Using an audio mixer with a camcorder « Videomaker Community Forums

MachVI
Member

I've been out of video production for 15 years and am getting ready to jump back in with an HD camcorder purchase, but one of my absolute "must haves" is the ability to feed the camcorder with the "line out" of an audio mixing board for some studio work. What is not clear to me is if the microphone input jack (such as on a Canon HF20) is compatible with the normal line levels from an audio device, or will it only work with microphones?

Posted 2 years ago #
EarlC
Moderator

Only microphones.

Posted 2 years ago #
robGRAUERT
Member

If your camera has an audio input, such as an XLR connection, that can be set to Line or Mic, then it should be able to receive a feed from a mixer...

Rob Grauert, Jr
http://www.robgrauert.com
http://command-r.tumblr.com

Posted 2 years ago #
EarlC
Moderator

That would be true, Rob, except I think all the HF20 has is a minijack microphone input. Still, I should not have been so blunt because there are ways to go from line to mic, or mic to line, but not without some degree of jury rigging and that often brings on additional audio problems, or can.

Posted 2 years ago #
BruceMol
Member

If the mic input on the HF20 is like the HV20, you'll have to deliver signal from your soundboard to a 1/8" stereo mini-plug. With the HV20 you can select auto or manual levels. I have to tell you though, if the HF is like the HV, it's really hard to monitor the levels and the indicator levels aren't so accurate. If it's a critical event, you want back up sound from some other device. I've used a ZOOM H2 hooked up to a soundboard for music and vocal and my HV20 recording the ambient hall sound - I sync them up later. I see that BeachTek and others make a box that adds XLR inputs to cameras like ours. I've never tried one because the price was the same for a ZOOM and Earl has written about them before and he is absolutely right, they are worth the money, piece of mind, ease of use, easy to monitor.

So, you probably can fiddle with the HF20 input levels for use with a soundboard, BeachTek boxes will allow you to do that better than the HF20 at the expense of adding some audio complexity but if you used an auxiliary audio device you'd have two copies of your sound - redundancy is good.

Posted 2 years ago #
Don
Member

I shoot weddings.

I considered the beachtek adaptors.

I went instead with a peavy pv6 usb mixing board.

My reasoning was simply this.... some of the venues and churches I've been to have archaic soundboards and rather than risk plugging into phantom powered, plugs by accident or trying to figure out how to use/troubleshoot someone else's board it is easier to plug into thier board (even if the fastest means is to put a splitter on thier headphone jack, into a board that is safe and set up right, into both one or more Â of my camcorders and my laptop.

Â

Posted 2 years ago #
XTR-91
Member

You'll probably be able to feed a line signal into a mic input, whether it's switchable or not. You won't be able to feed a mic signal into a line port, on the other hand, and get any usable signal. Numerous times, I've been able to connect the speaker (line output) of my computer to my PC's audio input being set to Mic mode. The audio levels were fine after a significant amount of adjusting the speaker and microphone levels.

The possible side-effect of feeding a line signal into a mic input is an extra amplifyed and distorted signal. Most camcorders that don't have manual sound level controls will often adjust the levels automatically, so there probably won't be any worry.

Posted 2 years ago #
film814
Member

If you only have a 1.8" input, and want XLR inputs and controls, I would strongly recommend a JuicedLink. You can get them at B&H, and they work just like the Beachtek, but the preamps are much higher quality.

I've used one on a camera while shooting a stage production, and the audio came out gorgeous. (Plus it gives you the flexibility of not only using professional mics, but picking up a feed from a mixer if you want. i.e. if you're doing the video, and there's some other professional doing audio.)

Posted 2 years ago #
EarlC
Moderator

Line to mic WILL distort and overwhelm your mic circuits and could possibly cause serious damage to the audio circuits of your camcorder. DO NOT directly connect a line feed to a microphone input without some kind of converter!

Posted 2 years ago #
MachVI
Member

Wow - it was interesting to do a web search on this topic and find my own question from a year ago. I never saw the replies until now. Thanks for the input, and yes, I still haven't gotten around to setting up my studio, with this issue being one of the gating issues. The problem is that I'm looking for a low-cost solution as I already have a decent little Yamaha mixing board, I was hoping there was some quick and cheap way to connect its line-out to the mic-in of a camcorder. I was hoping someone would say something like "just buy this $15 attenuator cord from XXX and you'll be just fine." No such luck?

Posted 1 year ago #
Harish
Member

This is what I was looking for too as I wanted to record music performances for cheap with good sound quality by providing directly the mixer output to the video recorder, but has been out of luck. I tried using a Cannon HF-R200 camcorder with the audio output from a Behringer 801 mixer and that didn't work, except some kind of humming sound. I could connect the audio output from my macbook and could record music with video. I was searching in google and found this adaptor at Amazon. May be worth a try using with the mixer. Let me know if any of you try this one out.

http://www.amazon.com/Shure-A15LA-Adapter-Attenuate-Impedance/dp/B0006NMSXS

Posted 19 hours ago #
EarlC
Moderator

I thought most audio mixers had a mic output as well, allowing source in to go to the camcorder mic input at the proper levels. Mine does, but it is a Studiomaster, but my cheap RadioShack mixer also has both mic/line.

Posted 18 hours ago #