Canon EOS Rebel T3i External Mic Issues

[KidLitKat]

Hello everyone! I've owned a Canon EOS Rebel  T3i for about a year now and LOVE it. Just recently however I ordered a new lav mic for it and realized it would not use the external settings and only record with the internal mic. At first I blamed the mic, but when I plugged in my other external mic that one too would not work. 

My settings are set to Manual and my camera even says that I am using an external mic, but when I record all I hear is distortion. Is there a solution to this? I am on YouTube and post videos weekly so I need this fixed ASAP. 

Thank you! 

[kvbarkley]

Did you try lowering the gain?

Does your mic need phantom power?

[KidLitKat]

Yes! And no it doesn't. Each mic that I have works perfectly, but then decided to stop working. I realized this issue was occuring a few weeks ago and thought it might just be the mic, but I never had mic issues before. The handheld mic I use always works, and all I had to do was plug it in. But now it stopped working and the internal mic takes over. 

[KidLitKat]

My handheld mic also uses phantom power, but the camera still uses the internal mic.

[kvbarkley]

You can try looking in the socket and see if there is a piece of paper or something blocking it.

Otherwise, try setting the camera to factory defaults and try again. If that does not work it is probably the camera.

[Waddizzle]

"My settings are set to Manual and my camera even says that I am using an external mic, but when I record all I hear is distortion. Is there a solution to this? I am on YouTube and post videos weekly so I need this fixed ASAP. " 

If all that you hear is distortion, then it is possible that you may have the external microphones miswired, especially if they are microphones with balanced outputs.

[KidLitKat]

Thank you for your reply. I have distiortion with and without the microphones. At first when I used the microphones everything was crystal clear, but recently even when I plug in the mics all I hear is sizzle, distortion and the internal mic. It's like it can't recognize the external mic.