GL2 audio from live mixer

[Vince Crabb]

Greetings everybody!

Another newbie here, with only the 1st of many questions I eventually expect to post as I get more involved with the video end of things.

Background: Over the past 20+ years my experience has included work at several radio stations (one of which was housed in the same building as The Barn recording studio; the engineer actually let me push a few buttons and knobs while laying down tracks for one of Sandi Patti's earlier albums. I thought it was pretty cool at the time...), running sound for numerous small bands years ago (including Gov. Davis before he added the Blues Ambassadors), and operating a part-time business (15+ years) as a DJ for wedding receptions, etc. None of these positions have ever been full time. My real background is in customer service, technical support. But I have a great passion for audio, and now I need to expand my knowledge to include videography.

Short story long version, I was pushed/coerced(?) into the paid position of A/V Coordinator at my church at the beginning of the year, having been a volunteer in the same position for 5 prior years (I was the only applicant for the job, so I probably could have phoned in the interview). Shortly before the church decided to make this position paid, we upgraded our sound only system to include video, with the purchase of a 4100 lumen projector, motorized screen, seamless switcher, and Canon GL2 camera. Our intention with the camera was to be able to videotape the services for shut-ins, and various church group performances on location.

The real meat of this post: While I love the GL2 to pieces, the audio from the built-in mic leaves me far from satisfied. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it probably has something to do with the fact that the camera is located at the back of the sanctuary, picking up audio from the sound systems main cluster 60+ feet away! OK I suppose for speech, but with music of any kind, it's right on par with AM radio in a 60's Volkswagon. No offense to anyone out there who still owns a 60's VW...

My question (finally): I want to capture audio directly from our mixer, so I need a recommendation for the equipment necessary to do this. I think I'd like to possibly still have audio capture from the built-in mic, for ambience, but if that's not possible I can mount a spare mic or 2 somewhere in the sanctuary and mix that into the camera audio feed. I'm sure this sounds like a dumb question from someone with an audio background, but I've never had to incorporate video in the past.

That's it for now. Sorry this was so long and drawn out. Any and all answers will of course be greatly appreciated! And before I go let me say, from what I've seen while perusing this forum so far, you guys rock!

Thanks and God Bless!

[Ken Tanaka]

Welcome, Vince. Thank you for such an interesting introduction, and welcome to DV Info.

I'm sure others will share tips on this. But I'll get the ball rolling by saying that the main item that you'll need is an XLR audio adapter for your GL2, such as one made by Beachtek.

From that point you should be able to patch into the house's mixer via a standard XLR cable.

Although audio q's normally go in our "Now Hear This" section, I'll leave this here for a bit to perhaps get more GL2-specific comments first.

Have fun!

[Eugene Pesochin]

If you plug anything in the MIC plug on the camera the onboard one will shut off.
So you need adapter to use extra mics.
There is a beachtec and there is a Canon one (MA300) I believe, that seams easy to use but you sounds like pro in audio so you will have to read specs and decide on your own.

[Hank Freeman]

Vince, we're a TV station just north of Indy in Noblesville. We air 7 churches each week. There are various solutions, but the Beachtek is probably the best for you. However, as you might guess, not all that is heard in a church goes thru your sound board. You can visit our web page at http://www.hometowntelevision.net and if you'd like you can drive up and see a 'beachtek' and discuss the methods we use.

[Vince Crabb]

Thank you Ken, Eugene, and Hank for your responses.
With a new AV cabinet install at church that was most time consuming, and many other things taking up my time I’ve not had a chance to view replies until now. Had almost forgotten what my computer looked like!

I’ll look into the Beachtek unit; it appears to be just what I need. And Hank, I’ll definitely take you up on your offer to visit your facility. I think that’ll go a long way towards my education to the wonderful world of video.

[Jeremy Davidson]

Vince,

I ran into a similar situation several months ago.
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...threadid=31318

I've seen the Beachtek products mentioned very frequently, and a lot of people seem to be happy with them. I personally chose a less expensive DIY approach and made my own adapter cable. True, it's not nearly as flexible as a real adapter, but with some pro-audio know-how it does the trick. It's basically a cable with a 1/8" TRS connector on one end and two XLR connectors on the other end. It's not balanced, and it does expect mic-level inputs (so see the above-mentioned thread concerning the mixer output, then go buy some inline attenuators from B&H). Still, for man-on-the-street kind of stuff with a Shure SM58 and a GL2, it sounds great! I actually used this setup to do some interviews for my church. The best part is that I built the cable out of parts I already had lying around.

I can email or post the details if you're interested.

Jeremy

[David Ennis]

Vince, if your mixer happens to be a Mackie I have some advice. I've been taking both mono and stereo outputs from them.

[Vicki McLarry]

Vince,

There are more ways to work around the audio problem that you posted. The mic input on the GL2 will not handle line signal from a mixer. Even with the mic attenuator turned on, clipping will occur with mucho distortion. I also am a volunteer multimedia/sound technician at a church and we also recently began recording a video of the Sunday morning services. A compressor added inline between the mixer and the camera mic input was not the cheapest way to do this. We added a second mixer, a Mackie DFX12. Our master sound reinforcement mixer is a Mackie SR32. We ran lines from the inserts of 6 solo microphone channels, from sub-outs of all accompaniment instruments or CD/Tape players, all inserted to the first click only. These lines go to different channels of the secondary DFX12 mixer, giving us even further control of each signal. Output is from the DFX12 Main Out to the GL2 mic input. Of course this is still a line signal, but we are able to bring the gain down to a good level at the DFX12, resulting in a professional sound. It really sounds great. A good headset is a must and some time testing your final mix.

Vicki McLarry
GL2/Xi

[Joe Hewes]

I just had this problem when taping a game show-type thing for church. I needed to get four mics into the board in the room, and then out to the camera. Here's what I did:

Line-level outputs from a board are much easier to come by than mic levels. My first challenge was to get the line level signals down to mic levels. Hmmm, what are those Direct Box thingies the band is always using? Line to Mic level! (Not really trying to be sarcastic here - this was a learning experience for me as well).

Well, cool! So my audio guy found an output from the board, perhaps one of the submaster outs. Plugged that into the direct box, which got me mic level. next challenge - XLR to mini. I ran an XLR audio cable from the direct box to my new BeachTek converter box thingie, and that plugged into the mini jack microphone input on the camcorder. Worked great.

[Joel Rushing]

Another easy way to attenuate the audio signal out of the board is to run it through a cassette tape deck before going to a camera. I've done this a few times and it works fine, even when going into the 1/8" Mic input on the camera.