- In this video we're gonna show you
three different ways to connect
your Rodecaster Pro audio mixer into your video camera.
All three methods that we're gonna show you today
will work with any DSLR style video camera.
We happen to be using the Sony A series in this video
but it'll also work with any
point and shoot style video camera as well.
Really anything with that eighth inch
microphone level input on the side of the video camera
that's what this video is gonna show you how to do.
Now for the purposes of this video
right now we have the EV-RE20 mounted
on a boom connected to the Rodecaster Pro.
If we look at the audio input here on this,
you can see that as I'm speaking naturally
I'm getting into that green sweet spot there.
The only reason that I mention that
is because obviously if you have your gain
set up properly
that will affect the outputs of the audio mixer as well.
We are recording directly to the SD card
on the Rodecaster Pro right now.
You can see a logo up in the top corner right now
letting you know that you're listening to the audio mixer.
If that logo changes to a logo of a video camera
you know that you'll be listening
to the audio recording from the video camera
for the three methods
that we're gonna show you in this video.
Now, before we get into the actual connection
of the audio mixer to the video camera
we do have three pieces of theory
that we need to cover pretty quickly here.
First of all, on the audio input
of these DSLR and point and shoot style video cameras
it's important to know that the pre amps
or the volume control on these video cameras are horrible.
You want to leave these cameras turned
down as low as possible
and do all the heavy lifting from the Rodecaster Pro.
You'll get less noise, less hiss, less static
all that stuff.
When you turn these inputs up,
you'll introduce that.
You would never wanna leave this up at 15 or 20,
for example.
I leave it at the minimum amount.
On this camera I can't leave it at zero
because that turns the input off,
but I'll leave it at one.
I know different brands like Canon and Nikon
they have different versions of the same thing
but the premise is the same.
You wanna leave this level as low
as possible to leave the microphone on
but you wanna do the heavy lifting
from the audio mixer itself
for the cleanest possible recording.
Now, the second thing that we need to cover
is the difference between a line level output
of an audio mixer
and the microphone level input of a video camera.
This is kind of mitigated with our setup
of having the audio record level
on the video camera turn down all the way
to the like one outta 30 in this video right now.
But it is important for you to know
that generally speaking line level outputs
are quite a bit more powerful
than what these mic level inputs are expecting.
If you notice that you're getting clipping
or distorting or anything like that,
that's a red flag that you're sending too much audio
from your audio mixer into your video camera.
The first two methods that we're gonna show you
in this video don't really deal with this.
The third method that we're gonna show you
in this video will have a solution
for really bringing that level down.
So if you're struggling
with peeking and clipping and distortion
you're gonna want to go with level three
out of all the options that we're showing you in this video.
Now, the last thing that we need to cover
really quickly is the difference
between a balanced signal and an unbalanced signal.
I have a couple quarter inch jacks here
in the palm of my hand.
The first one here has two sections.
It has a tip and a sleeve.
This is known as a TS quarter inch jack.
This is unbalanced.
With a jack like this
you would not want to run longer than 15 feet.
If you do, you'll get static, hissing,
kind of intermittent fuzz in your signal.
It will degrade the quality of your signal
if you run these for a long distance.
You would never want a 25 or a 50 foot
version of a cable with a jack like this.
Lots of people sell them.
They will not give you the best quality possible.
The second type of cable that you can have
is a balanced quarter inch cable.
This cable here has three sections.
It has the tip, the ring, and the sleeve.
You can see that it has two black lines.
Now this will get a little bit confusing here
but this jack can actually be used two ways.
If you're using a stereo signal
like the headphone output of the Rodecaster Pro,
it would be unbalanced
because you're sending a left, a right, and a ground.
But the other way that you can use this jack,
is in a balanced way where it sends a copy
of the audio signal
and a second copy of the same mono signal,
just phase inverted, and a ground,
and you can run this up to almost
1,000 feet to your destination.
And when you connect it into a balanced input,
that second copy of your mono signal
will get re phase aligned in that process.
It's actually super cool,
will cancel out a lot of the noise
on a long cable like that
and you can make really, really long runs.
Commonly, I would always run up to 100
or 200 feet with XLR cable in the event industry
but the theoretical limit is up to about 1,000 feet
with very minimal noise in your cable.
