Recording with 2 mics

[Adam Smith]

Recording with 2 (or any number of mics) does not increase storage consumption – the DVCProHD spec records the audio tracks whether or not you’ve plugged in mics.

I don’t own a HVX-200 so I’m not even sure if you can record to 4 channels, but I would expect each mic to record only to it’s corresponding track – unless you’ve changed settings to do otherwise.

For figuring out which mic is which in post, if you don’t think you’ll be able to tell by sound, then at the beginning of the shoot I’d do audio slates for each mic.

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Video Photographer / Avid & Final Cut Editor

[Dave Neyman]

If I am not mistaken you will have 4 tracks. One from the boom, one from the lav, and two from the L/R of the on-camera mic. These usually show up on tracks 3 & 4. My guess is that they are there as a safety. You should be able to hear the difference in post between the boom and the lav but slating them is a good idea if you are concerned.

[D. scott Dobbie]

[Rick Pearl] “1. How many audio tracks will be in the timeline of Final Cut? Will I have 4 audio tracks (2 from the boom and 2 from the lav)? If so, how can you tell in Final Cut which audio tracks were created from which mics? “

Yes, you will have 4 audio tracks: 2 from your boom and 2 from your lav. The way you can determine which is which, is that Input 1 becomes tracks 1 & 2, and Input 2 becomes tracks 3 & 4.

When you look under the flip-out monitor, be sure you set your Channel 1 selection for Input 1 and Channel 2 selection for Input 2.

“2. Does recording with 2 mics increase the file size on the P2 card?”

No. If you weren’t using the external inputs, all audio would be coming from the on-board mic.

[Noah Kadner]

Are you sure about that? I was under the impression you get the onboard mic as two inputs no matter what.

Noah

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[D. scott Dobbie]

[Noah Kadner] “Are you sure about that? I was under the impression you get the onboard mic as two inputs no matter what.”

Positive. Yes, I too, read comments like those in the beginning. The reality is that I can run two lavs or a lav and boom and get those perfect signals – no onboard anything. I do it all the time. Even when you look at the switches, they indicate what will happen.

Further, and I just now turned on my camera to check this, I can place the Channel Select switches to Input 1 and Input 2, OR to Input 2 and Input 2, with NOTHING connected to either input, and I’ll have ZERO audio from the onboard. Which is really what I would expect. So I don’t know why I never tested it when thinking about those posts ages ago asking how to get rid of the onboard sound. Perhaps those posters never realized they had input control. I dunno.

Or then again, if they were only using one mic, and only set that one switch to Input 1, the other would’ve been left for “Internal,” and the onboard would be live.

[Jack Niedenthal]

So, and this may sound dumb, but if I set the camera to input 2 on both channels, and use an external mic from input 2, what do the 4 tracks of sound in Final Cut represent? all 4 from the external mic and nothing from the internal mic?

Jack Niedenthal
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