hey guys / gals

I am filming my very first ever wedding tomorrow afternoon. I have everything ready to go but one thing isn't working right (and shame on me for not testing it first) - I have a tascam DR-05 I was going to give to the groom with a lavalier mic (a Audio-Technica ATR-3350 lavalier mic) for the ceremony. Now before everyone jumps down my throat for the mic realize this is a friend of mine and I'm doing this (almost) strictly to build a portfolio. I have used the ATR-3350 before directly into my DSLR but that isn't going to work for a cermony.

The audio on it is fine when I plug it into my DSLR but any external mic on the DR-05 isn't working good. Also tried a Rode videomic.

Am I messing up some dumb setting or missing something obvious on the DR_05? I monitored the audio with headphones and it literally sounds like garbled nothing unless I stick my face right into the lav mike and yell into it and then it sounds like a tin can down the road.

I did try turning on / off auto level and adjusting the input sensitivey up and down. Nothing seems to help. Straight recording on the built in mics seems fine.

It almost seems like something is messed up with the mic jack itself. This would be teh first time I've used the unit for this purpose, as a matter of fact I bought the DR-05 just for this wedding.

Thanks in advance!!

One possibility is that you don't have the right bias on the lav mic. I only found out about this recently, and am not really up on all the details. But if you buy a mic from B&H (say, a Tram TR50), you get the choice of "positive" or "negative" wiring. Positive I think is for Sennheiser, negative for Sony, etc. Not sure what the Tascam needs.

Another possibility (I've never used the DR-05 before) is a setting for "input power" in the menus? Should be turned to on. Mic needs to be supplied with some sort of power.

What else... Maybe mic level rather than line level... I'm sure there's other settings you can fiddle with as well...

Thanks!

The lav mic actually uses a button cell battery so it has it's own power, i had left the power to off.

I *think* I may have fixed it. I had the input volume way to high. Wierdly; the PEAK sensor never kicked off, and when I replay it, it sounds very quiet, but it's legible at least. I'm wondering if when I get it off the recorder onto the compute rif i can give it enough gain that it will sound OK .... at least that is whatt I am hoping !!

I'm going to play with it some more tomorrow morning. I'm pretty stressed to the max right now, lol.

I am a huge A-hole. Sorry for wasting everyone's time.

Turns out the issue was with the headphones I was monitoring with. They came with a Samsung phone I bought and I'm guessing some of the onboard audio controls designed for use with a phone messed up the sound input. Tried listening to the audio on my computer and it was perfectly fine.

Glad you got it sorted anyway Nick! We all do it, spending hours on a problem, that turns out to be really simple!

Nick, I know I learned something from your post. Thanks for reporting back on the issue.