So it is important to know the difference
between balanced and unbalanced connection.
With everything that we show you today
we're going to let you know
whether it's balanced or unbalanced.
So you know if you should be limiting the run
to less than 15 feet,
or if the solution is viable for a camera
that's 25, 50, or 100 feet away from the Rodecaster Pro.
Now, the first option that we're gonna show you here
is pretty straightforward.
We're gonna connect the headphone output
of the Rodecaster Pro.
There's four on the back, one on the front.
We're gonna use one of the four on the back
into the microphone input on your video camera.
In order to do that,
we're gonna use a cable like this.
So this is a TRS cable.
It has balanced quarter inch jacks
and a balanced eight inch jack.
But since we're running a stereo signal
'cause the headphone output of an audio mixer like this
has left and right,
this is still unbalanced
so you don't want to buy a 25 foot version of this cable.
It will introduce more noise into your recording
but this will take the left, the right, and the ground
from your headphone output
and put it into channel one and two
on the microphone input on your video camera.
So let's make that connection now.
On the back of the Rodecaster Pro
I'm gonna plug this into headphone jack number four
and then I'm gonna take the other end of this cable,
the eight inch side of this cable and connect it
to the microphone level input on the video camera.
Now I'm gonna have,
I had my headphone output turned up,
so all my headphones outputs are turned down right now.
You can see that I'm getting a little bit
of level in the video camera microphone input.
That's not uncommon,
but you really do want to turn it up a little bit more.
So I'm gonna turn this up.
Now you can see on these Sony cameras here
that I have a scale
somewhere between minus 20 and minus three.
You wanna target somewhere in the middle there.
For my personal preference,
I target for my loudest moment of my recording
to be somewhere around minus six.
So right where it's set right now
I would say I'm peaking around minus six.
This is absolutely perfect in my mind.
You wanna leave yourself head room,
especially for podcasts that are dynamic
and you're telling jokes and you're laughing
and all that type of thing
which is common with the Rodecaster Pro.
I would really encourage a setting like this.
Now, what happens if you really need more volume
and you turn it up too much?
I'm gonna show you now.
Once you push it past that minus three mark,
you're gonna get clipping, distortion,
the camera's going to try to do all kinds
of work to try save your audio for you.
But if you record like this,
I'm gonna turn it down now
'cause that's probably super obnoxious to listen to.
If you record like this,
you can't recover your audio.
There's nothing that you can do to fix
that audio that I just recorded
because it is peaked and clipped.
You've lost information.
So you don't want to do that.
I really encourage you to stay somewhere down here
in that minus six to minus 10 mark.
I think you'll be much, much happier.
It's a way safer choice.
And you can always turn it up
after when you're doing your video editing
for your podcast or recording with the Rodecaster Pro.
So this is option number one.
All right, so on the back of the Rodecaster Pro
you have the left and right stereo output.
Option number two,
we're gonna show you how to connect
that left and right output
on the back of the Roadcaster Pro
and connect it to the microphone input on your video camera.
In order to do that,
you're gonna need a cable like this.
Again, we do have links down in the description below.
This will take a quarter inch TS jack
from the left plug and the left output of your audio mixer
and another quarter inch TS jack
that we can plug into the right output
and it'll merge that into the left and right input
for your video camera.
Let's connect this now.
This is another unbalanced solution.
Black goes in the left.
Red always goes to the right.
So you would not wanna run a cable like this
longer than 25 feet or longer than 15 feet.
You certainly wouldn't wanna make a run 25 feet
with a cable like this.
It would be pretty low quality.
We're gonna connect this
to the microphone input on the video camera.
Now, just like previously,
we have a very very small signal
coming into the camera right now.
So we're gonna turn up the stereo output
on the Rodecaster Pro,
and we're targeting that minus six
to minus eight or minus 10 mark.
This is absolutely perfect.
You can hear it right now.
You should be hearing a nice high quality version
of the recording from the video camera.
Again, just to show you for being complete
if we turn this up too much,
you will get peaking and clipping
and you cannot fix that audio.
So I really encourage you to stay kind of halfway
between that minus three and minus 20.
I prefer to stay as close as I estimate
to be at minus 10 or minus six.
Somewhere in there is my preference.
This is option number two.
It's unbalanced.
You wouldn't wanna run this longer than 15 feet.
