Built in Mic question. at DVinfo.net

Roy Feldman · July 12th, 2007, 08:11 AM

I suspect the answer to this is no...but.
Is there anyway to use the built in mic for ambient and an external mic for voice?

Henry Cho · July 12th, 2007, 08:51 AM

not that i'm aware of. you could use two separate external mics, if you don't mind your ambient track being mono. for more than two channels of audio, you could connect a 3+ channel mixer to the xha1, but remember that there are only two channels of audio going to tape. barring miracles in post, you'd pretty much have to settle on the mixed channels hitting tape as final. an external recorder, solo or in conjunction with the xha1's inputs, would give you more channels to play with (and superior sound to boot).

Bill Pryor · July 12th, 2007, 10:30 AM

Can't do it because the built-in mic is stereo and takes up both channels. I just put an old short shotgun mic on the camera into channel 1 and use that for ambient sound, while the good boom mic or wireless lav goes into channel 2. If I want to record one channel normal and one down a few db for protection, I use my usual XLR Y-adapter and unplug the on-camera mic temporarily. So the built-in mic isn't used at all. The camera would have been better off without it in the first place, in my opinion.

Don Palomaki · July 12th, 2007, 10:53 AM

You suspect right. Short of making major mods to the camcorder, you cannot combine external and the internal mic.

Cary Lee · July 14th, 2007, 04:12 AM

You can always get another mike into a dat machine and run it simultaneously..but you might just consider recording room tone for about a minute and run it continously in you NLE.

Allan Black · July 14th, 2007, 07:08 PM

Sony HI-MD minidisc recorders are great for location audio, they run PCM uncompressed CD quality and the discs hold an hour each. They are so cheap we've stopped transferring the material, archiving all the audio on the original discs.

Don Palomaki · July 16th, 2007, 07:21 AM

The M-audio MicroTrack and similar recorders offer good options for sound capture as well.

July 12th, 2007, 08:11 AM	#1
Roy Feldman Regular Crew Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Grosse pointe, michigan Posts: 189	Built in Mic question. I suspect the answer to this is no...but. Is there anyway to use the built in mic for ambient and an external mic for voice?

July 12th, 2007, 10:53 AM	#4
Don Palomaki Wrangler Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: Northern VA Posts: 4,488	You suspect right. Short of making major mods to the camcorder, you cannot combine external and the internal mic. __________________ dpalomaki@dspalomaki.com

July 14th, 2007, 04:12 AM	#5
Cary Lee Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Hollywood USA Posts: 128	You can always get another mike into a dat machine and run it simultaneously..but you might just consider recording room tone for about a minute and run it continously in you NLE. __________________ Canon XHA1, SGpro,Flip,FF, RR Mattebox, Nebtek V-R70p-HDA with Canon, Nikkor Primes 24mm f2.8, 28mm f2.8, 35mm f2.0, 50mm f1.4, 85mm f1.4, 105mm f1.8, 135mm f2.0, and 300mm f4.0.

July 16th, 2007, 07:21 AM	#7
Don Palomaki Wrangler Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: Northern VA Posts: 4,488	The M-audio MicroTrack and similar recorders offer good options for sound capture as well. __________________ dpalomaki@dspalomaki.com

July 12th, 2007, 08:51 AM	#2
Henry Cho Major Player Join Date: May 2005 Location: NYC Posts: 516	not that i'm aware of. you could use two separate external mics, if you don't mind your ambient track being mono. for more than two channels of audio, you could connect a 3+ channel mixer to the xha1, but remember that there are only two channels of audio going to tape. barring miracles in post, you'd pretty much have to settle on the mixed channels hitting tape as final. an external recorder, solo or in conjunction with the xha1's inputs, would give you more channels to play with (and superior sound to boot).

July 12th, 2007, 10:30 AM	#3
Bill Pryor Contributor Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Kansas City, MO Posts: 4,449	Can't do it because the built-in mic is stereo and takes up both channels. I just put an old short shotgun mic on the camera into channel 1 and use that for ambient sound, while the good boom mic or wireless lav goes into channel 2. If I want to record one channel normal and one down a few db for protection, I use my usual XLR Y-adapter and unplug the on-camera mic temporarily. So the built-in mic isn't used at all. The camera would have been better off without it in the first place, in my opinion.

July 14th, 2007, 07:08 PM	#6
Allan Black Inner Circle Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Sydney. Posts: 2,930	Sony HI-MD minidisc recorders are great for location audio, they run PCM uncompressed CD quality and the discs hold an hour each. They are so cheap we've stopped transferring the material, archiving all the audio on the original discs.