QU-32 Mixer to XA11 Camcorder Sound Difference

[Deltoran]

First of all, let me preface this post with the ‘I am an amateur’ tag:

Due to COVID, my church is currently recording video/audio segments to edit together and make up our worship services. Our Allen & Heath QU-32 mixer is plugged into a Canon XA11 digital camcorder via XLR cable to one of the camera inputs, allowing us to send the audio received by the board to the camera for the recording.

The problem I’m having is that I’ll set a nice mix up for whatever we’re recording and when I listen through the PAFL on the mixer it sounds lovely, but that sound doesn't translate to the recording on the camera. Certain parts stick out more or less on the recording than when listening from the board.

We're using the same Sennheiser HD 280 Pro headphones to listen to the camera and the sound board. The XA11 inputs are set to line-in and manual mode. I'm currently at a loss as to why there's a variance between the camera sound and the board. Any suggestions on how I might go about making the mixer listen and camera recording sound the same would be helpful. Thanks.

[Mark35mmF2]

Hi there,

I'm not familiar with the mixer you are using but there are a few thigns you may check to help with this on the camera.

First, although the sound on the headphones may be good, what you want to verify are the audio levels in the camcorder's audio monitor, the lines on the screen that move when things get louder or quieter. You will se on these lines there are "dB" levels. You want your loudest sounds to be no higher than -6dB with your average floating around the -12dB level. The reason this may be different form the headphone sound is that you can control the headphone audio independently of the actual audio levels.

The other thing to verify, which it sounds like you already have set but just to be sure, is that the audio setting on your XLR inputs is set to [LINE] rather than [INPUT]. the [LINE] setting allows the camera to take in audio without making any adjustments while the [INPUT] setting applies amplification inside the camera which can result in inaccurate audio.

[Deltoran]

Our mixer and the camera both rarely exceed -6db for audio recording, in fact I had to raise the 'headphone volume' just to match the volume I hear from the board. The problem I'm having isn't so much a volume issue as it is a tone issue. Certain parts in the music stick out more than others on the camera versus the mixer, and the camera's audio when playing back sounds more muted and thinner in quality.

I made sure and verfied that the XLR inputs are set to line.

[jigme]

not sure if you're still struggling with this, but you might try turning off Low Pass Filter, which can reduce bass tones resulting in the "thin" sound you mentioned.  you might also turn off any other automatic audio limitter settings you can find and see if it helps.