All right, so option number three
is a bit more of a pro solution
and it does come at a little bit more of a pro price.
You're gonna need a audio interface for your video camera.
That might sound a little bit funny
because you have an audio mixer.
Why do I need more equipment?
But this is the best way to get balanced audio inputs
into your video camera.
These things vary between $50 and $1,000.
This one was about $50 bucks.
It's lasted me 10 years.
I still use it all the time.
It works really well.
I'm gonna show you some features that you wanna look for.
So on the top, there's a mounting screw
so you can mount it to your video camera.
On the bottom there's another mounting screw
so you can mount the tripod to this as well.
It can sandwich between the tripod
and the video camera.
On the side it has XLR balanced inputs.
This means that you can run
from your Rodecaster Pro
theoretically up to 1,000 feet
with very little quality issues
or static or anything like that in your recording.
So this is more appropriate
for making those 25, 50 or 100 foot runs.
And on the other side of this audio interface
these do vary,
but you have the ability to turn up and down the signal
so your camera operator gets more control
over the audio as well.
And you can select whether or not
you're giving it a microphone or a line level input.
We spoke at the beginning of this video
the difference between the line level outputs
of this audio mixer.
If you're getting a recording
or an audio feed that is just clipping
and is going crazy on your video camera
you can let it know that you're sending a line level signal
and it will bring that down
in a healthy way for you so you have more control
over the audio on your camera.
Practically for me, I think it's fine
on mic level with the outputs of the Rodecaster Pro
because I prefer to keep this output knob
on the Rodecaster Pro turned down
as much as possible
because it can get a little bit noisy and hissy
if you turn it up too much.
So for that reason,
I'll leave the inputs on a device like this
set to mic level
and send the smallest signal possible
from the Rodecaster Pro.
I hope that makes sense.
So I'm gonna connect this device to our video camera
as the eight inch cable that comes
out of the back of it is designed for this.
Again, we do have links down in the description below.
Now to connect the Rodecaster Pro to that
we're gonna need cables like this.
This will take a balanced TRS quarter inch output
of the back of the stereo output
of the Rodecaster Pro and convert it to XLR.
I recommend getting short versions of these cables
and if you have a long run,
then get a 25 or 50 foot or 100 foot XLR cable
and connect that to here.
I never get specialized cables like this that are long
especially when you're connecting
to something generic like XLR.
It just doesn't make sense to have a 100 foot version
of this cable in your inventory.
You're better off with a small converter cable
is what I'm trying to say.
But for the purpose of this video
our run happens to be about a foot long.
So we're gonna use these
and we're not gonna introduce more cable.
So I'm gonna flip up the Rodecaster Pro here
and you can see that we're connecting
to the left and right outputs.
That down.
Then we're gonna make the corresponding connection
to our camera interface here
into the left and right inputs.
Now, just because I've done this before,
I'm gonna turn the main output
of our Rodecaster Pro up to about 70%,
something like that I found was a good level
when I was testing this.
And then we'll take our inputs of this camera interface
and turn them up to about 60% as well.
You will need to experiment.
Sometimes, like I said before,
the outputs of the Rodecaster Pro
can get a little bit hissy.
So maybe you wanna turn that down a little bit
and turn these up more.
Really depends where the noise is coming from.
But yeah, we do have some links
with the options for you down in the description as well.
But you can see right now
I'm in that minus six to minus eight mark
and I'm really happy you can hear how this sounds.
This is the only solution.
This third option is the only one that I'd recommend
for those 50, 100 foot, 25 foot runs,
anything like that,
anything that's a little bit farther away.
If you're in a small podcast studio
just sharing a table with a couple cameras,
options one and two will work for you.
So just to recap, option one,
you can connect your headphone output
to a video camera for any cable up to about 15 feet.
Option two, you can connect the stereo
left and right outputs with a special cable
to the input of your video camera up to about 15 feet.
And option three, you can basically run
indefinitely up to 1,000 feet
and you get a lot more control
a lot more pro-grade solutions.
So it really depends what you want.
Again, we do have links down in the description below.
If you have any questions
about anything that we've showed you in this video
please leave a comment down in the comment section below.
And if you wanna see more videos
like this in the future,
please like and subscribe.
Thank you for watching.
(upbeat music)