Mic problems

[Steven Dalton]

hey everyone, this might be a bad question but I have been shooting with a rode Ntg-2 shotgun mic and a RODE NT3 Hyper cardioid microphone. I have been getting really bad echoes coming from my headphones. What am I doning wrong?

Also, I am set to shoot a educational video soon and will mainly just be interviewing people. Of the two mics that I listed above, which one would you recommend. (or both). The interview room will be fairly noise dampening.
thanks so much!
-Steven

[Marco Leavitt]

Hi Steven,
This is probably a better question for the audio forum. Is the echo recording to tape? In other words, do you hear it through the headphones while recording, but not in the footage when you play it back later? If so, it's most likely just a delay on the return feed. You get an echo because your headphones don't isolate enough sound, and you are essentially hearing the live talent and a slightly delayed headphone output. This is a big problem with Panasonic, but I haven't noticed it with the XL2. If it is recording to tape, you aren't getting the mic close enough, or the room you are recording in is just too bright acoustically. Haven't used Rode much, but I'd start with the NT3 for all interiors. Oh, you aren't camera mounting are you? You'll get really bad echo pretty much every time you do that.

[Josh Bass]

I know this response is a few months late, but here's the deal:

Unless you're having a different issue than I think you're having, the audio echo is not a problem. Is has to do with the way the XL2 works. In the menu, there are two different settings for "audio m" (audio monitoring).

per the manual

"you can select to synchronize the audio signal with the video signal by adding an equal amount of delay to the audio. Open the menu and select 'audio setup'; then 'aud. m. set', then set it to 'line out' and close the menu. If you wish to monitor the audio in real time, select 'normal'. Either way audio and video signals will be synchronized to tape."

If I had to guess, I'd assume you were monitoring the audio in "NORMAL" mode, that is, hearing it as it is really happening, with which setting you get that echo. IF you do it the other way, it won't echo, but it'll be slightly out of sync to your ear from its "real life" source. Dig? I've heard this almost every time I've recorded, assured others it's nothing to worry about, and even checked playback a few times to make sure I'm not crazy. So it's a weird XL2 thing.

[Marco Leavitt]

Wow, never noticed that Josh. I'll have to check into that.

[Josh Bass]

It freaked me out the first time too. I used to think it was limited to the 24p modes, but it's not. Don't know why it works that way, but it do.