Step Up Camera from AVCHD Camcorder

What's the real question/goal here: do you need a better camera, or better audio?

First of all.. get a better camera tech (or if it's you, RTFM). The Vixia HF10 has a single 1/8" input jack, sure, but it's two-channel (aka stereo, for those of you who think recording devices are only 1 or 2 channel). If you're using a mixer in front the camera, it should be a relative no-brainer to route stereo output from that board to your camera. Of course, a stereo mixing board isn't going to have an 1/8" stereo output. But you'll usually get either R/L 1/4" or R/L RCA outputs (the latter usually specifically for a tape deck attachement); it's trivial to find dual mono 1/4" or dual RCA to 1/4" to a 1/8" TRS (stereo) plug cable.. they probably still have them at Radio Shack.

So that's the $3.59 fix. That Canon is probably way overkill in quality for online A/V. It shoots in 24p or 30p, which is what you want for digital media, and you're going to compress so much for online, the audio and video quality are already overkill. The camera's no pro model in the low-light department, but it sounds like you use a studio setting, so even there, no great rush to a better camera.

For the audio, I would never use a mixer in a studio setting.. I want one channel per sound source. You can get much higher quality audio, and more channels, with off-camera audio -- easy to sync with the on-camera audio (if you're doing off-camera audio, you can just use the internal mics to record sound for sync, no need to worry about super high quality). If you don't need portability, there are countless multichannel audio interfaces for PCs.

If you do, there are nearly as many digital field recorders. I have a Zoom H4n, which is kind of the go-to field record in the video industry (I actually chose it because it had a 4-channel "portastudio" mode, and as well, XLR inputs with phantom power, so it works with professional condenser mics).

-Dave

Field recorder and a mixer and someone doing just audio who knows how to get good levels and setup mics. That's key. If you have to do it yourself, try a tutorial such as this one.

Noah

Call Box Training.
Featuring the Panasonic GH2 and Panasonic AC160/130.

No shame in that game- this production was done entirely by me including shooting and hosting at the same time. :) https://vimeo.com/32653630



Noah

Call Box Training.
Featuring the Panasonic GH2 and Panasonic AC160/130.

Pretty simple. :) Couple of Canon DSLRs (7D and T3i) and a Zoom H1 Handy recorder with the almight Sanken COS-11 D lavalier mic.

Noah

Call Box Training.
Featuring the Panasonic GH2 and Panasonic AC160/130.

[Ingo Weigold] "Would be be so kind to tell me how to set up the Xoom H4N for two speakers using XLR mics individually? I read through this manual and as far as I can tell I should be using STEREO mode? But will that allow me to adjust levels in Final Cut X post?"

There are a couple of ways. You can record in normal stereo mode. When you bring the stereo track into any decent NLE (don't know FCP myself, I use Vegas), you can drop the track in twice, set on to Left-only, one to Right only. Of course, you also want to balance levels separately while recording.

If FCP doesn't support a basic function like this... ok, I'll be nice. It's easy to drop the stereo file into your favorite audio editor (Logic if you're all Apple, Audacity's a free download that'll do this for you if you don't yet have a favorite audio editor). Load up up the stereo file, save off separate channels as mono files, and you're done. But I have not used a video editor that didn't have decent audio capabilities in 15+ years, so this is probably not a problem.

You can record separate channels in MTR mode, but it's more stuff to learn (it's basically a 4-channel portastudio).

-Dave