Hi all,
Hope I'm posting to the correct forum, new here and need some help.
I have a Canon Vixia HF R600 camcorder.
It has a stereo mic in 1/8" (3.5mm)
I have a recording studio and want to be able to send music in to the camera directly through the mic jack with as much control over the audio as possible before it gets to the camera hopefully without having to buy any more gear.
As a test for the mic jack and seeing if it has any noise or hiss I plugged a cheap mic with a mini plug right into the camera and it's fine, when the mic is turned off there is zero noise.
Mostly I would be taking sound from my computer DAW (recording program) which may just be something pre-recorded or could be a drum machine and live guitar then mixed down to 2 tracks and sent out as I normally monitor the audio.
It comes out of the computer then I have it patched to a patch bay where I can send the audio anywhere, generally it is patched to an amp which goes to monitor speakers.
So I tried using the patch bay to send the audio (stereo, so one cable for Left, one for Right) to patch bay which sends it out to amp and I half normaled at the patch bay (or split) the signal to also send the audio out to a compressor/limiter so as to make sure if audio was sent out from the computer way too loud (or too quiet since the comp/lim has output gain) it could be controlled and not hit the camera's input with too hot a signal. Then the comp/lim L and R outs go to a cable that takes the (2) 1/4" plugs to a stereo mini plug which then goes to the camera mic input.
Audio gets in to the camera ok, it's a good level, not too hot, not too low but there's some hiss and when I mute the output of the DAW so no sound is sent from computer at all there's a fair amount of hiss in the audio of the recorded video, I can see the little audio meter on the camera's screen at about 1/2 of the meter between silent and full and yet no hiss is coming out of my monitor speakers, so none is generated or sent by the computer or the AD/DA converter and I know it's not the comp/limiter that is before the camera as I checked that plus even if I turn that output all the way down and even drop the noise gates on it down to shut out all signal out of it the camera still has that hiss.
I checked the camera and it has both A and M settings for audio, but even when it's A (automatic I am assuming), if the cheap mic is set down in a quiet room so no handling noise, no room noise and virtually silent when turned on or when it's turned off it's not like the camera is cranking up the audio gain internally because in both those scenariuous the meter on the camera is showing nothing and there's no recorded sound.
I also checked the cable and it's not the culprit.
So, after all that said, is this some impedance issue or something along those lines?
Any ideas would be appreciated as I have a project and would really like to be able to hook it up the way I mentioned. There are times it'll be various sources of sound and so having a comp/lim in the chain and being able to tap off of the output to my monitor speakers would really help.
Thanks for anyone making it through the long post! Just trying to have all relevant info, if I missed anything please let me know.
Thanks again!
