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Lavalier Microphone, Canon60D and FCPX
Hi,
I have a Canon60D and have been working with this cam a lot, specially making videos (interviews and stuff). For audio I bought a chip microphone (an audiotechnica) and it works -if not perfectly- it works fine.
So a few days ago, my brother in law borrowed us this lavalier, it’s old but apparently worked “fine” with the first test. The thing is that as you can see, it’s a cannon adapter and we have to do the conversion in order to use it in my Canon60D. My brother in law told us that the micro is mono, but we asked the guy who made us the new cable to make it stereo (as you can see in the photo).
We tested it at the store where the guy make us the new cable, put the file (the .mov) to our macbook pro and the sound was pretty cool. We made a few tests again (before the interview), and it worked -again-, really really cool, in this same macbook pro. So we did the interview with the lavalier -in fact we did two-.
Yesterday I started editing the first one in FCPX (in my imac) and everything was fine, sound etc., everything. So I just exported the final file with the YouTube settings (the same way I do all the time), check the final file in my iMac (before uploading to YouTube) and it was cool.
I uploaded it to YT and what a big suprise: the voice was low, like what??? Checked it in my iMac and it sounds perfectly. Checked it in my other macbook and no, the voice was really low, checked it on my other macbook pro, and it was low too. Checked it online (in YT) with the three macs and it only sounds perfect in my iMac. Tested with Virtual Server in my macbook in order to run Win7 and no, the sound is crap. Tested it with my iPod Touch 4 and no, the sound is low. My husband checked it in his office with Windows XP and it sounds cool! What???
So I came with the idea to test the .mov (of the first interview) without editing and hear at all my files in my three macs . In my iMac the sound is fine and in the macbook pro and the other macbook, nope, the sound is low. I remember that I have a lot of codecs in my iMac, so maybe this is why the sound is perfect on it. So I tested the .mov of my second interview with the lavalier and in the macbook pro the sound is fine and in my macbook the sound is low. What??
So (today morning) we tested the lavalier with my husband and inmediately tested it on his macbook pro, in my macbook and in my iMac: the sound was fine!
All the settings in my Canon60D are the same from the first day we tested the lavalier. I haven’t move any of them. I dont know if it’s the Lavalier. I don’t know what is happening. With the audiotechnica never experienced a thing like this. It’s only happening with this two interviews that I made with this lavalier.
Hope someone can help me 🙁
Thanks a lot!
-Paty
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17 Replies
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It’s hard to know what the issue is with your description.
One possibility is phase cancelation. Each individual track of the stereo pair may be nice and load but if the two tracks are plaid together and they’re 180° out of phase, the sound can cancel and, depending on the phase, may sound low or nonexistent.
It’s possible that in the various situations some are playing back a single channel which would sound loud or an out of phase pair which would sound low.There’s no way to tell by the photo, whether the wiring was done correctly. Basically I think you’re trying to send the mono lav to dual mono in the 60D and if one of those channels is out of phase with the other, that might be the problem.
Ideally you’d want to look at the source audio files in an audio program that can show you the mono waveform in each of the two channels so you can see the phase relationship. You should also be able to see/listen to a summed output to see if it gets louder or quieter when summed. Also some programs have phase meters built in.
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Can you post a link to the YouTube file?
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T. Payton
OneCreative, Albuquerque -
Sure, here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKIMTBj5WcI
The music as you can hear I have no problem with it.. but then when the guy started talking.. that when the problem begins. Here in my iMac is cool the voice of the guy.
Thanks guys!
-Paty
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Did you look at your audio levels in FCP X before you exported? You can’t really base the audio on how loud it sounds out of the speaker. You want to adjust the audio levels in the timeline so that the levels on the audio meter reach the mid-top portion of the meter without going all the way to the top.
There is also an automatic loudness function in the Audio Enhancements section. That might magically fix this problem for you.
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Yes 🙁
I checked them and the levels where fine 🙁
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Ahh, it is indeed phase cancelation. It plays fine in Stereo, but playing summed Mono, the audio waveform cancels itself out hence you can’t hear him.
Actually a pretty cool feature. You could have “secret audio” for those with stereo speakers. 😉
Easy to fix. Just change the audio on the clip from “stereo” to “dual mono” then deselect one of the channels.
BTW. You might want to use some de noising on that interview. Sometimes the Logic denoising effect will help to. But not too much or he will sound like a robot. Also you could notch the music in the midrange and bring up the highs and lows to make the noise less distracting.
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T. Payton
OneCreative, Albuquerque -
Timothy, thanks a lot 🙂
I have a doubt. I’m editing in FCPX and when I changed it to Dual Mono, the sound dissapears and I can’t hear anything 🙁
How can I select the channel in FCPX and fix this? I’m kind of new with FCPX :S
Thanks again! 🙂
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Paty, see Timothy’s analysis.
Saying that you checked levels and that they are fine doesn’t tell us anything. Apparently you did not check them the way Timothy did.
You must describe how you checked them. I noted in my post what to look for. Sorry but this is a peeve of mind. If a doctor asked what you ate and you responded “a healthy diet” that really doesn’t answer the question.
That Timothy found the problem means you must learn how to check your files and unfortunately we can’d confirm what you’ve done or how to improve it since you haven’t provided the information.
It’s possible the wiring is flawed and you really must check the source files, otherwise there’s an issue with the workflow.
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Yep, in fact I worked the way I always do with my other microphone, the artechnica, which is a stereo mic. That’s why I didn’t knew how to work with this new files with this lavalier :S
In fact thats why I checked my source files in different macs, because I wanted to know where the problem was..
Thanks! 🙂
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Here is what you do in the inspector. Deselect one of the audio channels, that is what is causing the canceling.
Also here is an example is what I would do with the EQ on the music. I personally prefer the Channel EQ filter:
The guys voice is concentrated in the Mids, so therefore instead of lowering all the music so you can barely hear it, you lower the music in the mids, raise it in the highs and then raise the overall level of the music a bit. It should help with your noise problem and yet the fellow will be completely understandable.
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T. Payton
OneCreative, Albuquerque
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