Tascam mic for use with Zi8.....

fitness1 · #1 01-09-2011, 02:18 PM

I just ordered one of these......

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...de_Stereo.html

I'm hoping it works well for the Zi8. Price is certainly great!

I've tried several different options to get the audio sounding good with the Zi8 and have been pretty unhappy with the results. The one setup that seemed pretty good (running "record out" from my powered mixer into a Sony receiver, out of the headphone jack so I could limit the output) had lots of noise when I wasn't playing or singing.

I'm going to try this just "live" and also placing it near my PA speakers (actually placing the speakers near the mic, I guess!)

Hopefully I can start posting some clips that I'm happy with. I also want to do some instructional videos for my business website.

dancingdogmuse · #2 01-23-2011, 11:42 AM

Was wondering if you got this Mic and your thoughts on it...thanks

fitness1 · #3 01-23-2011, 12:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dancingdogmuse

Was wondering if you got this Mic and your thoughts on it...thanks

I did get it about two weeks ago, but have had limited time with it. It seems that it's going to be very nice overall. The test run I did with it I had it a touch too close to the guitar and away from my voice, so it's going to take some playing around with from a placement standpoint. I had to turn the gain on the Zi8 up a couple clicks from center to get it to sound the best.
The only complaint so far is that it only had a 6 foot cable with it, so be prepared to get a double female 1/8" stereo adaptor and an extension, otherwise the camera is too close.

I'll try to get busy and get some stuff uploaded.

randysitz · #4 01-24-2011, 10:27 AM

Keep us updated. I too have been unhappy with results so far and have tried a lot of combinations: with board, PA head, Art DPSII, Studio and dynamic, large and small diaphragm. So far nothing natural.

Brent Hutto · #5 01-24-2011, 12:05 PM

I would think it's tough to position a single microphone for a good vocal quality and good acoustic-guitar tone. I'm no recording expert but woudln't that be a pretty tall order? Especially if the microphone has something other than an omni pattern.

How far away does the camera have to be, more than 5-6 feet?

fitness1 · #6 01-24-2011, 03:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brent Hutto

I would think it's tough to position a single microphone for a good vocal quality and good acoustic-guitar tone. I'm no recording expert but woudln't that be a pretty tall order? Especially if the microphone has something other than an omni pattern.

How far away does the camera have to be, more than 5-6 feet?

unless you want to get a fisheye effect and see only part of the guitar and cut your head off, yes, it needs to be probably 10 feet away.

I really think it will be possible to get this to sound pretty good. The video I made sounded good overall, but it was just too guitar heavy. It's certainly several steps up from the onboard mic, sets up simply compared to trying to run 1 or 2 other units to make it sound "right" (which also adds noise) The Tascam has settings for 90 and 120 degrees for the recording field, I think that will help with getting a better sound of both sources.

I spent some time recording audio only today, maybe tomorrow I'll get it back up and see what I can do with it.

ferg · #7 01-24-2011, 09:22 PM

The bottom line is that the Zi8's audio processing is weak, to say the least. I have an iRiver Mp3 recorder that records better audio than the Zi8 even when using my AT822 mic...

Best to look at a separate source for the audio and sync them up after the fact.

ljguitar · #8 01-24-2011, 09:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fitness1

I just ordered one of these......

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...de_Stereo.html

I'm hoping it works well for the Zi8. Price is certainly great!

I've tried several different options to get the audio sounding good with the Zi8 and have been pretty unhappy with the results. The one setup that seemed pretty good (running "record out" from my powered mixer into a Sony receiver, out of the headphone jack so I could limit the output) had lots of noise when I wasn't playing or singing.

I'm going to try this just "live" and also placing it near my PA speakers (actually placing the speakers near the mic, I guess!)

Hopefully I can start posting some clips that I'm happy with. I also want to do some instructional videos for my business website.

Hi fitness…
I have one of these in a box in my back room to give away. It didn't work with my Zi8 (or anything else really).

