Background hiss, canon t6i, lav mic, camera gain

[jpfitness]

TL;DR: i have a canon rebel t6i and a sarmonic uwmic9 lav mic. i have a background hiss in video recording due to camera gain. what can i do to fix this.

Hi, i have an audio problem in regards to background hiss. this has been an ongoing thing for a while now. originally, i had a canon vixia hf r700 camcorder and a movo wmic50 lav mic. The lav mic i bought was used, the camera new. When i would first record videos, i heard a hiss, but with my very limited knowledge about cameras and audio, I didnt know what to do. To *mostly* remedy the problem, I turned the camera mic volume really low, so I wouldnt hear it in playback. After a few months layoff from making videos, I started back again and the hiss was there. I researched this problem and found out it had to do with camera gain (which I thought was mainly with camcorders). So i bought a different camera (canon rebel t6i) and a different lav mic (sarmonic uwmic9) thinking this would fix the problem. it didnt, and now i realize this is just a thing that involves all cameras under $1000. this video talks about my problem perfectly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv_C3mdvB5I . Does anyone have an idea on how to fix this? would recording audio seperately then matching it up with my video be best? PLEASE HELP im going nuts here

[kvbarkley]

Page 251 of the manual explains how to set the audio level. But you must be in P mode to do it.

[jpfitness]

there isnt even a page 251 in my manual, and just in case, I went to p mode and checked every setting, couldnt find anything

[RobertTheFat]

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@jpfitness wrote:

there isnt even a page 251 in my manual, and just in case, I went to p mode and checked every setting, couldnt find anything

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Make sure you have the complete manual. In recent years, the printed manual supplied with the camera is sometimes an abbreviated version. The real one has to be printed from the CD or downloaded from Canon's Web site.

[jpfitness]

okay i looked up page 251 in the online manual, but this is what ive been doing. but 1. the manual says nothing about p mode, i think you are getting this mistaken with m mode. 2. changing the audio here does not effect the background noise i have been having. ive recorded small clips with basically every audio setting changed (high, low, auto, manual,) and the hiss is still their

[kvbarkley]

That is what I get for not being precise. I just meant that you had to be in one of the creative zone modes, PAS or M. I did not know you were using M mode. Most of the time the folks that come here have never ventured off the green square.

As to your question. Do you get the hiss when you use the internal mic? 

[TCampbell]

In the video he explains how to reduce the hiss.

You need a "powered" microphone (I'm gussing your lav mic probably is "powered" but there are non-powered mics).  

Assuming it is powered, this would mean the mic has it's own gain adjustment... and the camera also has it's own gain adjustment.  That means there are two different ways to apply gain.  You want the microphone to apply the gain... not the camera.  The microphone will do a better job of boosting real audio without boosting the noise (hiss).  The camera will amplify everything ... which means as the recorded audio you want gets louder... so does the background noise (hiss).

So...

1)  Turn the gain all the way down on the camera.

2)  Adjust the gain up on the microphone to some reasonable level.

That should solve the problem.

If you do not actually have a "powered" mic, then you have no choice but to use the camera's gain (which means you will get hiss).