Hey guys,

I am just getting into filmmaking, I have pretty much 3 or 4 short films planned out, I am ordering the HV20 as my first camera!

Anyway, question for you guys. How would you go about recording audio from a separate source than the camera? As in I'm going to an event that I need record the sounds of, like various people talking, random sounds that I don't need the camera for. I mean, I know there is a voice recorder and stuff, but I don't know if thats going to be a good enough quality that I'm looking for. Thanks

Just use the camera as an audio recorder and use the audio stream without the video; if it doesn't involve visuals, then it just won't matter where you point the camera. Even HDV audio is good enough for sound effects and dialogue. You're operating at 16 bits 48kHz, which is pretty standard. If you feed both L and R signals the same input but add a -20dB pad to one of them, you can fade between the two in post to give you something crazy like 284dBs of dynamic range.

Unless you're really interested in shelling out hundreds of dollars for additional frivolous equipment, I'd recommend you buy a BeachTek audio adapter for the camera and a decent mic, and a -20 or -30 dB pad like I mentioned, and have at it.

"Unless you're really interested in shelling out hundreds of dollars for additional frivolous equipment"

Hmmm, I'm just gonna go ahead and say that's one of the dumbest things I've ever heard someone say about audio equipment. A mic-in is certainly a way to go, however you lose quality in the adapter and the camera recording itself. Also you're tied to the camera at all times. External recorders are usually a better way to go as they'll almost always have higher sound quality than audio run through cameras, but it really depends on what your budget is.

For dialog I'd generally recommend an ME66 or MKH416 (both shotguns) as they both do great jobs (the later being nicer but more expensive).

alright guys thanks alot. I'll look into some cheaper external recorders...I'm on a fairly tight budget after buying the camera itself. xD

quote:

Originally posted by Gohanto:
"Unless you're really interested in shelling out hundreds of dollars for additional frivolous equipment"

Hmmm, I'm just gonna go ahead and say that's one of the dumbest things I've ever heard someone say about audio equipment. A mic-in is certainly a way to go, however you lose quality in the adapter and the camera recording itself. Also you're tied to the camera at all times. External recorders are usually a better way to go as they'll almost always have higher sound quality than audio run through cameras, but it really depends on what your budget is.

For dialog I'd generally recommend an ME66 or MKH416 (both shotguns) as they both do great jobs (the later being nicer but more expensive).

Without being confrontational, I'm going to say that you know nothing about audio equipment. Actually, scratch that, it's fun to be confrontational.

1. The amount of quality lost in the adapter and "the camera recording itself" is an ignorant thing to say, because it's simply not true. Of COURSE you lose quality in ANY device and that includes external recording systems. Any "quality lost" is going to be the same in the external as in the camera. The external may be able to record at a higher bitrate but few people can tell the difference. It's widely agreed upon that both DV and HDV codecs' audio bitrates surpass that needed for dialogue and sound effects of acceptable quality.

quote:

Also you're tied to the camera at all times.

First of all, a $20 XLR cable is cheaper than a $500 external recorder. Buy enough and you'll have whatever length you need. And you can make the line as long as you want, because if you knew anything about audio recording, you'd know that the XLR provides a balanced signal. Second, he said he wanted to record without the visual, so I responded that he could simply carry the camera around with him, so your response is irrelevant to the topic.

The ME66 and MKH416 are only good outdoors. You want a hypercardioid microphone from indoor situations. I know, because I've owned both of them. And since hyper mics also function well outside with a decent windscreen, the cash-strapped filmmaker should opt for one before a shotgun. And by "nicer but more expensive," you know that you're legitimizing the purchase of a $1000 microphone right? My initial statement of how frivolous an external recorder would be was based off of budget concerns for the typical student filmmaker. If he has that kind of money why doesn't he just buy two external recorders, and two cameras, and hire a production crew, and produce a DVD on how to get good sound off a small budget, because that's obviously something you need to see yourself.

"Unless you're really interested in shelling out hundreds of dollars for additional frivolous equipment" is a PERFECTLY good response, because this is a STUDENT FILMS forum, and making films with decent audio quality is completely possible without an external recorder, both technically and in a vast majority of people's personal experience.

This is why I barely ever come to these forums anymore. I try to be helpful and then ill-informed people make up information they think they heard somewhere and send people off on the wrong track.

Don't be ignorant.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: funkbomb,