It's pretty underpowered, and doesn't perform as advertised.

fitness1 · #9 01-25-2011, 05:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ljguitar

Hi fitness…
I have one of these in a box in my back room to give away. It didn't work with my Zi8 (or anything else really).

It's pretty underpowered, and doesn't perform as advertised.

Hmmm......not been my experience so far. Maybe you got a bad one. Did you adjust the gain on the Zi8 accordingly?

fitness1 · #10 01-25-2011, 05:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ferg

Best to look at a separate source for the audio and sync them up after the fact.

That's way more than I want to get into......old school, and this video thing is all new to me.

Brent Hutto · #11 01-25-2011, 06:25 AM

It's a little bit like someone who knows how to strum with 6-string downstrokes while playing 1st-position chords saying that they don't like the sound of their playing and they want to sound like Pierre Bensusan. They can certainly learn the left-hand and right-hand techniques to play fingerstyle but they're certainly not going to get that sound by down-strumming while slamming open-string chords.

It's fine to plug a battery-powered microphone into a video recorder and capture your singing and playing. But it's not going to get a very good vocal sound and it's not going to capture much of your guitar tone and it's going to be difficult to get a realistic balance. So as long as you're cool with those limitations it sounds like you're pretty close to getting what you can out of that setup.

But the next step is definitely to separately record audio and video. It does not take much in the way of hardware and software but it is a learning curve and it is more complicated than plug-and-point. You can get really great sound with that technique though. Although it won't make you sound like Pierre Bensusan.

fitness1 · #12 01-25-2011, 06:34 AM

Yep, were talking about a 30.00 mic and a 99.00 video camera here....

And before you judge too harshly, let me actually post something.....what I did the other day sounded better than 95% of the stuff I see on Youtube...I AM pretty picky about my sound and have to say I was impressed by the sound of the guitar with the mic position where it was, and I'm pretty confident that a slight change in position will yield something nice.

I'll never be Pierre Bensusan, and I doubt I'll ever get huge sums of money invested into video recording. I'd rather keep it simple and get the most out of what I've got.

Brent Hutto · #13 01-25-2011, 07:28 AM

I find virtually everything on YouTube listenable. You can occasionally find a very carefully recorded and compressed gem but it's a needle in a haystack. Slightly more often something on Vimeo sounds decent, if you take the time to make a decent-sounding clip Vimeo at least gives it a fighting chance. Of course Vimeo is pitched more toward independent movie/video/content producers and not "Look what I just captured on my cell phone" stuff.

My own setup is a $100 microphone (SDC), $200 audio interface and $40 DAW software along with a <$100 Logitec HD webcam into a pretty basic Windows laptop. I have a second microphone (LDC) on the way that I bought used pretty cheap. That's substantially more than I had to spend but probably $300-ish is the bottom line unless you're willing to really shop hard in the used market.

fitness1 · #14 01-25-2011, 07:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brent Hutto

My own setup is a $100 microphone (SDC), $200 audio interface and $40 DAW software along with a <$100 Logitec HD webcam into a pretty basic Windows laptop. I have a second microphone (LDC) on the way that I bought used pretty cheap. That's substantially more than I had to spend but probably $300-ish is the bottom line unless you're willing to really shop hard in the used market.

Can you post some of the videos you've done? I looked through the last year or so of your posts and couldn't find any links.

Brent Hutto · #15 01-25-2011, 07:57 AM

Here's one using the webcam microphone. You can hear a nasty, bright echo from the room and the sound is kind of thin (not to mention the playing).

Here's another using the webcam microphone but sitting right up next to the camera. It helps a lot with the echo and fills in the sound nicely.

This one is my first attempt at sync'ing up sound from my audio recorder. Much more of a close-miked sound quality and I'm back at a more comfortable distance from the camera. Unfortunately, it is detailed enough to point out a serious issue with my pick technique!

And finally here's an audio-only clip with the new recording setup but not using the camera. Just one microphone capturing mono and rendered to an MP3 file. Very clean and detailed, now I just need to play as cleanly as I can record...