo mic, either for output level, sensitivity or quality.

Al

For information, the ME66 has about 7 dB higher output than the MKE300. If fed through the MA-100, with the MKE300 connected via a simple unbalanced connection the and the ME66 balanced, difference could be a much as 11 dB at teh XL1 audio input terminals.