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  • Tascam 70d

    Posted by Samantha Strong on March 17, 2015 at 5:13 am

    So I bought the 70D a couple months ago. I need a portable recorder that works well with a boom mic and I really liked that I could just mount it on my tripod under my camera. But audio isn’t really my forte. The amount of room noise this sucker records is ridiculous.

    I’ve tried recording with the gain way down but then I just have to boost it up in post anyway, which raises the noise level right with it. And I can’t remove it without altering the voice quality.

    I thought maybe it was my mic, but I plug my mic into my camera and get a better recording. I’m hoping my settings are off. Audio isn’t my specialty. Can someone clue me in on optimal settings? Because if not, I think this baby’s going down the road. I really like the design. Would like to not have wasted my money.

    Richard Crowley replied 11 years, 5 months ago 4 Members · 4 Replies
  • 4 Replies
  • Brian Reynolds

    March 17, 2015 at 7:32 am

    Samantha, I hope you are NOT running your shotgun mic on the top of the camera and expecting to get good sound from that position?
    How far is the microphone away from the person talking?
    What is the make / model of the microphone, the Rode NTG1 & 2 have VERY low level outputs and don’t work well with digital recorders with poor preamps.

    A quote from Richard Crowley.
    “IMHO, most amateurs seem to think that shotgun microphones have magical properties that exempt them from basic laws of physics and what kind of reasonable working distances and signal-to-noise ratios you are shooting/recording in. No shotgun mic is a “zoom lens” for audio.”

  • Samantha Strong

    March 17, 2015 at 12:47 pm

    Well I mounted it on top of the camera, but I stood about a foot in front of it. It was just on there to hold it. I think I probably just have the settings wrong because I could swear it wasn’t like this when I first tried it. My audio experience is in radio, so I’m used to studio mics that were set up ten years ago and just riding levels. I have a Vid-Pro XM 88. Not the best thing ever, but seems decent. I don’t have to use the shotgun until this summer.

  • Al Bergstein

    March 17, 2015 at 2:01 pm

    What Brian said… make sure your mic is as close to the talent as possible. I have used a variety of Tascam’s gear and while it isn’t Sound Devices it has always been very good quality audio, with a pretty low noise floor.

    Al

  • Richard Crowley

    March 18, 2015 at 12:41 am

    If you were THAT close, then your microphone may be broken, or the battery may have reached its end of life. It would be beneficial to know something about “gain staging” even if audio is not your specialty:

    TIPS AND TRICKS – GAIN STAGING 101 https://www.alesis.com/tipsdec08

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