Sound on GL1

Hi,

I'm thinking of buying a GL1 as I think the GL2 will be about 1000$ more then the GL1 in the beginning.

I'Ve rented the camera several times and I'm quite happy with it, except wiht the sound.

I'm filming in closed rooms, only voices at room level. I always have a good hearable hum if I listen to the film. If I try to reduce the hum with audio filters, I must use such high settings to the audio filter that the talking of the people clips. ATT is no solution as the sound is not to loud, just normal talking of people.

I've read a lot of different opinions about this:

- no problem at all, the noise is so low nobody hears it (I hear the hum loud and clear)
- use an external mike

If I buy an external Mike like the Sennheiser MKE 300 will this hum go away??? Will I have problems with the fact that the camera has no manual audio controls?

Thanks

Frank

[Barry Goyette]

could it be possible that the hum you are hearing came from the room itself...flourescent light fixtures, ventilation systems etc.. can all cause this especially when the intended sound sources are more than a few feet from the microphone. The camera's automatic sound is trying to amplify relatively low voice levels, and ends up doing the same to ambient noise (including those coming from the camera.) I have used the gl1 for more than 2 years and have never heard more than a very minor background hum(from the camera) in situations where almost no sound was present.

...Or perhaps the camera you rented had a problem.

Regarding the external mic, the key is getting your microphone closer to the subject to help in this problem. Whether you are trying to pick up one or many voices will determine the type of mic you need.

Hi Barry,

thanks a lot for your comments.
To hear what I mean I extracted the sound of a test sequence and converted it to a 128 kbit MP3 File (size only 265K) audio only :-)

http://www.vm6.com/xm1/test.mp3

I think that a camera for 2000$ should produce better sound then this.
Taken indoors, no other sound(except TV in the next room maybe you can hear this), no fluorescent lightning...
Is this normal for the GL1 or is the camera defect.

No WindScreen (indoors...) NO ATT.

Thanks a lot for your comments.

Frank

[Jeff Donald]

Hi,

I'd love to listen and try to help, but your site returns under construction or access forbidden. Sorry.

Jeff

[Barry Goyette]

The link you sent didn't work for me either..

try again and I'll give it a listen.

I've embedded the file into a html page. Now you should be able to download it. (In my browser the other link opened directly in quicktime so it worked for me when I tested it)
Sorry for the trouble. Hope it works now.

http://www.vm6.com/xm1/test.html


Thanks
Frank

[Petri Storlöpare]

About the humming problem...
Yes, I had it too, and after trying different sollutions I would like to grade them like this according to my personal experience.

Camera mic
External mic in hot shoe
External mic (+ home made shock mount) in the hot shoe
External mic (hand held)

Sometimes there doesn't sem to be very much humming when you watch it on the TV or on your computer, but if you listen with head phones it will be clear.

[Barry Goyette]

The link is still not working for me...I'm using explorer 5.1 on a mac...When I click on the file I can there is a download progress bar..but then nothing..now quicktime window or sound.

Hi Barry,

try to right click the file and then save as. So you should be able to locate the file and you need any player capable of playing mp3 files to hear it.

Thanks for your efforts.

Frank

[Barry Goyette]

sorry...there is no "right click" on a mac. when I click on the file it appears to download...but then nothing happens (I should see a quicktime window)...and my download manager shows nothing being saved to disk...so it looks like it is downloading to RAM, but that whatever file you've created is not readable by quicktime (on a mac). Never seen this before... I've tried on 2 different machines with separate internet connections. Can you try saving it as a quicktime .mov file rather than mp3?

Anyone else able to open this?

[Barry Goyette]

Ok, I was finally able to download the file, but it wouldn't open in quicktime...it didn't come up as an actual mp3 file , any way, itunes was able to handle it, and based on what I am hearing (and seeing on the meter) it appears to be what I alluded to in my first message...your overall sound levels are low, so the mic appears to be picking up ambient room (or background noise), which could include the camera itself...I could be wrong, but I think any similar type of mic in the same situation would give you the same result, unless some sort of filter was employed. Again your best bet is to move the microphone closer to your subject.

And I just found out that option+click on the mac is the same thing as right click on the PC. woo-hoo.

[Jason Bagby]

i had to listen since i'm so impressed with the mic on my gl1.
and i really couldn't hear anything out of the ordinary, nothing mechanical, and the ambient sound was only audible if i cranked it up.
take any given location that you shoot on and just listen to the ambient sounds- chances are there won't be a silent moment, so noone is going to notice the alleged hum unless you have a totally silent movie in which case you should just remove the audio all together.
and barry,
its not the mac, but the mouse that doesn't have right click. get a better mouse and right click will work.
not to imply that your mouse is bad, i have the single clicking optical mouse at my house but only till i can afford a good trackball.
(if thats any indication as to how broke i am.)
write me if you need anymore winish translated to maceese.

[Barry Goyette]

What I meant is that Mac's don't have an identified "protocol" for right clicking, like windows users do...I have a two button trackball that can be programmed for a lot of purposes (although I have no idea what its set to). I think the average mac user would respond to a request for a right click with a decisive "huh?"

By the way, you aren't the Jason Bagby I went to school with in Santa Maria California, are you?

Cheers,
Barry

[Jason Bagby]

I have met so few people that haven't used wintels for a good portion of their computing daze. i wish i would meet more people who had nothing but mac since apple IIe, but they are like bigfoot.
you know ctrl click is right click. you also know that ctrl click came way before right click and its a shame these punks don't know where they came from- loving pc's because doom 26 is coming out. don't get me wrong, i crack out every now and then on a Shigeru Miyamoto game, but if everyone could see how often and how blatantly windows copies mac's os, as they have continued to do with XP (see, they even through an x in the title) with the colorful buttons and the. . . liquified gui and revised menu trees (don't forget improvements in graphic and video capabilities! very important all of a sudden.) they might give props where props are due.
My main challenge in learning osX was i was making everything too complicated. now i see that using windows is like using mac, only you have to add and extra step to every process- as if windows was protecting themsleves by masking their attempts to um. . . 'follow mac's lead.'
I think in the future you should lay on the sarcasm a little more thickly, else i might be obliged to answer your question thinking you need help, my mac brother. Let me know if i can give you pointers, people tell me i'm quite an ass. p.s. i'm from colorado, but would be neat to meet california me.