Microphones & Audio: December 2008 Archives

User Question:

I'm using the camcorder suggested by your site.  My tech guy says I need a mixer or splitter that will allow for two clip on mics to go into the camcorder, verses one mic taped to the desk, to improve our audio quality--does this create any problems or additional work to merge the audio? What do you suggest?

-I suggest using a mixer whenever feasible.  This is the only way to control mics individually, and best way to use multiple mics.  We use one and cannot live without, as it adds much greater control of when mics should be live or not.  Remember that with VC, mics are live at ALL times, so this might not be good, especially when newscasters are not seen on camera.  They tend to cough, laugh, sneze, etc when off camera, and a live mic will pick up on this...   

Question from Broomall, PA:

Now that I have installed two firewire cards I have two Panasonic DV cameras that I want to use. I hooked one up and it recognized it but when I just use the camera no sound comes out. So I hooked the mic to the camera in the external mic port and now I have Mickey Mouse voices. Do you have any instruction on how to correctly connect a microphone to Visual Communicator.

-Good job connecting mic to camera, as this is the preferred method (compared to connecting the mic to the PC soundcard).  The mickey mouse or chipmunk voices is an easy fix.  Your camera needs to be set at 16-bit audio, not 12-bit which it probably is right now.  My Training DVD Vol. 1 covers setting up your studio, and I devoted an entire chapter to microphones.

Let me know if that helps by leaving a comment in this blog, Thanks!