Microphones & Audio: February 2009 Archives

Submitted Question:

When I drop video into the show and record, the segment I dropped in echos-- I thought it might be because the mics were picking up the audio, so I turned off speakers and even tried muting mics, but I am still getting echo in the clip. When and how do you drop external video into your show?

I've experienced this echo issue before, it was my soundcard settings of the Soundblaster Audigy card.  Within VC you can hit the F9 button and it should open the dialog box for your soundcard settings.  Look for a checkbox that says "mute while recording" under the playback or recording settings (I cannot recall which).  Check around there and see if you can find that checkbox.  It may be under the advanced settings.

Let us know if that helps by leaving comments or questions below. 

Submitted Question:

"We have attempted to use Adobe Visual Communicator but
are having audio problems.  We have tried two different camcorders (Canon GL2
and Canon ZR40).  We have tried a couple of different microphones including a
wireless condensor mic with an internal battery."

Have you connected the microphone directly to the camera (not the soundcard or mic jack on the PC)?  The preferred method of connecting microphones (or mic mixers if using multiple mics) is to feed them into your camera's mic input jack.  Then within Visual Communicator, you need to choose the camera as the mic input device.  Go to the setup tab, choose audio, and dropdown the listing and choose the camera. 

Also make sure your camera is set to 16-bit audio, as 12-bit makes you sound like chipmunks high pitched (see episode 9 for more on this).

Make sure that battery is still good on the mic you mentioned too...

Hope that helps, let me know below with comments or additional questions.

See what happens when your camera's audio setting is not set at 16-bit audio, required for VC3:

View all past episodes at AskMrZshow.com